cometadata/datacite-titles-descriptions-related-identifiers huggingface dataset:
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1610391
title: Investigation of two frustrated quantum magnets with a novel interaction scheme

description: The isostructural compounds ACuTe2O6 (A=Sr, Pb) consist of a 3-dimensional arrangement of spin-1/2 Cu ions. There are 3 potentially strong interactions, the first neighbor interaction couples the magnetic ions into isolated triangles, the second couples them into the highly frustrated hyperkagome lattice consisting of corner sharing triangles and the third neighbor interaction couples them into antiferromagnetic chains. In PbCuTe2O6 the hyperkagome interaction dominates suppressing long-range magnetic order completely, while in SrCuTe2O6 the chain interaction dominates while the other two interactions give rise to frustrated interchain coupling. We wish to explore the magnetic excitations of these two quantum magnets using inelastic neutron scattering on the LET spectrometer.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1620096
title: Ordering in La/W Double Substituted Bismuth Oxide Based Fluorites

description: Materials that show fast oxide ion conduction have potential applications as electrolytes in devices such as solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), gas sensors and gas separation membranes. While bismuth oxide shows the highest oxide ion conductivity of any material it can only be stabilised at lower temperatures through partial substitution of bismuth by other cations.  A total scattering study of W and La substituted bismuth oxide based electrolytes is proposed, with a view to examining details of local coordination and vacancy ordering. Fluorite based phases will be examined in two solid solution systems. Both systems show a highly conducting fully disordered delta-Bi2O3 type phase at elevated temperature, which can be stabilised to room temperature depending on composition. The results from the proposed study will be used to shed light on the conduction mechanisms in these systems.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1620228
title: Study of alcohols by Transmission and Deep Inelastic Neutron Scattering measurements

description: Many of the structural and dynamical properties of alcohols are due to the existence of intermolecular hydrogen bonds. It is of general interest the study of their dynamic and structural properties. Our group follows a research program in the study of the structure of alcohols by means of different neutron techniques, and recently we studied a set of normal and deuterated alcohols with polarized neutrons at spectrometer D3 (ILL, France), to accurately separate the observed coherent and incoherent components of the spectra, to allow the determination of the structures. The process requires a refined data processing procedure that involves the knowledge of the total cross sections and the effective temperatures. The hydrogenated species was recently studied in VESUVIO. This proposal is the continuation of our project, for the deuterated species.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1620237
title: Determination of the total cross sections and the effective temperature of atoms in amorphous pharmaceuticals.

description: Until now, substances of pharmacy have been prepared especially in the crystalline state for obvious reasons of stability. Nevertheless, complex active pharmaceutical ingredients are more and more formulated in the amorphous state, because this state exhibits a larger solubility than the crystalline one. There is several methods of amorphisation, and one of the opened question is to know if there is some structural differences between amorphous obtained by different ways. We thus carried out an experiment on D3,ILL aiming to investigate microstructural signature of amorphous obtained by different techniques. However, a proper treatment of the raw datas requires the knowledge of the total cross sections and the effective temperatures of atoms in the system. VESUVIO is particularly suited for measuring such quantities, and is then the instrument of interest in this proposal.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1620318
title: Micelle structures in mixtures of amino-acid surfactants

description: There has been a recent revival of interest in preparation of surfactants from natural starting materials as they are more biodegradable and thus more environmentally friendly than traditional surfactants. We have begun a research project aimed at using a grain residue from brewing, containing the amino acids glycine, proline and glutamine as a source of polar components for surfactant synthesis. Little has been done to characterise these surfactants so far so we are studying these materials both as pure surfactants and importantly as mixtures, with the goal of avoiding costly separation steps both before synthesis and before use. Here we wish to begin these studies by studying the micelles formed for C12, C14 and C16 chain surfactants with these amino acid headgroups alone and in binary mixtures and the effects of pH and Ca2+ ions to determine micelle shape & structure in these systems.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1669002
title: Static and dynamic structure of oil/water microemulsions to improve enhanced oil recovery

description: After initial and secondary oil recovery up to 50% of the oil can be left behind in the reservoir. Various enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques can be applied to improve the recovery factor. Alkali, surfactant and polymer (ASP) flooding is a promising EOR method that is currently being explored. The main principle is using surfactant to reduce the interfacial tension between the water and oil phase to mobilize the oil which is trapped by capillary forces. The optimum surfactant formulation will generate a third phase microemulsion, which is a thermodynamically stable mixture of oil, brine and surfactant. This microemulsion can have undesirable properties such as a high apparent viscosity when it flows through the porous rock formations. The understanding of the structure and flow behaviour of this microemulsion phase is important for clarifying the mechanism of ASP EOR flooding.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1500004
title: Structure and orientational dipole correlations of liquid acetonitrile
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1500006
title: Investigating chalcogenide superconductivity
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1510305
title: Doped Vanadium oxide-hydride phases

description: Complex transition metal oxides are of great interest due to the wide range of complex physical behaviours they exhibit. Recently by applying low-temperature synthesis methods we have prepared a series of oxide-hydride phases, based on strontium vanadium oxides, which exhibit both a highly unusual crystallographically ordered oxide-hydride lattice, and high temperature antiferromagnetic order. In order to better understand the electronic interactions in the phases and in an attempt to induce metallic or correlated electronic behaviour we have been studying the effects of titanium substitution on both the chemistry and the physical behaviour of these phases. We propose to collect neutron powder diffraction data from these ¿doped¿ samples to characterise both the crystal structures and magnetic order in these phases.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1510423
title: Is the anisotropic resistivity in Sr3Ru2O7 due to imbalanced antiferromagnetic domain populations?

description: Many novel electronic ground states form in close proximity to quantum critical points (QCPs), that is, the point where a continuous phase transition occurs at zero temperature. By suppressing the second-order metamagnetic transition in Sr3Ru2O7 to low temperatures with a magnetic field, the system can be driven through two distinct spin density wave phases near 8 T.  Here we propose to use the WISH diffractometer to measure the effect of tilting the magnetic field on the magnetic order. This we would like to relate to the unusual magnetoresistance seen in this material.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1510562
title: Ex situ Study of glass formation from Cu-exchanged Zeolite by INS

description: In the earlier research, the rheology of collapsing zeolites amorphized by temperature has been studied as well as the vibration that destabilize crystals. With the study of these, prospect of making novel glasses including perfect glass is promising, whose entropy is quite low. The research programme focus on the study of the formation of the novel glasses, so we are quite interested at the ion exchanged zeolite to form more useful glass. In this proposal, our samples will be made by two types of Zeolite powder, Cu-exchanged zeolite Y powder and zeolite Y powder. The two types of powder will both be prepared as amorphous state and glassy state. Comparison between the samples of the same composition and different composition would be shown to us in the research as well as the changes of the Boson Peak.  What is more, we would like to use computer modeling to analyze the result too.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1520028
title: µSR investigations of multiband triplet superconductivity in a quasi-1D system: A2Cr3As3 (A=K, Cs and Rb)

description: Recent discovery of superconductivity (SC) in the novel quasi-1D system A2Cr3As3 (A=K, Rb and Cs with TC ≈ 6.1 K, 4.8 K and 2.2 K, respectively) has attracted considerable interest. The unconventional SC has been revealed by both experimental and theoretical investigations. As theoretical calculations have pointed out that K2Cr3As3 is near magnetic order and SC is relevant to strong spin fluctuations, we propose to carry out muon spin rotation and relaxation (µSR) measurements on A2Cr3As3 (A=K, Rb and Cs)  using the MUSR spectrometer to probe the superconducting state, nature of the gap, pairing mechanism and order parameters. The proposed µSR study will determine the superconducting ground state property and pairing mechanism and give the key information on the nature of the SC that will allow to test the theoretical predictions.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1520107
title: Vacancy Ordering in gamma-Phase BIMEVOX Solid Electrolytes

description: The BIMEVOXes are an important family of fast oxide ion conducting solids that exhibit very high conductivities at low and intermediate temperature and are being investigated for use as electrolytes in various electrochemical devices such as gas sensors and oxygen pumps. A study of local oxide ion/vacancy ordering in the Zn substituted bismuth vanadate system (BIZNVOX) through total scattering analysis is proposed. The study will be used to validate models of the defect structure previously proposed by us to explain the phase stability and solid solution limits in these compounds. These data will be compared with those from the undoped parent material Bi4V2O11 in its highly conducting high temperature gamma-polymorph.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1520123
title: Diffuse magnetic scattering in the Pyrochlore magnet Sm2Ti2O7

description: Rare-earth Pyrochlores of the form A2B2O7 display a diverse set of physical phenomena emanating from the strong geometrical frustration experienced by magnetic moments on this lattice of corner-sharing tetrahedra. The best studied material exhibiting this frustration are the ?spin ice? compounds Ho2Ti2O7 and Dy2Ti2O7 in which the rare-earth moments reside on the A-site of the Pyrochlore lattice, and they can be regarded as classical spins with a strong easy axis (Ising) anisotropy. The study of the new Pyrochlore magnet Sm2Ti2O7, as proposed here, offers an exciting new perspective. This magnet has a 4f5 electronic configuration at the Sm3+ site which is responsible for the magnetism in this material. The J=5/2 ground state, which is split into 3 doublets by the action of the crystal field, may lead to a possibility that an exchange-coupled version of the spin ice problem could emerge.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1520177
title: Neutron scattering study on the honeycomb Heisenberg-Kitaev magnet alpha-RuCl3

description: The experimental realization of a Heisenberg-Kitaev model on the honeycomb lattice has been a major topic in a condensed matter physics, because the model predict a novel quantum spin liquid ground state and unusual magnetic phases induced by spin-orbit coupling and electronic correlation. The 5d iridates A2IrO3 was regarded as a prime example but it turned out that a Heisenberg interaction is dominant over a Kitaev one. The newly discovered alpha-RuCl3 has strong indications that it lies in proximate to a Kitaev spin liquid phase. Two successive transitions at 8 and 14 K occur with small ordered moments but little is understood about them. Moreover, elementary excitation of Kitaev spin liquid which can be identified in scattering experiment is still open question. Using inelastic neutron scattering technique, we will clarify novel magnetism related to the Heisenberg-Kitaev model.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1520205
title: Muon-spin-rotation study of the noncentrosymmetric superconductors  ThIrSi3, ThIr2Si2 and ThCoSi

description: Our recent research of various Th-bearing systems revealed bulk superconductivity in ThIrSi3, ThIr2Si2 and ThCoSi. The critical temperatures determined from the resistivity and magnetization data are Tc = 1.75 K, 1.9 K and 3 K, respectively. The compounds crystalize in different crystal structures, which lack an inversion center. ThIrSi3 adopts the BaNiSn3-type unit cell (s.g. I4mm), ThIr2Si2 has the CaBe2Ge2-type structure (s.g. I4mm), and ThCoSi forms with the LaPtSi-type unit cell (s.g. I41md). The bulk properties measurements indicated significant differences in the thermodynamic parameters characterizing their superconducting states. In particular, the upper critical field was found to range from 0.03 T in ThIrSi3 to over 4.5 T in ThCoSi. The aim of this proposal is to made a comparative study of the nature of superconductivity in Th-based superconductors by means of muon-SR study.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1610043
title: Using residual stress relaxation to study the multiaxial creep constitutive properties of Type 316H stainless steel

description: When metals are placed under load at high temperature they usually deform over time; a process known as creep. In this experiment we will look at the creep behaviour of a type of stainless steel that is commonly used to make nuclear reactor parts, and specifically at how this material behaves when it is loaded in several different directions at once. This is important because in real reactor components the steel very often experiences this sort of multi-axial loading and creep limits the service life of the reactor. We will measure small deviations in the creep behaviour of the material and try to link these changes with stresses in the microscopic metal crystals that make up the steel. This will allow creep under multi-axial loading to be predicted more precisely in the future, which should allow engineers to assess the integrity of high-temperature structures more accurately.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1620023
title: In-situ investigation of deformation mechanisms in twin-roll cast magnesium alloys

description: The main aim of the proposed project includes a complex analysis of the ongoing deformation mechanisms as a function of the initial texture and composition in twin-roll cast magnesium alloys by means of concurrent in-situ neutron diffraction and acoustic emission measurements.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1620083
title: How muons see the motion of negative hydrogen ions in solids

description: Ions are often diffusing in solids. Among many ions, H+, Li+, Na+, O2-, and F- are known to become mobile at high temperatures in solids and they are used for fuel cells and batteries. Very recently, hydride ions (H-) are found to diffuse in inorganic oxyhydride compounds, i.e. LaSrLiH2O2 and related materials. Macroscopic transport measurements provide the evidence of H- diffusion, but the mechanism of such diffusion is still not clarified. Muon spin relaxation (muSR) has a unique feature for detecting ion-diffusion in solids. In particular, the presence of both H- and O2- ions in the lattice suggests that the implanted muons are stable even at high temperatures, based on the past muSR experiments oh MgH2. Therefore, muSR will provide microscopic information in the target materials through the change in local magnetic environments induced by H- diffusion.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1620104
title: Order-Disorder Phenomena in La2-xSrxCuRuO6 perovskites: crystal and magnetic structure investigation

description: Oxides containing a mixture of 3d and 4d transition metal oxides can exhibit unusual electronic and magnetic properties. Members of the solid solution La2-xSrxCuRuO6 have been characterized by means X-ray spectroscopy and S-XRD at the Australian Synchrotron. X-ray spectroscopy at both the Ru and Cu L-edges has established, for the first time, that doping with Sr induces oxidation of the Cu rather than Ru. It was expected that reducing the amount of the Jahn-Teller active Cu2+ ion would favor higher symmetry; however, an unexpected result from our synchrotron powder diffraction measurements is that doping La2CuRuO6 with Sr lowers the symmetry from monoclinic to triclinic. Moreover, the S-XRD profiles show unusual anisotropic peak broadening. Understanding the symmetry lowering and the anisotropic peak broadening requires high resolution neutron diffraction data.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1620194
title: Investigation on the effect of muons on various types of commercial electronic devices:  memories and programmable circuits

description: As part of a current effort to fully characterize the relative radiation response of electronic devices, our research team proposes to use the muon beam available at ISIS to evaluate the behaviour of SRAMs of different technology nodes, as well as that of FRAM, MRAM and Flash memories. The proposed testing methodology uses a combination of static and dynamic irradiation tests and can reveal vulnerabilities within the component. In order to attain a larger coverage of the effects of muons on the latest electronics, we intend also to test their impact on programmable circuits like SRAM-based FPGAs built with technology below 30nm. These tests will allow analysing the impact of muons not only on the storage elements, but also on the reliability of the devices at application level. This experiment requests beam energies that are available at port four of RIKEN-RAL Muon Facility in ISIS.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1620221
title: H2O transport into the deep Earth: A high P-T study of hydrous Phase-A

description: The mantle is estimated to be planet Earths most massive volatile (e.g. H, C, S, N) storage reservoir, with interactions between crustal and mantle reservoirs dominate the surface inventory of volatile elements over geological time. Hydrous phase A is a link in the chain of overlapping high pressure minerals that ultimately transport water (or hydrogen) to the core mantle boundary in subjecting slabs. Despite its relevance there have been few studies of its thermoelastic parameters at elevated PT conditions. We propose to perform a simultaneous high pressure and high temperature neutron diffraction experiment on PEARL to refine the crystal structure and equation of state of hydrous phase A as part of our ongoing program to extend the range of PT conditions routinely available in the Paris-Edinburgh cell at ISIS.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1620363
title: Complete data set of different hydrations levels of alpha-Lactalbumin

description: Zaccai et al. proposed to build up a neutron Dynamics Data Bank which would be populated with dynamical data of biological macromolecules measured with different techniques, neutron scattering, MD simulations and NMR. The aim is to concentrate the obtained data which should result in a global picture of the dynamics of biomolecules. However, there still exist large gaps between simulations and experiments. It is the goal of the recently started PhD project of D. Zeller to find out how quantitatively MD simulations can reproduce the trend of experimental data over a range of divers systems and instruments under various conditions like temperature, hydration, pH, etc. To start this analysis a proposal is pending at the ILL to measure bovine alpha-Lactalbumin at different hydration levels. We want to add measurements at IRIS where we can obtain data over a broader momentum transfer range Q.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1620444
title: Shell-ferromagnetism of nanoscaled Heusler precipitates

description: The material Ni50Mn45In5 segregates at about 650 K forming about 2-10 nm ferromagnetic N50Mn25In25 precipitates with a Curie temperature of 320 K and an antiferromagnetic Ni50Mn50 matrix with a Neel temperature estimated to be around 960 K. If the material is allowed to segregate under a magnetic field at 650 K, the spherical precipitates become a shell-ferromagnet where the surface (being at the same time the interface with the antiferromagnet) acquires a ferromagnetic configuration along the field direction, but the volume is paramagnetic. The spins of the shell-ferromagnet are so strongly pinned by the antiferromagnetic matrix, that the remanence cannot be destroyed by any magnetic field. This serves as magnetic-field-proof memory. In the proposed polarized SANS experiments, we aim to study the structure and the magnetic properties of the shell-ferromagnet precipitates.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1670517
title: mSR study of impurity effects on the Cu-spin correlation and superconductivity in the undoped supercondcutor T'-La1.8Eu0.2Cu1-yMyO4 (M=Ni, Zn)
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1500022
title: Neutron holography using (n,y)-resonances
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1510322
title: Structural studies of thermo-responsive nanogels at the oil-water interface

description: Nanogels because of their three-dimensional physical structure and tunable chemical properties as well as their stimuli-responsive nature have emerged as one of the most significant trends in nanomedicine, skin care products, cell encapsulation and many other applications. Our goal is to resolve structure of the nanogels at the buried oil-water interface. This will contribute to our current understanding of their important physic-chemical behaviours such as the transport through cell membranes and stabilisation of emulsions systems.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1510402
title: Wetting Transitions of Tackifiers in Adhesives

description: Migration and surface segregation of low molecular weight oligomers in adhesive formulations is a poorly understood, but hugely important phenomenon, responsible for most of the failures in industrial applications.  In a recent NR experiment, we were able to characterise the concentration profiles of deuterated model oligomers on the surface of polybutadiene rubber films.  At the maximum concentration probed, the surface excess approached the limit of what could be accommodated in a molecular monolayer.  We now proposed to test the model system at higher oligomer concentrations to determine the presence and nature of any wetting transition.  We will use our results to test theoretical models developed in a parallel project.  Successful determination of this behaviour is very important as it relates directly to the migration of tackifiers which can be responsible for adhesive failure.
DOI: 10.5286/isis.e.rb1520035
title: Probing the origin of low thermal conductivity in thermoelectric materials

description: Thermoelectric materials are increasingly attracting attention due to their potential for use in devices for waste heat energy recovery. Bismuth copper oxychalcogenides have been recently identified as promising p-type thermoelectric materials. The origin of their promising performance lies in their extremely low thermal conductivity, which approaches values normally found in amorphous materials. We seek to exploit inelastic neutron scattering to determine the neutron-weighted phonon density of states, which will be compared with the phonon density of states determined by first-principle calculations. This results will enable us to elucidate the origin of the unusually low thermal conductivity. This experiment will complete a body of work on these materials carried out by a PhD student.