Evolution of the Primordial Axial Charge across Cosmic Times.

We investigate collisional decay of the axial charge in an electron-photon plasma at temperatures 10 MeV-100 GeV. We demonstrate that the decay rate of the axial charge is first order in the fine-structure constant Γ_{flip}∝αm_{e}^{2}/T and thus orders of magnitude greater than the naive estimate which has been in use for decades. This counterintuitive result arises through infrared divergences regularized at high temperature by environmental effects.

In-situ ToF-SIMS analyses of deuterium re-distribution in austenitic steel AISI 304L under mechanical load.

Hydrocarbons fuel our economy. Furthermore, intermediate goods and consumer products are often hydrocarbon-based. Beside all the progress they made possible, hydrogen-containing substances can have severe detrimental effects on materials exposed to them.

Real Time Imaging of Deuterium in a Duplex Stainless Steel Microstructure by Time-of-Flight SIMS.

For more than one century, hydrogen assisted degradation of metallic microstructures has been identified as origin for severe technical component failures but the mechanisms behind have not yet been completely understood so far. Any in-situ observation of hydrogen transport phenomena in microstructures will provide more details for further elucidation of these degradation mechanisms. A novel experiment is presented which is designed to elucidate the permeation behaviour of deuterium in a microstructure of duplex stainless steel (DSS).

Addressing a "Black Box" of Bottom-Up Synthesis: Revealing the Structures of Growing Colloidal-Nanocrystal Nuclei.

In bottom-up synthesis, products from reactions of structural building units rapidly pass from soluble molecular complexes to nanoscale intermediates, whose solution-state structures defy elucidation by any routine method. To address this, electron diffraction is used to reveal the structures of cryogenically "trapped" colloidal nanocrystals.

Effect of thermal annealing in vacuum and in air on nanograin sizes in hard and superhard coatings Zr-Ti-Si-N.

Zr-Ti-Si-N coating had high thermal stability of phase composition and remained structure state under thermal annealing temperatures reached 1180 degrees C in vacuum and 830 degrees C in air. Effect of isochronous annealing on phase composition, structure, and stress state of Zr-Ti-Si-N-ion-plasma deposited coatings (nanocomposite coatings) was reported. Below 1000 degrees C annealing temperature in vacuum, changing of phase composition is determined by appearing of siliconitride crystallites (beta-Si3N4) with hexagonal crystalline lattice and by formation of ZrO2 oxide crystallites.