No Arabic abstract
Polymorphism, which describes the occurrence of different lattice structures in a crystalline material, is a critical phenomenon in material science and condensed matter physics. It has emerged as a major focus for industry and regulatory agencies respectively. Thermomicroscopy, infrared spectroscopy and thermal analysis, especially differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) is used to characterize polymorphism to provide a powerful to isolate and identify of crystalline modification. Enantiotropic and monotropic with reversible endothermic and irreversible exothermic phase transition is representative classifications of polymorphism. Recently, Dirac metamaterial based on pyrene derivatives is attracting great attention. It succeeded in forming a periodic and regular structure using the unique {pi}-{pi} interaction of the pyrene derivative, namely HYLION-12. The phase transition between modifications is not classified into the existing polymorphism system. Here, we propose a new kind of polymorphism by identifying and analyzing thermodynamic functions such as heat capacity, enthalpy, entropy and, Gibbs free energy between modifications from DSC. This not only allows us to better understand the formation of Dirac materials at the molecular level, but also to think about the condition for new types of polymorphism.
Over the past decade, topology has garnered great attention in a wide area of physics. In particular, it has exerted influence on photonics because carefully engineered photonic crystals and metamaterials can help explore the non-trivial state of materials. In this regard, all dielectric metamaterials with large anisotropy, and dipole and multipole Mie resonators have played an increasingly important role in topological photonics. Advantages of Mie resonators make it possible to quest for non-trivial states in three dimensions and theoretical calculation supports its potential. However, it is very difficult to demonstrate this experimentally because it is hard to make the metacrystal by anisotropic meta-atoms despite much effort. Here we report a Dirac metamaterial for 3D topological photonics. It is implemented by a metacrystal self-assembled by a molecule, HYLION-12 which has both anisotropic polarizability and ring current. As its peculiar properties, it has an exotic optical constant that can be used for the electric and magnetic hyperbolic metamaterial, and the double hyperbolic metamaterial in the ultraviolet region. It also showed 142% of reflectance at 242nm as an amplified reflector and asymmetric transmittance up to 30% through the opaque substrate as a Huygens source under 300nm. Furthermore, it demonstrated various phenomena of topological photonics such as Pancharatnam-Berry and waveguide phase merging, wavefront shaping and waveguide on edges as a 3D topological photonic material. The new strategy using polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) is expected to be an effective way to realize 3D topological photonics.
We study theoretically and numerically the bending-driven leveling of thin viscous films within the lubrication approximation. We derive the Greens function of the linearized thin-film equation and further show that it represents a universal self-similar attractor at long times. As such, the rescaled perturbation of the film profile converges in time towards the rescaled Greens function, for any summable initial perturbation profile. In addition, for stepped axisymmetric initial conditions, we demonstrate the existence of another, short-term and one-dimensional-like self-similar regime. Besides, we characterize the convergence time towards the long-term universal attractor in terms of the relevant physical and geometrical parameters, and provide the local hydrodynamic fields and global elastic energy in the universal regime as functions of time. Finally, we extend our analysis to the non-linear thin-film equation through numerical simulations.
The separation of liquid mixture has been studied for a long time. Separation proceeds based on the difference in physical properties including pore size and electrostatic interaction. Therefore, there are many difficulties in separation of materials having similar size or polarities in physical properties such as ethanol-water and 1,4-dioxane-water mixtures. While we still lack a universal generalization of these ideas to the separation, pervaporation based on a difference in transport rates by permeability through a membrane by the permeate was early suggested. Yet there is an existing technical gap to remove trace amounts of organics dissolved in water. Here, we report a novel separation strategy employing a metamaterial, called meta-separation using the exotic structural property of metamateirals rather than electrostatic characteristics. The structural properties of metamaterials provide various functions of super-hydrophobicity based on roughness of surface, the strong capillary effect based on nanopore, and huge void for great absorption of organics. It exhibited a water contact angle of 151.3{deg} and high adhesive property from nanopore. On the other hands, ethanol was immediately absorbed up to 93 wt%. This differences made it possible to quickly and easily eliminate organics dissolved in water. Furthermore, their applications are expected to achieve functions in environmental remediation, biofuel separation process, etc., without large scale facilities.
Anthracene derivative compounds are currently investigated because of their unique physical properties (e.g., bright luminescence and emission tunability), which make them ideal candidates for advanced optoelectronic devices. Intermolecular interactions are the basis of the tunability of the optical and electronic properties of these compounds, whose prediction and exploitation benefit from the knowledge of the crystal structure and the packing architecture. Polymorphism can occur due to the weak intermolecular interactions, asking for detailed structural analysis clarifying the origin of observed material property modifications. Here, two silylethyne-substituted anthracene compounds are characterized by single-crystal synchrotron X-ray diffraction, identifying a new polymorph. Additionally, laser confocal microscopy and fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy confirm the results obtained by the X-ray diffraction characterization, i.e., shifting the substituents towards the external benzene rings of the anthracene unit favours {pi}-{pi} interactions, impacting on both the morphology and the microscopic optical properties of the crystals. The compounds with more isolated anthracene units feature shorter lifetime and emission spectra more similar to those ones of isolated molecules. The crystallographic study, supported by the optical investigation, sheds light on the influence of non-covalent interactions on the crystal packing and luminescence properties of anthracene derivatives, providing a further step towards their efficient use as building blocks in active components of light sources and photonic networks.
Multiferroic materials have driven significant research interest due to their promising technological potential. Developing new room-temperature multiferroics and understanding their fundamental properties are important to reveal unanticipated physical phenomena and potential applications. Here, a new room temperature multiferroic nanocomposite comprised of an ordered ferrimagnetic spinel LiFe5O8 (LFO) and a ferroelectric perovskite BiFeO3 (BFO) is presented. We observed that lithium (Li)-doping in BFO favors the formation of LFO spinel as a secondary phase during the synthesis of LixBi1-xFeO3 nanoceramics. Multimodal functional and chemical imaging methods are used to map the relationship between doping-induced phase separation and local ferroic properties in both the BFO-LFO composite ceramics and self-assembled nanocomposite thin films. The energetics of phase separation in Li doped BFO and the formation of BFO-LFO composites is supported by first principles calculations. These findings shed light on Li-ion role in the formation of a functionally important room temperature multiferroic and open a new approach in the synthesis of light element doped nanocomposites.