A nitrogen-vacancy (NV(-)) centre in a nanodiamond, levitated in high vacuum, has recently been proposed as a probe for demonstrating mesoscopic centre-of-mass superpositions and for testing quantum gravity. Here, we study the behaviour of optically levitated nanodiamonds containing NV(-) centres at sub-atmospheric pressures and show that while they burn in air, this can be prevented by replaci...

A comprehensive study on the effects of energetic protons on carbon fiber composites and compounds under consideration for use as low-Z pion production targets in future high power accelerators and lowimpedance collimating elements for intercepting TeV-level protons at the Large Hadron Collider has been undertaken addressing two key areas namely thermal shock absorption and resistance to irradi...

Diamond-SiC composites are attractive for improving the catastrophic fracture behaviour of SiC. However, fundamental knowledge is missing about structure this system and mechanism diamond graphitization. We used spark plasma sintering to study diamond-Si-SiC between 1600 2000?C in function nanocrystalline (ND) microcrystalline (MD) addition as well quantity Sibonding phase. Increasing temperatu...

In order to explore the graphitization characteristic differences between vitrinite and inertinite in coal, this study conducted high-temperature thermal simulation experiments (at five temperature points: 1800°C, 2100°C, 2400°C, 2700°C, 3000°C) using inertinite-rich vitrinite-rich samples as precursors. The quantitative comparison for evolution characteristics of their graphite lattice was car...

A transformation of LDPE in highly ordered doped-carbon materials by a simple one-step pyrolysis presence transition metal precursors is proposed. The graphitization, dispersion and CNFs are key factors for the high ORR performance.

We present an overview of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon sample preparation and measurements, describing the technical upgrades that now allow us to routinely obtain 0.2–0.3% precision for 1-mg carbon samples. A precision of ~1% on samples with 100 μg of carbon can also be achieved. We have also developed graphitization techniques and AMS procedures for ultra-small samples (dow...