Transition Threshold Research Articles

Effect of elemental substitution on transition threshold behaviours of Ge-As(Sb)-Se glasses

In this paper, We prepare two groups of glasses: one is Ge<sub><i>x</i></sub>As<sub>20</sub>Se<sub>80–<i>x</i></sub> with x ranging from 5% to 32.5%, the other is Ge<sub><i>x</i></sub>Sb<sub>20</sub>Se<sub>80–<i>x</i></sub> with x spanning from 5% to 25%, by using the conventional melt-quench method, and investigate the effect of the elemental substitution of Sb for As on the threshold behaviors in Ge<sub><i>x</i></sub>As(Sb)<sub>20</sub>Se<sub>80–<i>x</i></sub> glasses. We are to understand to what extent the topological model and chemical order model can explain the correlation between physical properties and glass compositions, and how the chemical composition can affect the glass transition threshold. Glass transition temperature is measured by the differential scanning calorimeter (Mettler-Toledo, DSC1) with different scanning rates ranging from 5 K/min to 30 K/min under a uniform nitrogen gas flow of 50 mL/min, the glass density is measured by a Mettler H20 balance with a MgO crystal used as a reference. Samples of each glass composition are weighed five times and the average density is recorded. The refractive index of the glass at 1.5 um is measured by a Metricon Model 2010 prism coupler. Raman spectra are measured by a T64000 Jobin-Yvon-Horiba micro-Raman spectrometer equipped with a liquid-nitrogen-cooled CCD detector. The 830 nm laser line is used as an excitation source, and the laser power is kept as small as possible to avoid any photo-induced effects. The resolution of the spectrometer is about 0.5 cm<sup>–1</sup>. The systematic measurements of these physical parameters show that while the transition thresholds at MCN = 2.4 and 2.67 are verified in the Ge-As-Se glasses with ideal covalent network, these two transitions represent the covalent network structure inside the glass from an under-constrained “floppy” network to an over-constrained “rigid” phase and from the two-dimensional to the three-dimensional “stressed rigid” phase respectively. However, when As is substituted by Sb, the the resulting Ge<sub><i>x</i></sub>Sb<sub>20</sub>Se<sub>80–<i>x</i></sub> glass with non-ideal covalent network will change its transition threshold, changing into the chemically stoichiometric composition. We further deconvolve Raman scattering spectra into different structural units and the change of their respective intensity shows the same behavior, which is ascribed to the chemical effect induced by a large difference in atomic radius between As and Sb, and a relatively strong ionic feature of element Sb.

Condensed state physics in biology: Liquid crystal - semiconductor system

The possibility of application of condensed state physics methods for the study of biological objects is considered. The object of use is a cell with a liquid crystal as a model of a biological system - a living cell. The system of liquid crystal - semiconductor was experimentally investigated by methods of modulation spectroscopy. By determining the value of electric reflection, it is possible to judge about the state of surface polarization of liquid crystal. Exposure to an electric field changes the energy of the semiconductor’s zone structure, which leads to changes in the optical properties of both crystals. To investigate the optical modulation changes in our case, we used the method with the use of electrolyte KOH, which allowed us to measure the modulation of the spatial charge. The study of thin layers (up to 120 μm) of various nematic liquid crystals has shown that at values of electric fields comparable to the Fredericks transition threshold, the orientation angle of liquid crystal molecules changes due to the interaction of surface polarization with the external field, and an odd electro-optic effect is observed. If the value of the electric field is much larger than the threshold of the Fredericks transition, the electric moment, which depends nonlinearly on the field, predominates and leads to an even electro-optic effect. The results of the study are proposed to be used for the development of new drugs and materials with specified parameters for medicine.

Influence of iron anisotropy on phase transition near grain boundary under shock

As is well known, iron plays an important role in the fields of national defense and industry, so it is of great significance to study its behavior under dynamic high pressure. As one of the most common defects in metals in nature, grain boundaries have an important influence on the mechanical properties and deformation of materials under shock. This work intends to use large-scale non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulation to study the influence of iron anisotropy on the phase transition in bicrystal under shock loading. By tracking the local structure, shear stress distribution and morphology characteristics after shock on both sides of the grain boundaries, the factors affecting the response on both sides of the grain boundary are analyzed. Our research result shows that shocking along the non-centrosymmetric grain direction can cause significant differences in the phase transition threshold, path and mode on both sides of the symmetric grain boundary. Especially, the different phase transition dynamic processes on both sides of the sigma11 grain boundary are discussed in detail in this work, which have been rarely discussed in previous studies. Considering the symmetry of the microstructure on both sides of this type of grain boundary, the result of asymmetric shock response is different from people’s inertial cognition. Finally, it is found that the atoms in both models will shift along the direction perpendicular to the shocked direction under shock, indicating that the shock wave generated by the piston method should no longer be simply regarded as one-dimensional when shocked along the non centrosymmetric crystal direction, and the displacement of atoms along the direction perpendicular to the shocked direction is closely related to the symmetry of the crystal, which causes significant differences in shear stress on both sides of the grain boundary and ultimately affects the shock response. This study reveals that the anisotropy of lattice has an important effect on the phase transition on both sides of grain boundaries under shock loading, which can provide theoretical support for the experimental studies of polycrystalline metals and alloys under shock.

Preparation of Preformed Submicron Crosslinked Polymer Coils for Conformance Control in Low-Permeability Reservoirs.

With the increasing development of low-permeability reservoirs, the significance of conformance control treatment has risen considerably. To address the conflict between injectability and plugging performance, as well as to enhance the deep migration capacity of conformance control agents, preformed submicron crosslinked polymer coils (SCPCs) have been manufactured using aqueous solution dispersion polymerization. Fourier transform infrared and scanning electron microscopy were employed to examine the chemical structure and micromorphology, while particle size distribution, zeta potential, rheological, and filtration properties were analyzed. The effectiveness of conformance control was confirmed through the parallel core displacement. The effective particle size of SCPCs was at a submicron level (500~800 nm). SCPCs exhibit a transitional threshold concentration between gel and sol states (0.25 wt%~0.5 wt%). SCPCs can efficiently block the 1.2 μm microporous filter membrane. The filtration time is up to 67.8 min. SCPCs can improve the water absorption rate of lower permeability cores from 21.21% to 57.89% with a permeability difference of 5. Therefore, SCPCs have good injectability, plugging performance, and deep migration capacity and can be used for conformance control in low-permeability reservoirs.

Enhancement in electrical response of liquid crystals with carbon nanotubes doping

ABSTRACT The Freedericksz transition threshold is investigated in a homogeneously aligned carbon nanotube (CNT) doped liquid crystal (LC) planar cell. By neglecting the aggregate and bundle formation of CNTs in a low concentration of CNT doped LC cell, the reduction in the Freedericksz transition threshold is calculated theoretically. Flexoelectric polarisation tensorial expansion in terms of the order parameter and the generalised Helfrich theory is used to estimate the flexoelectric coefficients in the mixture. Dipolar and quadrupolar polarisations are studied in the flexoelectric coefficients of the mixture. It is shown that doping CNTs changes the flexoelectric coefficients through the order parameter of LCs. According to these calculations, for the LC molecules with a dipole moment parallel to their molecular axis, up to 4-fold increase in flexoelectric coefficient is expected, which is in good accordance with experimental reports. Also, it is shown that in the absence of dipolar flexoelectricity, the quadrupolar polarisation is responsible for the changes of the flexoelectric coefficients.

Educational Paradigms of Communication of the 21st Century: Educational Challenges for the Specialists of the Future

Language has always been the most powerful and versatile means of communication. Then the pictures painted in caves by primitive people gave us much more detail about their lives and their habits. If we move through time the ability to represent and communicate in others' language has been enriched. We have moved to moving images and transmitted images. Since its inception, cinema has become a global entertainment. Unlike television, cinema has always introduced audiences into a virtual space. Cinema creates emotions with an extraordinary power to polarize audiences. Each of us has at least one film to which we owe this involvement, for example, mine was "Blade Runner." Blade Runner is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, Metaverse The metaverse is a new adventure that we have thanks to a huge amount of hardware and software technologies; for example, VR, AI, and AR have generated ever larger and more detailed spaces, think of the movie Matrix. The Metaverse is Ali Baba's new cave: all the riches are there, but you need the magic word. We are now on the threshold of a new transition. The Metaverse is a space populated by many suitors, none of whom have the dowry to claim the princess as their bride. I belong to one group of suitors. Looking back to some visionary writers we have a shining example of the metaverse: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The book was published before the invention of cinema. Alice in Wonderland is a "metaverse" described by Luis Carrol, a famous Oxford scientist. Alice goes in and out of a paradoxical world, a world populated by characters who do not follow the natural rules to which we are accustomed. Language, however, is still the most versatile, and that is where we must start if we are to understand the new paradigms of communication.

Enhanced Nitrate Fraction: Enabling Urban Aerosol Particles to Remain in a Liquid State at Reduced Relative Humidity

AbstractNitrate has become the primary inorganic compound in urban aerosol particles, but its effects on particle phase state, which is crucial in multiphase chemistry, remains largely unknown. Herein, particle rebound measurements were conducted to explore the relationship between the liquid–phase–transition threshold relative humidity (RHthreshold) and the inorganic compounds mass fraction in dry particles (Finorg). Results revealed negative correlations between RHthreshold and Finorg, with more nitrate leading to lower RHthreshold. Even with RH < 20%, particles with ∼50% nitrate mass fraction remained in non‐solid state. Taking Beijing as an example, decreases were observed in RHthreshold from 64% in 2015 to below 53% nowadays during the moderate‐pollution periods (PM2.5 = 35–75 μg/m3) due to an enhanced nitrate fraction. This allowed urban aerosol particles to exist in liquid state at lower RH, and consequently, kinetic limitation by bulk diffusion in nitrate‐dominated particles might be negligible, making them key seeds for secondary aerosol formation through multiphase reactions.

Entanglement-decoherence-Nash equilibria diagrams in quantum games

We present the role of the combined effect of entanglement and decoherence on the dynamics of Nash equilibria in quantum games. We show in this paper that the Nash equilibria in quantum games do significantly depend on the noise parameter p and the entanglement parameter γ. A detailed analysis of the dynamics of the Nash equilibria for amplitude damping, depolarising and phase damping noise channels is reported. We report the idea of noise transition thresholds at which the Nash equilibria of a quantum game abruptly change. This paper introduces a new kind of two parameter Entanglement-Decoherence-Nash Equilibria (EDNE) diagrams in quantum games.

The negative-positive feedback transition thresholds of meteorological drought in response to agricultural drought and their dynamics

There are complex bidirectional feedback relationships among different types of droughts (e.g., meteorological and agricultural droughts). As agricultural drought intensifies, meteorological drought response to agricultural drought may be changed from negative to positive feedback. Nevertheless, the negative-positive feedback transition thresholds of meteorological drought in response to agricultural drought and their dynamics have remained unsolved. Herein, we proposed a new quantitative method to characterize the mutual feedback between meteorological drought and agricultural drought based on the vine copula function for the first time in this study. The negative-positive feedback transition threshold and the sensitivity of the feedback were quantified under certain drought conditions. In order to investigate the feedback relationship dynamics under a changing environment, the total study period was evenly divided into two stages: stage 1 (1982–1999) and stage 2 (2000–2018). Finally, the random forest method was used to explore the dominant factors on the transition threshold. Results indicate that: (1) the negative-positive feedback transition thresholds in August is generally lower than June and July in mainland China, the basin with large threshold is the Southwest River Basin; (2) the sensitivity of meteorological drought in response to agricultural drought was higher in positive feedback than in negative feedback; (3) the transition thresholds of stage 2 was mostly reduced, while the feedback sensitivity of positive feedback was mostly increased; and (4) compared with the single factor, the land-meteorological coupling strength (the correlation between precipitation and soil moisture) dominants the negative-positive feedback transition threshold. This study sheds new insights into droughts feedback.

SGAE: single-cell gene association entropy for revealing critical states of cell transitions during embryonic development.

The critical point or pivotal threshold of cell transition occurs in early embryonic development when cell differentiation culminates in its transition to specific cell fates, at which the cell population undergoes an abrupt and qualitative shift. Revealing such critical points of cell transitions can track cellular heterogeneity and shed light on the molecular mechanisms of cell differentiation. However, precise detection of critical state transitions proves challenging when relying on single-cell RNA sequencing data due to their inherent sparsity, noise, and heterogeneity. In this study, diverging from conventional methods like differential gene analysis or static techniques that emphasize classification of cell types, an innovative computational approach, single-cell gene association entropy (SGAE), is designed for the analysis of single-cell RNA-seq data and utilizes gene association information to reveal critical states of cell transitions. More specifically, through the translation of gene expression data into local SGAE scores, the proposed SGAE can serve as an index to quantitatively assess the resilience and critical properties of genetic regulatory networks, consequently detecting the signal of cell transitions. Analyses of five single-cell datasets for embryonic development demonstrate that the SGAE method achieves better performance in facilitating the characterization of a critical phase transition compared with other existing methods. Moreover, the SGAE value can effectively discriminate cellular heterogeneity over time and performs well in the temporal clustering of cells. Besides, biological functional analysis also indicates the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Oxidation and embrittlement behavior of FeCrAl-ODS cladding tube under loss-of-coolant accident conditions

To evaluate the oxidation and embrittlement behavior of an oxide-dispersion-strengthened FeCrAl (FeCrAl-ODS) cladding tube under loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) conditions, we conducted isothermal oxidation and ring-compression tests on unirradiated, stress-relieved FeCrAl-ODS cladding tube specimens. Further, we discussed the loss of coolable geometry of the reactor core loaded with the FeCrAl-ODS cladding tubes under LOCA conditions, using data from the ring-compression tests in this study and the integral thermal shock tests from our previous study. The results reveal that oxidation kinetics of the FeCrAl-ODS cladding tube at ▪ is four orders of magnitude lower than that of a conventional Zircaloy cladding tube, which highlights the exceptional oxidation resistance of the FeCrAl-ODS cladding tube. The breakaway oxidation of the FeCrAl-ODS cladding tube was observed at ▪ for durations equal to or exceeding ▪, and melting was observed at ▪. The ring-compression and the integral thermal shock tests indicate that, depending on the oxidation time, the ductile to brittle transition threshold — as determined by the ring-compression test — exists between ▪ and ▪. Meanwhile, the fracture threshold — established through the integral thermal shock test — falls between ▪ and ▪. Therefore, taking a conservative approach based on available data, the fracture and non-fracture results from the integral thermal shock tests can define the lower and upper boundaries of the threshold for the loss of coolable geometry of the reactor core during a LOCA.

Enhanced Dissipation and Transition Threshold for the Poiseuille Flow in a Periodic Strip

Enhanced Dissipation and Transition Threshold for the Poiseuille Flow in a Periodic Strip

Effect of normal magnetic field on the exact coherent state of channel flow at large Reynolds number

Laminar-turbulent subcritical transition has been always a hot issue in fluid mechanics. Exact coherent states are important for predicting the path of transition and understanding the cycle of turbulent self-sustaining process. One of the most common methods of investigating subcritical transition is dynamical system method and many different forms of invariant solutions have been obtained in many shear flows. In order to study the effect of magnetic field on the exact coherent state of channel flow at large Reynolds number, the direct numerical simulation combined with bisection method is used to calculate the exact coherent state-periodic orbit solution with different magnetic field strength at Re ⩾ 9000, and the structure and morphology in the flow field are compared. The results show that the magnetic field strength does not change the structure and shape of the solution and the scaling law between the transition threshold and Reynolds number does not change significantly, which shows obviously self-similarity. As the magnetic field strength increases, the period of the exact coherent state decreases and the perturbation energy in each direction exhibits periodical oscillation changes. In addition the shape of the amplitude curve also changes due to the magnetic field effect. The above results show that the magnetic field has a certain inhibition effect on the disturbance at large Reynolds number, and the flow field remains relatively stable.

Effects of digital economy on carbon emission intensity in Chinese cities: A life-cycle theory and the application of non-linear spatial panel smooth transition threshold model

China has become the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide and there is a growing pressure for China to reduce its total carbon emission and intensity. This paper first theorizes the non-linear and spatial effects of digital economy on carbon emission intensity from a technology adoption life-cycle perspective, and then employs a new spatial panel smooth transition threshold model to examine the effects based on a panel data set of 271 prefectural cities in China from 2011 to 2019. The results show that (1) the direct effect of the digital economy on carbon emission intensity follows an inverted “U”-shaped nonlinear relationship, featuring a patten of rising first and then falling after passing the threshold; (2) the spatial spillover effect of the digital economy on carbon emission intensity is nonlinear and exhibits a “U”-shaped pattern; (3) the impact of the digital economy on carbon emission intensity is heterogeneous in different industrial structure types. Although the development of the digital economy can promote carbon emission reduction and efficiency improvement in the old industrial bases, the effect is not evident in the resource-based economic regions. These findings suggest to promote earlier digital technology adoption, regional cooperation and co-governance, and locally adapted policies.

Percolation phase transition in the heterogeneous multi-coupled interdependent network

In previous studies, complex system models have often been set up in an oversimplified manner and the failure mechanism for nodes affected by each other is not correspond to reality. Accordingly, we develop a new model of heterogeneous multi-coupled interdependent networks and analyze the change in the giant component of the network after the attack in conjunction with the load redistribution mechanism. We first analyze the cascading failure process of the network analytically by recursive methods, estimate the critical phase transition threshold and the size of the giant component of the remaining network after network percolation, and find that the threshold of the WS sub-network is positively related to the average degree, and the BA sub-network is related to the power exponent λ of the distribution. When λ is less than or equal to 2, there is always a giant component in the network. After λ is greater than 3.4788⋯, there is no giant component. When λ is between 2 to 3.4788⋯, we found that the threshold of the sub-network is more influenced by the proportion of attacks (p1 and p2), and when p1 is larger, the sub-networks interact with each other, resulting in a smaller threshold for the BA sub-network, while the threshold of the WS sub-network is smaller in other cases. Finally, the cross-sectional comparison illustrates that as λ increases to 3.4788⋯, the robustness of the BA sub-network increases, contrary to the findings for single-layer networks. Overall, the heterogeneous multi-coupled interdependent network is more robust, and the giant component is greatly affected by the low robust sub-network, but its existence is related to the stock of nodes.

Phase Transition Threshold and Stability of Magnetic Skyrmions

Phase Transition Threshold and Stability of Magnetic Skyrmions

Brittle-to-ductile transition in nanoscratching of silicon and gallium arsenide using Berkovich and Conical tips

Determining the brittle-to-ductile transition (BDT) threshold is crucial for developing efficient machining processes for brittle materials. In this study, nanoscratch tests were performed on the (001) face of single-crystal silicon (Si) and gallium arsenide (GaAs) using a sharp Berkovich and a blunt Conical tip. The aim was to understand the effects of tip shape and microstructural variation on their BDT behaviour. The result showed that the critical cutting depth for BDT (dc) was affected by not only material microstructure but also tip shape. The stress distribution within the deformed sublayer varied with tip shape, ultimately impacting the microstructure evolution and thus deformation/removal mechanism. Using the sharp tip, Si had a slightly smaller dc than GaAs due to the ease of cracking along the {111} plane. In contrast, with the blunt tip GaAs had a smaller dc than Si, attributed to its relatively high brittleness index and higher density of crystallite defects. The defects in GaAs caused strain hardening and hence reduced ductility, while the amorphization of Si enhanced its ductility.

The Density Parity Model for the Evolution of the Subhalo Inner Spin Alignments with the Cosmic Web

We develop a new model within which the radius-dependent transition of the subhalo inner spins with respect to the cosmic web and the variation of the transition threshold radius (r th) with subhalo mass (M vir), smoothing scale (r f ), and redshift (z) can be coherently explained. The key tenet of this model is that the competition between the pressure effect of the inner mass and the compression effect of the local tidal field determines which principal direction of the tidal field the inner spins are aligned with. If the former predominates, then only the tidal torques turn on, resulting in the alignments of the inner spins with the intermediate principal axes of the tidal field. Otherwise, the subhalo spins acquire a tendency to be aligned with the shortest axes of the subhalo shapes, which is in the major principal directions of the tidal field. Quantifying the two effects in terms of the densities, we make a purely analytical prediction for r th (M vir, z, r f ). Testing this model against the numerical results from a high-resolution dark-matter-only N-body simulation in the redshift range of 0 ≤ z ≤ 3 on the galactic mass scale of for two different cases of r f /(h -1 Mpc) = 0.5 and 1, we find excellent agreements of the model predictions with the numerical results. It is also shown that this model naturally predicts the alignments between the inner spins of the present subhalos with the principal axes of the high-z tidal field at the progenitors’ locations.

Modeling the "F" in "SAFE": The dynamic game of facial cleanliness in trachoma prevention.

Trachoma, a neglected tropical disease (NTDs) caused by bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis, is a leading cause of infectious blindness. Efforts are underway to eliminate trachoma as a public health problem by using the "SAFE" strategy. While mathematical models are now standard tools used to support elimination efforts and there are a variety of models studying different aspects of trachoma transmission dynamics, the "F" component of the strategy corresponding to facial cleanliness has received very little attention so far. In this paper, we incorporate human behavior into a standard epidemiological model and develop a dynamical game during which individuals practice facial cleanliness based on their epidemiological status and perceived benefits and costs. We found that the number of infectious individuals generally increases with the difficulty to access a water source. However, this increase happens only during three transition periods and the prevalence stays constant otherwise. Consequently, improving access to water can help eliminate trachoma, but the improvement needs to be significant enough to cross at least one of the three transition thresholds; otherwise the improved access will have no noticeable effect.

A chemotactic microrobot with integrated iridescent surface for optical-tracking

Recent advancements in materials, nanofabrication, actuation, and sensing have facilitated the development of untethered microrobots. However, realizing sub-millimeter-integrated microrobots with actuation, perception, and wireless communication capabilities remains elusive. In this study, we present the successful fabrication of chemotactic microrobots at the micron scale, featuring integrated iridescent structural color surfaces that can be utilized for robot motion control through optical tracking. Using a pH-responsive biopolymer as the carrier, we have created microrobots that employ bilayer joints, mimicking the actuation characteristics observed in arthropods. Additionally, biomimetic microstructures with structural color functionality have been incorporated onto the surface of the robots, serving as an optical-communication skin. The robots are actuated through reversible expansion triggered at the phase transition threshold of the biopolymer, while their geometric states and posture information are acquired by converting the volume strain into color variations. This research can potentially establish a critical pathway for developing state-feedback-controlled microrobots for future biomedical applications.