Browsing by Subject "metal"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7

Open Access
Dynamic relationship between precious metals
(2013) Sensoy, A.
We use a relatively new approach to endogenously detect the volatility shifts in the returns of four major precious metals (gold, silver, platinum and palladium) from 1999 to 2013. We reveal that the turbulent year of 2008 has no significant effect on volatility levels of gold and silver however causes an upward shift in the volatility levels of palladium and platinum. Using the consistent dynamic conditional correlations, we show that precious metals get strongly correlated with each other in the last decade which reduces the diversification benefits across them and indicates a convergence to a single asset class. We endogenously detect the shifts in these dynamic correlation levels and reveal uni-directional volatility shift contagions among precious metals. The results show that gold has a uni-directional volatility shift contagion effect on all other precious metals and silver has a similar effect on platinum and palladium. However, the latter two do not matter in terms of volatility shift contagion. Thus, investors that hedge with precious metals should, in particular, monitor the volatility levels of gold and silver. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.
Open Access
Phytoremediation of Cu, Cr and Pb mixtures by lemna minor
(2013) Üçüncü, E.; Tunca, E.; Fikirdeşici, S.; Özkan, A.D.; Altindaǧ, A.
The present study reports the capacity of the aquatic macrophyte Lemna minor to remediate combinations of Cu(II), Pb(II) and Cr(III) from a simulated natural environment. The effect of these metal mixtures on the growth of L. minor was also investigated using growth rate and biomass inhibition calculations. L. minor was successful in removing Cr and Pb from the water, and it remained an effective remediation agent when both metals were present in the environment. However, a relatively low absorption capacity was observed for Cu, increasing concentrations of which were associated with significant decreases in growth rate. No statistically significant difference was found between the 24 h and 7 days absorption rates of Cu, Pb and Cr, suggesting that, at the concentrations tested, equilibrium occurs within 24 h of metal exposure. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York.
Open Access
Six low-strain zinc-blende half metals: An ab initio investigation
(2003) Pask J.E.; Yang L.H.; Fong, C.Y.; Pickett W.E.; Dag, S.
A class of spintronic materials, the zinc-blende (ZB) half metals, has recently been synthesized in thin-film form. We apply all-electron and pseudopotential ab initio methods to investigate the electronic and structural properties of ZB Mn and Cr pnictides and carbides, and find six compounds to be half metallic at or near their respective equilibrium lattice constants, making them excellent candidates for growth at low strain. Based on these findings, we further propose substrates on which the growth may be accomplished with minimum strain. Our findings are supported by the recent successful synthesis of ZB CrAs on GaAs and ZB CrSb on GaSb, where our predicted equilibrium lattice constants are within 0.5% of the lattice constants of the substrates on which the growth was accomplished. We confirm previous theoretical results for ZB MnAs, but find ZB MnSb to be half metallic at its equilibrium lattice constant, whereas previous work has found it to be only nearly so. We report here two low-strain half metallic ZB compounds, CrP and MnC, and suggest appropriate substrates for each. Unlike the other five compounds, we predict ZB MnC to become/remain half metallic with compression rather than expansion, and to exhibit metallicity in the minority-rather than majority-spin channel. These fundamentally different properties of MnC can be connected to substantially greater p-d hybridization and d-d overlap, and correspondingly larger bonding-antibonding splitting and smaller exchange splitting. We examine the relative stability of each of the six ZB compounds against NiAs and MnP structures, and find stabilities for the compounds not yet grown comparable to those already grown.
Open Access
A study of adsorption of single atoms on carbon nanotubes
(2003) Durgun, Engin
The adsorption of individual atoms on the semiconducting and metallic singlewall carbon nanotubes (SWNT) have been investigated by using first-principles pseudopotential plane wave method within Density Functional Theory. The stable adsorption geometry and binding energy have been determined for a large number of foreign atoms ranging from alkali and simple metals to the transition metals and group IV elements. We have found that the character of the bonding and associated physical properties strongly depend on the type of adsorbed atoms, in particular on their valence electron structure. Our results indicate that the properties of SWNTs can be modified by the adsorbed foreign atoms. While the atoms of good conducting metals, such as Zn, Cu, Ag and Au, form very weak bonds, transition metal atoms, such as Ti, Sc, Nb and Ta, and group IV elements C and Si are adsorbed with relatively high binding energy. Owing to the curvature effect, these binding energies are larger than the binding energies of the same atoms on the graphite surface. We have showed that the adatom carbon can form strong and directional bonds between two SWNTs so that the tubes are connected. These connects can be used to produce nanotube networks or grids. Most of the adsorbed transition metal atoms excluding Ni, Pd and Pt have a magnetic ground state with a significant magnetic moment. Our results suggest that carbon nanotubes can be functionalized in different ways by their coverage with different atoms, showing interesting applications such as one-dimensional nanomagnets or nanoconductors and conducting connects etc.
Open Access
Surface wave splitter based on metallic gratings with sub-wavelength aperture
(Optical Society of American (OSA), 2008) Caglayan H.; Özbay, Ekmel
We investigated the splitting of surface electromagnetic waves trapped at the output surface of a one-dimensional metallic grating structure. The output gratings of the structure asymmetrically such that the output surfaces at the different sides of the subwavelength aperture can support surface waves at different frequencies. The transmission amplitude as measured at the left side is 1,000 times of that at the right side at 16 GHz. At 24 GHz, the transmission measured at the right side is 20 times that of the left side of the structure. Therefore, surface waves are guided into the different sides of the aperture at different frequencies via metallic gratings. The experimental results are in agreement with the theoretical results. © 2008 Optical Society of America.
Open Access
Triangular metallic gratings for large absorption enhancement in thin film Si solar cells
(Optical Society of American (OSA), 2012) Battal, E.; Yogurt, T.A.; Aygun L.E.; Okyay, Ali Kemal
We estimate high optical absorption in silicon thin film photovoltaic devices using triangular corrugations on the back metallic contact. We computationally show 21.9% overall absorptivity in a 100-nmthick silicon layer, exceeding any reported absorptivity using single layer gratings placed on the top or the bottom, considering both transverse electric and transverse magnetic polarizations and a wide spectral range (280 - 1100 nm). We also show that the overall absorptivity of the proposed scheme is relatively insensitive to light polarization and the angle of incidence. We also discuss the implications of potential fabrication process variations on such a device. © 2012 Optical Society of America.
Open Access
Unidirectional transmission in non-symmetric gratings containing metallic layers
(Optical Society of American (OSA), 2009) Serebryannikov, A.E.; Özbay, Ekmel
The mechanism of achieving unidirectional transmission in the gratings, which only contain isotropic dielectric and metallic layers, is suggested and numerically validated. It is shown that significant transmission in one direction and nearly zero transmission in the opposite direction can be obtained in the same intrinsically isotropic gratings as those studied recently in A. E. Serebryannikov and E. Ozbay, Opt. Express 17, 278 (2009), but at a non-zero angle of incidence. The tilting, non-symmetric features of the grating and the presence of a metallic layer with a small positive real part of the index of refraction are the conditions that are necessary for obtaining the unidirectionality. Single- and multibeam operational regimes are demonstrated. The frequency and angle ranges of the unidirectional transmission can be estimated by using the conventional framework based on isofrequency dispersion contours and construction lines that properly take into account the periodic features of the interfaces, but should then be corrected because of the tunneling arising within the adjacent ranges. After proper optimization, this mechanism is expected to become an alternative to that based on the use of anisotropic materials. © 2009 Optical Society of America.