Interstellar dust grains exhibit complex dynamics which is essential for understanding many key interstellar processes that involve dust, including grain alignment, grain growth, grain shattering etc. Grain rotational and translational motions are affected not only by gaseous collisions, but also by interactions with ions, photons, magnetic fields etc. Some of those interactions, e.g. interacti...

Nanocrystallite α-cordierite glass-ceramics are synthesized using a modified Pechini method. The structural and lattice modes of the products are investigated via XRD and Micro Raman back-scattering spectroscopy. The Debye-Scherrer formula is used to confirm the grain sizes estimated by the SEM slides. Dielectric coefficients calculation and DTA analysis are used to study the synthesized nanocr...

When load is applied to fcc nanograins, leading partial dislocations nucleate at grain boundary steps and propagate into the grain, leaving stacking faults behind. The extent to which these faults expand before a trailing partial is emitted generally does not equal the equilibrium separation distance of the corresponding full dislocation. Here we use a density functional theory – phase field di...

Nanostructured (NS) materials may have different irradiation resistance from their coarse-grained (CG) counterparts. In this review, we focus on the effect of grain boundaries (GBs)/interfaces on irradiation induced microstructure evolution and the irradiation tolerance of NS materials under irradiation. The features of void denuded zones (VDZs) and the unusual behavior of void formation near G...

Attenuated total reflectance (ATR) is an infrared spectroscopic method useful for compositional analysis of powdered samples. ATR-IR is frequently used for chemical phase ID, but is seldom used in geological studies. Because it is effective with small grain sizes, ATR-IR could be a powerful tool for in situ mineral identification on future planetary lander missions, especially for the analysis ...

Equilibrium configurations of dusty plasmas with grains of different sizes, which interact through a screened Coulomb force field and confined by a two-dimensional quadratic potential, are studied using molecular dynamics simulation. The system configuration depends on the sizes, masses and charges of the grain species as well as the screening strength of the background plasma. The consideratio...