Sharif Digital Repository

This paper is an extension of an earlier work on electron correlations in semiconducting GaAs-based quasi-one-dimensional quantum wires. The extension was twofold. First, we developed the Singwi, Tosi, Land, and Sölander (STLS) scheme for multisubband structures. Secondly, we developed the multisubband ladder approximation diagrammatic technique. By using the results obtained for the spin symmetric and spin antisymmetric interpolarization and intrapolarization potentials, we calculate the corresponding electron-electron effective potentials. Our results for a two-subband model show that these effective potentials have an attractive part implying the occurrence of s-wave and p-wave pairings,... 

In this paper, the reduced master equation which is a fast simulation method of spin dependent transport in ferromagnetic single electron transistors is presented, for first time. This simulation method follows steady state master equation in which all charge states of the system are considered, whereas charge states are decreased in reduced master equation. This method is based on two degrees of electron freedom which are charge and spin. This is applied in the condition that orthodox tunneling theory is applicable to calculate the tunneling rate of electrons through barriers. The comparison between the I-V characteristics of a ferromagnetic single-electron transistor by following the... 

Different compositions of TiO2–BaTiO3 nanocomposites are synthesized with various weight ratios for dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) applications. TiO2 and BaTiO3 nanoparticles (NPs) are synthesized by sol-gel and solvothermal methods, respectively and are employed as the photoanode electrodes. BaTiO3 NPs have pure cubic perovskite crystal structure with an average size of 20-40 nm, while TiO2 NPs show pure anatase phase with 15-30 nm size. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) enhancement of the cells is first attained by controlling the thickness of the films for light harvesting improvement. The fabricated DSSC composed of pure BaTiO3 NPs with an optimal thickness of 25 μm shows... 

The interactions between four different gas molecules (methanol, o-xylene, p-xylene and m-xylene) and Ni-decorated monolayer MoS2 were investigated by means of density functional computations to exploit its potential application as a gas sensor. The electronic properties of the Ni-decorated monolayer MoS2 and gas molecule (adsorbent–adsorbate properties) strongly depend on the Ni-decorated monolayer MoS2 structure and the molecular configuration of the adsorbate. The adsorption properties of volatile organic compound (VOC) molecules on Ni-decorated MoS2 has been studied taking into account the parameters such as adsorption energy, energy bandgap, density of states, and Mulliken charge... 

Two different approaches of the dynamic optimization for chemical process control engineering applications are presented. The first approach is based on discretizing both the control region and the time interval. This method, known as the Region Reduction Strategy (RRS), employs the previous solution in its next iteration to obtain more accurate results. Moreover, the procedure will continue unless the control region becomes smaller than a prescribed value. The second approach is called Control Vector Parameterization (CVP) and appears to have a large number of advantages. In this approach, control action is generated in feedback form, i.e., a set of trial functions of the state variables... 

In this paper, a new criterion for passivity of haptic devices is obtained. This criterion creates a relationship between Coulomb friction coefficient, viscous friction coefficient, sampling rate, and the maximum simulated stiffness. The process of derivation of the passivity criterion is described in detail. This criterion is improved compared with other existing criteria and predicts passivity in haptic rendering more accurately. In particular, for speeds of less than 5 cm/s, the new passivity criterion should replace the previous criteria to avoid unwanted vibrations of stiff virtual walls. Analytical and numerical investigations are presented to validate the new criterion. A specific... 

The correlations between the hardness, yield stress, and modulus of elasticity of isotactic polypropylene (iPP) were evaluated on the local and global scales. Nanoindentation and traditional macromechanical tests were incorporated for this purpose. Thus, local and global mechanical properties were measured at various temperatures and strain rates. A certain relation was found between the local and global mechanical properties. Moreover, Johnson's model (developed according to the expanding cavity model) was also evaluated at various temperatures and strain rates. The Johnson model was valid only for the yield stresses obtained by nanoindentation and compressive tests and also the elastic... 

This article reports the experimental and theoretical results for a spark ignition engine working with compressed natural gas as a fuel. The theoretical part of this work uses a zero-dimensional, multi-zone combustion model in order to predict nitric oxide (NO) emission in a spark ignition (SI) engine. The basic concept of the model is the division of the burned gas into several distinct zones for taking into account the temperature stratification of the burned mixture during combustion. This is especially important for accurate NO emissions predictions, since NO formation is strongly temperature dependent. During combustion, 12 products are obtained by chemical equilibrium via Gibbs energy... 

The stability of a viscoelastic plate strip, subjected to an axial load with the Kelvin–Voigt fractional order constitutive relationship is studied. Based on the classical plate theory, the structural formulation of the plate is obtained by using the Newton’s second law and the aerodynamic force due to the fluid flow is evaluated by piston theory. The Galerkin method is employed to discretize the equation of motion into a set of ordinary differential equations. To determine the stability margin of plate the obtained set of ordinary differential equations are solved using the Laplace transform method. The effects of variation of the governing parameters such as axial force, retardation time,... 

We study the conductance of disordered graphene superlattices with short-range structural correlations. The system consists of electron- and hole-doped graphenes of various thicknesses, which fluctuate randomly around their mean value. The effect of the randomness on the probability of transmission through the system of various sizes is studied. We show that in a disordered superlattice the quasiparticle that approaches the barrier interface almost perpendicularly transmits through the system. The conductivity of the finite-size system is computed and shown that the conductance vanishes when the sample size becomes very large, whereas for some specific structures the conductance tends to a... 

Herein, we report the impact of single- and co-doping of nanoparticle TiO2 films with carbon and nitrogen on the photovoltaic characteristics of their corresponding dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) devices. Different DSCs with various compositions of the photoanode electrodes are fabricated to study their structural and electronic properties by X-ray diffraction (XRD), diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). We find that the interstitial nitrogen atoms for single N doping have a greater impact on the band gap energy (Eg) than the substitutional (to Ti) carbon... 

The electronic transmission and conductance of a gapped graphene superlattice were calculated by means of the transfer-matrix method. The system that we study consists of a sequence of electron-doped graphene as wells and hole-doped graphene as barriers. We show that the transmission probability approaches unity at some critical value of the gap. We also find that there is a domain around the critical gap value for which the conductance of the system attains its maximum value  

In this study, a particular nickel-based superalloy has been studied by transmission electron microscopy and the results are discussed in terms of phase transformations that may have taken place. The alloy has been found to consist of three major phases; a FCC γ phase containing a random distribution of nearly spherical γ′ - Ni3Al(Ti) - precipitates and elongated thin Ni3Ti(Ta) platelets with a hexagonal structure. The orientation relationships between the different phases have been determined; loss of coherency and possible occurrence of misfit-relieving interfacial dislocations are discussed and compared with experimental observations, and possible mechanisms of phase transformations are... 

We study the effect of boron (B) and phosphorous (P) doping and B/P codoping on electronic and optical properties of graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4 or GCN) monolayers using density functional simulations. The energy band structure indicates that the incorporation of both B and P into a hexagonal lattice of GCN reduces the energy band gap from 3.1 for pristine GCN to 1.9 eV, thus extending light absorption toward the visible region. Moreover, on the basis of calculating absorption spectra and dielectric function, the codoped system exhibits an improved absorption intensity in the visible region and more electronic transitions, which named π∗ electronic transitions that occurred and were... 

Different structures of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) were fabricated with various compositions and arrangement modes of the photoanodes. The solvothermally grown TiO2 nanoparticles and sol-gel derived spherical TiO2 and BaTiO3 particles were employed as the active and scattering layers of DSCs. TiO2 nanoparticles and spherical particles had pure anatase structure with particle size of 15-30 nm and 200-400 nm, respectively, whereas 300-800 nm BaTiO3 particles showed cubic perovskite structure. The efficiency improvement of mono-layer cells made of TiO2 nanoparticles (i.e., 7.22%) was achieved by light harvesting mechanism. Further enhancement of photovoltaic performance was achieved by... 

A series of samples with different compositions and parameters were welded together. The alloys were based on Ni-8Al-8Cr-l.5Mo-0.01B %wt composition with Zr additions of 1 and 3 %wt. Crack-free full-penetration welds of castable nickel aluminide alloy were performed using autogenous GTAW technique. It was found that Ni-Ni5Zr eutectic was associated with solidification cracks. Alloys were fully dendritic and also, weld metal consisted of columnar and axial dendrites beside the fusion line and in the middle, respectively. Optical and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques were employed to characterize the composition as well as the weld structure. X-Ray diffraction was utilized to... 

An imprinted interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) was synthesized and used as a medium for isolation of carbamazepine from urine samples. The polymer network consisted of a homogeneous polystyrene–sol gel hybrid constructed by in–situ radical polymerization method. In this process, within the sol–gel reaction duration, styrene monomer could penetrate into the reaction mixture and after the polymerization initiation, a monolithic IPN structure was prepared. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDX) are indications of the polystyrene dispersion at nano- to micro-meter level in the sol gel matrix. Eventually, the synthesized IPN was used as a... 

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to develop and compare conventional and neural network-based controllers for gas turbines. Design/methodology/approach - Design of two different controllers is considered. These controllers consist of a NARMA-L2 which is an artificial neural network-based nonlinear autoregressive moving average (NARMA) controller with feedback linearization, and a conventional proportional-integrator-derivative (PID) controller for a low-power aero gas turbine. They are briefly described and their parameters are adjusted and tuned in Simulink-MATLAB environment according to the requirement of the gas turbine system and the control objectives. For this purpose, Simulink... 

In the casting process, as a mould is filled with molten metal, air escapes through the vents. Air pressure in the mould cavity has serious effects upon the filling behaviour such as surface profile of the molten metal and filling time. In this project a computational model was developed for calculation of air pressure during the mould filling. A 3D single phase code based on the SOLA-VOF algorithm was used for the prediction of the fluid flow. The ideal gas assumption, conservation of mass equation and Bernoulli law were used for the calculation of air pressure. A new algorithm was developed to interpolate air pressure on the surface cells. The creation of air pressure was correlated with... 

This article presents results of an investigation on age-hardening behavior of superalloy AEREX 350. Microhardness testing was employed to evaluate the age-hardening response of the alloy while optical, scanning, and transmission electron microscopy techniques were used to characterize the major phases formed during the aging process. No significant hardening was found in solution-treated samples aged at temperatures up to about 680 °C. Aging at 700 °C up to 950 °C, however, caused a characteristic hardening response. This hardening was concurrent with the formation of γ', an ordered phase with L12 structure, as fine precipitate distributed throughout the fcc matrix. In the temperature range...