Abstract Niobium’s superconducting properties are affected by the presence and precipitation of impurities in near-surface region. A systematic wide-temperature range x-ray diffraction study is presented addressing effect low temperatures (108 K–130 K) annealing treatments (523 K nitrogen atmosphere, 400 UHV) on region a hydrogen-loaded Nb(100) single-crystal. Under these conditions, response n...

We study the segregation of granular mixtures in two-dimensional silos using a recently proposed set of coupled equations for surface flows of grains. We study the thick flow regime, where the grains are segregated in the rolling phase. We incorporate this dynamical segregation process, called kinematic sieving, free-surface segregation or percolation, into the theoretical formalism and calcula...

A study of the morphological and chemical stability of shape-selected octahedral Pt0.5Ni0.5 nanoparticles (NPs) supported on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) is presented. Ex situ atomic force microscopy (AFM) and in situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements were used to monitor the mobility of Pt0.5Ni0.5 NPs and to study long-range atomic segregation and alloy formation...

We report that few-layer hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) nanosheets can be produced by using a surface segregation method. The formation of h-BN sheets is via an intermediate boron-nitrogen buffer layer. Our results suggest that surface segregation of boron and nitrogen from a solid source is an alternative approach to tailoring synthesis of h-BN sheets for potential applications such as in grap...