Creffield and Sols Reply:

Preparation of Colloidal Sols and Gels Objective

Colloidal suspensions are used to generate polymers or particles from which ceramic materials can be made by the sol-gel process. The precursors for preparation of a colloidal suspension consist of a metal element surrounded by various ligands (attached groups not including another metal). For example, common precursors for sol-gel synthesis of aluminum oxide include inorganic salts such as Al(...

The Authors’ Reply

Quantum transport of cold atoms

Cold atom devices permit the exploration of novel forms of quantum transport that are difficult or impossible to realize in traditional electron transport setups. Under the action of an external driving, long-term coherent atom motion can be quite sensitive to the initial switching conditions even in the presence of interactions [1]. If the driving violates spaceand time-inversion symmetry simu...

Molecular structures in biopolymers sols and gels

The short range molecular structure of ogarose in the sol state and r-carrageenans in the gel state have been investigated by small-angle neutron scattering (0.1< q(nm'l) < 2.5). Agarose in the sol state possesses a rod-like conformation (minimum persistence length of 14 nm) with a mass per unit length consistent with a single helm The existence of a double helix in the gel state is accordingly...

The Authors’ Reply