CePtAl: Structural and Bulk Properties.

This work is focused on the structural and physical properties of CePtAl, an intermetallic compound. At room temperature, the modulated orthorhombic structure (00)000, with = (0.481, 0, 0) has been determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction supplemented by dependence of lattice parameters above room temperature for which the X-ray powder diffraction was used.

Co-sputtering of gold and copper onto liquids: a route towards the production of porous gold nanoparticles.

Effective methods for the synthesis of high-purity nanoparticles (NPs) have been extensively studied for a few decades. Among others, cold plasma-based sputtering metals onto a liquid substrate appears to be a very promising technique for the synthesis of high-purity NPs. The process enables the production of very small NPs without using any toxic reagents and complex chemical synthesis routes, and enables the synthesis of alloy NPs which can be the first step towards the formation of porous NPs.

Cascading transitions toward unconventional charge density wave states in the quasi-two-dimensional monophosphate tungsten bronze PWO.

Single crystals of the = 8 member of the low-dimensional monophosphate tungsten bronzes (PO)(WO) family were grown by chemical vapour transport technique and the high crystalline quality obtained allowed a reinvestigation of the physical and structural properties. Resistivity measurements revealed three anomalies at = 258 K, = 245 K and = 140 K, never observed until now. Parallel X-ray diffraction investigations showed a specific signature associated with three structural transitions, the appearance of different sets of satellite reflections below , and .

Design and Study of Structural Linear and Nonlinear Optical Properties of Chiral [Fe(phen)] Complexes.

The dependence of nonlinear optical properties upon the spin state in molecular switches is still an unexplored area. Chiral [Fe( phen)] complexes are excellent candidates for those studies because they are expected to show nonlinear optical properties of interest and at the same time show photoconversion to a short-lived metastable high-Spin state by ultrafast optical pumping. Herein, we present the synthesis, crystallographic, and spectroscopic comparison of chiral [Fe( phen)] complexes obtained with chiral anions, a new lipophilic derivative of the D-symmetric (As(tartrate)), and D-symmetric tris(catechol)phosphate(V) (TRISCAT), tris(catechol)arsenate(V) (TRISCAS), and 3,4,5,6-tetrachlorocatechol phosphate(V) (TRISPHAT).