A new method has been developed to increase the stability of supported liquid membranes. By applying a homogeneous gel network in the pores of the support both the mechanical stability (against liquid displacement) and the long term permeability increase substantially. The flux decreases only slightly because of the open structure of the gel network. A second technique, by which a thin dense ge...

A comprehensive theory of electron spin resonance (ESR) for a Luttinger liquid state of correlated metals is presented. The ESR measurables such as the signal intensity and the linewidth are calculated in the framework of Luttinger liquid theory with broken spin rotational symmetry as a function of magnetic field and temperature. We obtain a significant temperature dependent homogeneous line br...

We present a local order parameter based on the standard Steinhardt-Ten Wolde approach that is capable both of tracking and of driving homogeneous ice nucleation in simulations of all-atom models of water. We demonstrate that it is capable of forcing the growth of ice nuclei in supercooled liquid water simulated using the TIP4P/2005 model using over-biassed umbrella sampling Monte Carlo simulat...

Ice crystallization in supercooled water has been initiated by focused Nd:YAG laser pulses at 1064 nm wavelength. The pulses of 8 ns duration and up to 2 mJ energy produce a bubble in the supercooled liquid after optical breakdown and plasma formation. The subsequent collapse and disintegration of the bubble into fragments was observed to be followed by ice crystal nucleation in many, but not a...

Chiral cylindrical molecular complexes of homo- and hetero-double-helices derived from helicene oligomers self-assemble in solution, providing functional heterogeneous liquid-solid materials. Gels and liotropic liquid crystals are formed by fibril self-assembly in solution; molecular monolayers and fibril films are formed by self-assembly on solid surfaces; gels containing gold nanoparticles em...

Two types of gels using dual-frequency liquid crystal are demonstrated. The one using a homogeneous cell shows anisotropic scattering behavior while the other prepared using a cell without polyimide alignment layers exhibits isotropic scattering properties. Both liquid crystal gels are highly transparent in the voltage-off state. Light scattering occurs when a high frequency voltage is applied....

We have applied a novel 'melt synthesis technique' rather than a conventional solid-state reaction to rapidly synthesize phosphor materials. During a synthesis, the mixture of oxides or their precursors is melted by light pulses (10-60 s) in an arc-imaging furnace on a water-cooled copper hearth to form a globule of 1-5 mm diameter, which is then rapidly cooled by turning off the light. Using t...

A new liquid-crystal device for flexible display applications was developed using twofold polymerization process. The cell was fabricated from a homogeneous mixture of a liquid crystal and a polymerforming material. Caused by the spatially nonuniform rate of polymerization and wetting properties, largescale anisotropic phase separation of the liquid-crystal blend and the polymer precursor leads...

2014 Based on the Oseen and Frank elastic continuum theory of nematic liquid crystals and on a generalized torque balance equation at the liquid crystal-to-substrate interface, static deformations of a semi-infinite liquid crystal (LC) medium, a homogeneous LC cell, and a twisted nematic cell have been investigated using the anisotropic LC-to-substrate anchoring energy C as a parameter. Storage...

Cavitation is the transition from a liquid to a vapour phase, due to a drop in pressure to the level of the vapour tension of the fluid. Two kinds of cavitation have been reviewed here: acoustic cavitation and hydrodynamic cavitation. As acoustic cavitation in engineering systems is related to the propagation of waves through a region subjected to liquid vaporization, the available expressions ...