Adsorption behaviors of nitrogen on Ti doped SBA-15.

Thermodynamic properties of nitrogen on Ti doped santa barbara amorphous No. 15 samples having large pore sizes in an order of a few micrometers were studied by analyzing the adsorption isotherm data obtained near the triple point (63.15 K). A series of adsorption data as a function of the normalized pressure revealed that nitrogen forms two distinctive isotherm steps. The first step represents the adsorption behavior on surface while the second step is believed to be responsible for the interaction of gas molecules in a capillary, so called a 'capillary condensation.' The existence of a hysteresis measured between adsorption and desorption isotherms at 77.3 K evidenced that gas molecules fill the pores in the sample. Plots of 2-dimensional compressibility values that were calculated in terms of change of adsorbed molecules with respect to the change of measured pressure exhibit a prominent peak near the second isotherm step supporting that the pores are filled with adsorbed molecules. A careful examination of the second isotherm step revealed that the amount of adsorbed molecules increased at temperatures below the triple point while it decreased above the triple point, and such a phenomenon is responsible for the geometrical confinement of gas molecules in porous materials.

Studies on formation of carborane film prepared by using a deuterium glow discharge method.

Carborane powders (C2B10H12) were deposited on silicon substrates and the physical properties of the films were investigated as functions of the distance of the sample from the electrode, the carborane mass, and the plasma-pulse. To obtain the optimum thickness of the films, three silicon substrates were positioned at 6.5, 16.5, and 36.5 cm from the electrode, and the thickness of the samples was analyzed by using XRD, TEM, and SEM. For the deposition, the carborane powder was warmed to 80 degrees C in 10 minutes and was applied a DC-power pulse of 900 W (150 volts, 6 amps) for 2 hours. The mass of carborane and the on-time sequence were varied during the deposition. The combined results of XRD and TEM studies revealed that the structure of the deposited film is an amorphous phase. A careful analysis of the SEM images show that the thickness of the carborane films increased as increasing the mass of the flown carborane while it remained constant when a plasma-pulse time was varied. The thickest film of 353 A was achieved from the samples placed closest to the carborane inlet and the thickness became thinner as farther from the source suggesting that the density of the evaporated carborane powder in a chamber decreased as increasing the distance of the sample from the carborane inlet.

Parratt-based and model-independent X-ray reflectivity fitting procedure for nanoscale thin film characterization.

A general-purpose fitting procedure is presented for X-ray reflectivity data. The Parratt formula was used to fit the low-angle region of the reflectivity data and the resulting electron density profile (continuous base EDP or cbEDP) was then divided into a series of electron density slabs of width 1 angstroms (discrete base EDP or dbEDP), which is then easily incorporated into the Distorted Wave Born Approximation (DWBA). An additional series of density slabs of resolution-limited width are overlapped to the dbEDP, and the density value of the each additional slab is allowed to vary to further fit the data model-independently using DWBA. Because this procedure combines the Parratt formula and the model-independent DWBA fitting, each fitting method can always be employed depending on the type of thin film. Moreover, it provides a way to overcome the difficulties when both fitting methods do not work well for certain types of thin films. Simulations show that this procedure is suitable for nanoscale thin film characterization.

Adsorption properties of argon on Ti doped SBA-15.

Thermodynamic properties of argon on Ti doped Santa barbara amorphous No. 15 (SBA-15) were investigated in the temperature range of 77-89 K to understand the interaction of gas molecules with porous materials. When the total amount of adsorbed molecules is plotted as a function of the equilibrium vapor pressure of the adsorbed Ar, the results exhibit two distinct isotherm steps. The first step appears at the beginning of the isotherm while the second step locates at 0.7 of the normalized pressure. The existence of the second isotherm step which spanned in the normalized pressure from 0.7 to 0.9 is confirmed when the isotherm data were plotted in terms of the 2-dimensional compressibility values. The total amount of adsorbed molecules forming the second isotherm step is 2.5 times greater than the one for the first step. These adsorption behaviors are typical patterns noted from porous materials and far different from the ones observed from non-pore materials. Our observations demonstrate that most of adsorbed molecules reside in the pores and the height of the second isotherm step is strongly associated with filling pores with gas molecules.