ALBERT

Description: The Indo–Gangetic foreland basin has some of the highest rates of groundwater extraction in the world, focused in the states of Punjab and Haryana in northwest India. Any assessment of the effects of extraction on groundwater variation requires understanding of the geometry and sedimentary architecture of the alluvial aquifers, which in turn are set by their geomorphic and depositional setting. To assess the overall architecture of the aquifer system, we used satellite imagery and digital elevation models to map the geomorphology of the Sutlej and Yamuna fan systems, while aquifer geometry was assessed using 243 wells that extend to ∼200 m depth. Aquifers formed by sandy-channel bodies in the subsurface of the Sutlej and Yamuna fans have a median thickness of 7 and 6 m, respectively, and follow heavy-tailed thickness distributions. These distributions along with evidence of persistence in aquifer fractions as determined from compensation analysis, indicate persistent reoccupation of channel positions, and suggest that the major aquifers consist of stacked, multi-storied channel bodies. The percentage of aquifer material in individual boreholes decreases down-fan, although the exponent on the aquifer-body thickness distribution remains similar, indicating that the total number of aquifer bodies decrease down-fan but that individual bodies do not thin appreciably, particularly on the Yamuna fan. The interfan area and the fan-marginal zone have thinner aquifers and a lower proportion of aquifer material, even in proximal locations. We conclude that geomorphic setting provides a first-order control on the thickness, geometry, and stacking pattern of aquifer bodies across this critical region.

Description: Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films of thicknesses 5,10, 15, 20, and 30 nm were deposited on 500 eV argon ion-beam fabricated nanoscale self-organized rippled-Si substrates at room temperature and are compared with similar films deposited on pristine-Si substrates (without ripples). It is observed that morphology of self-organized AZO films is driven by the underlying substrate morphology. For instance, for pristine-Si substrates, a granular morphology evolves for all AZO films. On the other hand, for rippled-Si substrates, morphologies having chain-like arrangement (anisotropic in nature) are observed up to a thickness of 20 nm, while a granular morphology evolves (isotropic in nature) for 30 nm-thick film. Photoluminescence studies reveal that excitonic peaks corresponding to 5–15 nm-thick AZO films, grown on rippled-Si templates, show a blue shift of 8 nm and 3 nm, respectively, whereas the peak shift is negligible for 20-nm thick film (with respect to their pristine counter parts). The observed blue shifts are substantiated by diffuse reflectance study and attributed to quantum confinement effect, associated with the size of the AZO grains and their spatial arrangements driven by the anisotropic morphology of underlying rippled-Si templates. The present findings will be useful for making tunable AZO-based light-emitting devices.

Description: Fast magnetic annihilation is investigated by using 2.5-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of two parallel ultra-short petawatt laser pulses co-propagating in underdense plasma. The magnetic field generated by the laser pulses annihilates in a current sheet formed between the pulses. Magnetic field energy is converted to an inductive longitudinal electric field, which efficiently accelerates the electrons of the current sheet. This new regime of collisionless relativistic magnetic field annihilation with a timescale of tens of femtoseconds can be extended to near-critical and overdense plasma with the ultra-high intensity femtosecond laser pulses.

Description: We have experimentally investigated the energy transfer and storage in the magnetostatically coupled vortices in a pair of disks. By measuring the frequency dependence of the rectified dc voltage, we observed a specific gyrating motion due to anomalous energy storage at the off-resonant frequency for anti-parallel polarities. Micromagnetic simulations based on the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation qualitatively reproduce the experimental results and reveal that the behavior arises from the anisotropic energy transfer, i.e., the modulation of effective damping constant of the pair disks, originating from the phase difference between coupled vortex cores. These findings can be of use in magnetic vortex based logic operations.

Description: The rise of gaseous bubbles in viscous liquids is a fundamental problem in fluid physics, and it is also a common phenomenon in many industrial applications such as materials processing, food processing, and fusion reactor cooling. In this work, the motion of a single argon gas bubble rising in quiescent liquid steel under an external magnetic field is studied numerically using a Volume-of-Fluid method. To mitigate spurious velocities normally generated during numerical simulation of multiphase flows with large density differences, an improved algorithm for surface tension modeling, originally proposed by Wang and Tong [“Deformation and oscillations of a single gas bubble rising in a narrow vertical tube,” Int. J. Therm. Sci. 47 , 221–228 (2008)] is implemented, validated and used in the present computations. The governing equations are integrated by a second-order space and time accurate numerical scheme, and implemented on multiple Graphics Processing Units with high parallel efficiency. The motion and terminal velocities of the rising bubble under different magnetic fields are compared and a reduction in rise velocity is seen in cases with the magnetic field applied. The shape deformation and the path of the bubble are discussed. An elongation of the bubble along the field direction is seen, and the physics behind these phenomena is discussed. The wake structures behind the bubble are visualized and effects of the magnetic field on the wake structures are presented. A modified drag coefficient is obtained to include the additional resistance force caused by adding a transverse magnetic field.

Description: Increased availability and quality of near real-time observations provide the opportunity to improve understanding of predictive skills of hydrologic models. Recent studies have shown the limited capability of river discharge data alone to adequately constrain different components of distributed model parameterizations. In this study, the GRACE satellite-based total water storage (TWS) anomaly is used to complement the discharge data with the aim to improve the fidelity of mesoscale hydrologic model (mHM) through multivariate parameter estimation. The study is conducted on 83 European basins covering a wide range of hydro-climatic regimes. The model parameterization complemented with the TWS anomalies leads to statistically significant improvements in (1) discharge simulations during low-flow period, and (2) evapotranspiration estimates which are evaluated against independent data (FLUXNET). Overall, there is no significant deterioration in model performance for the discharge simulations when complemented by information from the TWS anomalies. However, considerable changes in the partitioning of precipitation into runoff components are noticed by in-/exclusion of TWS during the parameter estimation. Introducing monthly averaged TWS data only improves the dynamics of streamflow on monthly or longer time scales, which mostly addresses the dynamical behavior of the baseflow reservoir. A cross-evaluation test carried out to assess the transferability of the calibrated parameters to other locations further confirms the benefit of complementary TWS data. In particular, the evapotranspiration estimates show more robust performance when TWS data are incorporated during the parameter estimation, in comparison with the benchmark model constrained against discharge only. This study highlights the value for incorporating multiple data sources during parameter estimation to improve the overall realism of hydrologic models and their applications over large domains. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The effect of carbon doping on the structural and electrical properties of GaN buffer layer of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) structures has been studied. In the undoped HEMT structures, oxygen was identified as the dominant impurity using secondary ion mass spectroscopy and photoluminescence (PL) measurements. In addition, a notable parallel conduction channel was identified in the GaN buffer at the interface. The AlGaN/GaN HEMT structures with carbon doped GaN buffer using a CBr 4 beam equivalent pressure of 1.86 × 10 −7 mTorr showed a reduction in the buffer leakage current by two orders of magnitude. Carbon doped GaN buffers also exhibited a slight increase in the crystalline tilt with some pits on the growth surface. PL and Raman measurements indicated only a partial compensation of donor states with carbon acceptors. However, AlGaN/GaN HEMT structures with carbon doped GaN buffer with 200 nm thick undoped GaN near the channel exhibited good 2DEG characteristics.

Description: Ferromagnetic and large magnetoresistance (MR) nanocomposites of La 0.67 Sr 0.33 MnO 3 -BaTiO 3 (LSMO-BTO) are synthesized via sol-gel route. The X-ray diffraction confirms the existence of two chemically separated phases in the composites. The maximum MR (35%) was achieved in LSMO-5% BTO (LB5). The coupling between the coexisting phases is observed from the dielectric anomaly at the ferromagnetic transition (T c  = 353 K) for LB5 composition. We observed maximum magnetodielectric effect at T c of 1.18% in magnitude for LB5 and the effect of magnetic field on other composites was significant. These results are related to the large spin polarization within grains as well as at the grain boundaries and the evidence of variation in dielectric parameters with magnetic field reveal the magnetoelectric coupling in LSMO-BTO nanocomposites.

Description: Pure α-Al 2 O 3 exhibits a very high degree of thermodynamical stability among all metal oxides and forms an inert oxide scale in a range of structural alloys at high temperatures. We report that amorphous Al 2 O 3 thin films sputter deposited over crystalline Si instead show a surprisingly active interface. On annealing, crystallization begins with nuclei of a phase closely resembling γ-Alumina forming almost randomly in an amorphous matrix, and with increasing frequency near the substrate/film interface. This nucleation is marked by the signature appearance of sharp (400) and (440) reflections and the formation of a diffuse diffraction halo with an outer maximal radius of ≈0.23 nm enveloping the direct beam. The microstructure then evolves by a cluster-coalescence growth mechanism suggestive of swift nucleation and sluggish diffusional kinetics, while locally the Al ions redistribute slowly from chemisorbed and tetrahedral sites to higher anion coordinated sites. Chemical state plots constructed from XPS data and simple calculations of the diffraction patterns from hypothetically distorted lattices suggest that the true origins of the diffuse diffraction halo are probably related to a complex change in the electronic structure spurred by the a -γ transformation rather than pure structural disorder. Concurrent to crystallization within the film, a substantially thick interfacial reaction zone also builds up at the film/substrate interface with the excess Al acting as a cationic source.

Description: Here, we apply revolving scanning transmission electron microscopy to measure lattice strain across a sample using a single reference area. To do so, we remove image distortion introduced by sample drift, which usually restricts strain analysis to a single image. Overcoming this challenge, we show that it is possible to use strain reference areas elsewhere in the sample, thereby enabling reliable strain mapping across large areas. As a prototypical example, we determine the strain present within the microstructure of a Ni-based superalloy directly from atom column positions as well as geometric phase analysis. While maintaining atomic resolution, we quantify strain within nanoscale regions and demonstrate that large, unit-cell level strain fluctuations are present within the intermetallic phase.