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11-10 :: October 2011
nanotimes News in Brief
D. Mutter und P. Nielaba: Simulation of the thermally induced austenitic phase transition in NiTi nanoparticles, In: European Physical Journal B, Online First™ (EPJ B), November 2011, DOI:10.1140/epjb/e2011-20661-4: http://dx.doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2011-20661-4
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accurate temperature gauges. However, the use of birefringence in this way has significant problems in practice. This temperature measuring ability of highly birefringent crystals is badly compromised by changes in the thickness and orientation of the crystal. This adds expense to the manufacture and calibration of such crystals and makes them almost unusable in situations where, for example, vibration could alter the orientation of the crystal.
US Congress passed the Leahy-Smith America’s Invent Act of 2011 on September 2011. These Act represents the most extensive review of the US Pa- tent System in over 20 years.
http://www.microbricks.com/?p=1427
http://www.uspto.gov/patents/init_events/section_ summary_26jul2011.pdf
However the Warwick and Oxford researchers have developed a reproducible a and low-cost method of modifying the properties of crystal- line lithium tantalate so that its birefringence is virtually independent of the crystal’s thickness and position making it resistant to vibration and cheaper to manufacture. In fact, they have made the biref- ringence almost zero in magnitude in all directions (the material is close to being optically isotropic just like ordinary glass).
http://www.isis-innovation.com/licensing/6600.html
Professor Pam Thomas of the University of War- wick and Professor Mike Glazer of the University of Oxford (both U.K.) have developed a form of crystal that can deliver highly accurate tempera- ture readings, down to individual milli-kelvins, over a very broad range of temperatures: from -120° to +680° C (-184° to 1,256° F).
The researchers used a “birefringent” crystal which splits light passing through it into two separate rays. Research has already shown that the size of the effect will increase or decrease in proportion to the temperature of the crystal. Therefore, in the- ory, you could calibrate such crystals to be highly
One of Europe’s most precise electron microscope is now in use in its own building at Linköping University in Sweden. After readjustments at the bequest of the LiU researchers, the Titan3 80-300 transmission electron microscope (TEM) now pro- vides a resolution of less than 0.7 Å (about half the distance between two atoms in a silicon crystal).