Bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3 or BFO) has recently been intensively investigated due to its ability to exhibit a rare combination of both ferroelectric and antiferromagnetic ordering at room temperature [1]. Current literature shows that several solid solutions between BFO and rare-earth (La, Nd, Sm, Gd) ferrites, exhibit morphotropic phase boundary (MPB) between a polar (rhombohedral) and non-polar ...

BACKGROUND Crescentin, the recently discovered bacterial intermediate filament protein, organizes into an extended filamentous structure that spans the length of the bacterium Caulobacter crescentus and plays a critical role in defining its curvature. The mechanism by which crescentin mediates cell curvature and whether crescentin filamentous structures are dynamic and/or polar are not fully un...

All over the world it can be noticed that the product miniaturisation is a central theme in product development for different application areas. In robotics scientific research one of the most important approaches is concerning the raise of the positioning accuracy by the use of parallel structures. The progress of the industrial production, especially the development of the industrial robotics...

We study squalane and heptamethylnonane (HMN) confined between a conducting atomic force microscope tip and a graphite surface. Solvation layering occurs for both liquids but marked differences in the squeeze out mechanics are observed for ordered or disordered monolayers. The squalane monolayer at 25 degrees C is an ordered solid, as verified by direct imaging, and the squeeze out can be model...

Thermodynamic analysis and molecular dynamics simulations were conducted to systematically study the size-dependent electrochemical response of solids. By combining the generalized Young-Laplace equation with the popular Butler-Volmer formulation, the direct influence of surface stress on solid film electrochemical reactions was isolated. A series of thermodynamic formulas were developed to des...

The elastic theory of a uniaxial membrane in an asymmetric environment predicts a spontaneous splay deformation. This spontaneous curvature of the membrane is discussed by the intrinsic splay of the membrane molecules (e.g. wedge shaped molecules) and their polar orientation. The chemoelastic effect if the polar orientation induced by the asymmetric environment in connection with the intrinsic ...

We analyze electrostatic deformations of rectangular, annular circular, solid circular, and elliptic micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) by modeling them as elastic membranes. The nonlinear Poisson equation governing their deformations is solved numerically by the meshless local Petrov–Galerkin (MLPG) method. A local symmetric augmented weak formulation of the problem is introduced, and esse...

Molecules adsorbed in pores cause elastic deformations of the solid matrix leading to either contraction or swelling of the material. Although experimental manifestation of adsorption-induced deformation in clays, coals, carbons, silicas, and other materials has been known for a long time, a rigorous theoretical description of this phenomenon is lacking. We report the nonlocal density functiona...

Ferromagnetic order in superconductors can induce a spontaneous vortex (SV) state. For external field H � 0, rotational symmetry guarantees a vanishing tilt modulus of the SV solid, leading to drastically different behavior than that of a conventional, external-field-induced vortex solid. We show that quenched disorder and anharmoinc effects lead to elastic moduli that are wave-vector dependent...

Navier’s equations modeling linear elastic solid deformations are embedded within an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) to compute a sequential Bayesian estimate for non-rigid monocular Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM). The scene is represented as a Finite Element Method elastic thin-plate solid, where the discretization nodes are the sparse set of scene points salient in the image. It is...