Boron carbide (B4C) is a hard material whose value for extended engineering applications such as body armor; is limited by its brittleness under impact. To improve the ductility while retaining hardness, we used density functional theory to examine modifying B4C ductility through microalloying. We found that replacing the CBC chain in B4C with Si-Si, denoted as (B11Cp)-Si2, dramatically improve...

The field of high entropy materials provides a vast, multicomponent compositional space, where scientifically interesting and technologically important with novel properties can be identified. Recently, the design methodologies that are traditionally used for alloys have been extended to silicide materials, which particularly promising due their potential applications in microelectronics. In th...

We observe that for any logarithmically concave nite sequence a 0 , a 1 , : : : , a n of positive integers there is a representation of the Lie algebra sl 2 (C) from which this logarithmic concav-ity follows. Thus, in applying this strategy to prove logarithmic concavity, the only issue is to construct such a representation naturally from given combinatorial data. As an example, we do this when...

Epitaxial Ni(Pt)Si2-y (y<1) films readily grow upon thermal treatment of 2-nm thick Ni and Ni0.96Pt0.04 films deposited on Si(001). For annealing at 500 o C, the films are 5.4-5.6 nm thick with 61-70 μΩcm in resistivity. At 750 o C, the epitaxial Ni(Pt)Si2-y films become 6.1-6.2 nm thick with a resistivity of 42-44 μΩcm. Structural analysis reveals twins, facet wedges, and thickness inhomogeiti...

A double Sagnac interferometer (DSI) and vernier effect sensor for relative humidity (RH) is proposed experimentally implemented, in which two single interferometers (SI1 SI2) cascaded parallel to construct the structure of sensor. Owing approximate free spectral range (FSR) SI1 SI2, can produce fundamental harmonic effect. Theoretical analysis shows that RH sensitivity only related lengths pol...

Although silicon oxynitrides are important semiconductors for many practical applications, their potential second-order nonlinear optical (NLO) regardless of balanced or controllable performance, have never been systemically explored. Using the first-principles calculations, in this article, we discover that sinoite (i.e., typical oxynitride Si2N2O) can simultaneously exhibit wide bandgap, stro...

J. H. Pixley,1,2 Lili Deng,3 Kevin Ingersent,3 and Qimiao Si2 1Condensed Matter Theory Center and Joint Quantum Institute, Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742-4111, USA 2Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005-1827, USA 3Department of Physics, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611-8440, USA (Received 17 Augus...