We synthesized pure polycrystalline cubic boron nitride (cBN) and wurtzite boron nitride (wBN) by the direct conversion method from hexagonal boron nitride, and measured their longitudinal-wave elastic constants C L between 20 and 300 K using picosecond ultrasound spectroscopy. Their room-temperature values are 945 6 3 GPa and 930 6 18 GPa for cBN and wBN, respectively. The shear modulus G of cBN was also determined by combining resonance ultrasound spectroscopy and micromechanics calculation as G ¼ 410 GPa. We performed ab-initio calculations and confirmed that the generalized gradient approximation potential fails to yield correct elastic constants, which indicated the necessity of a hybrid-functional method. V
A highly sensitive hydrogen-gas sensor fabricated using MEMS technology is presented. The sensor chip consists of glass substrates, silicon substrate, and an AT-cut quartz crystal resonator, which is embedded in the microchannel constructed on the substrates. The quartz resonator has a fundamental resonant frequency of 165 MHz and a 200 nm palladium film deposited on its single surface as the hydrogen-gas sensing material. The MEMS hydrogen-gas sensor operates in a wireless manner by exciting and detecting the resonator vibration using the non-contacting antennas. The curvature induced resonant frequency change of the resonator plate caused by the expansion of the palladium film is used for the detection of the hydrogen gas. We succeeded in improving the hydrogen absorption rate and then the sensitivity for the hydrogen-gas detection by applying the air-plasma treatment method, and clarified the role of palladium oxide in lowering the energy barrier for the hydrogen-atom migration from surface to subsurface with the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Thus sensitivity enhanced MEMS hydrogen-gas sensor exhibits a detection limit of 10 ppm or less at room temperature.
Heat conduction possesses (thermal) modes in analogy with acoustics even without oscillation. Here, we establish thermal mode spectroscopy to measure the thermal diffusivity of small specimens. Local heating with a light pulse excites such modes that show antinodes at the heating point, and photothermal detection at another antinode spot allows measuring relaxation behavior of the desired mode selectively: The relaxation time yields thermal diffusivity. The Ritz method is proposed for arbitrary geometry specimens. This method is applicable even to a diamond crystal with ∼1 mm dimensions.
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