• P S Goyal

Articles written in Pramana – Journal of Physics

• Dynamics of liquid ammonia from cold neutron scattering

The scattering of 4.1 Å neutrons by liquid ammonia has been measured at 218 K in the angular range of 30–90° using the Trombay rotating crystal spectrometer. The experimental data, after correcting for multiple scattering, have been compared with model calculations, and it is shown that it is possible to get detailed information about the rotational correlation function on the basis of neutron experiments alone. The model assumes Langevin diffusion for translational motions. Rotational motions are described by means of an orientational correlation function which has a gaseous behaviour for times up toτ0 and then changes over to a diffusive character with a rotational diffusion constantDr. Within the framework of the model the correlation function can be described withDr=0.28×1013sec−1 andτ0=0.57×10−18sec. Corrections for multiple scattering and their dependence on model parameters are discussed.

• High resolution measurement of bragg cut-off in beryllium

Bragg cut-off for$$(10\bar 10)$$ plane of polycrystalline beryllium of various lengths of 300 and 116 K has been measured with an energy resolution of 5 μeV. The natural width of the cut-off is 12.5±1.5 μeV, independent of temperature and length of beryllium and also of physical characteristics and certain metallurgical treatments of the powder. Such blocks of beryllium would be suitable for designing a ΔT-window spectrometer with resolution ⩾20 μeV. Bragg cut-offs corresponding to (0002) and$$(10\bar 11)$$ planes of beryllium have been separated for the first time. These can also be used for producing additional energy windows in a ΔT-window spectrometer, thus increasing its efficiency.

• ΔT-window neutron spectrometer

A high resolution neutron spectrometer making use of a ΔT-window filter for the analyser and time-of-flight technique for analysing incident neutron energy has been designed. The spectrometer will provide a continuously variable energy resolution ΔE from 40–50µeV at ∼ 5230µeV. The range of energy transfer allowed is −1450µeV to +2950µeV and the range of wavevector transferQ allowed is 0·82–3·06 Å−1. Depending on the resolution used, the counting rates are expected to vary from 28–60 × 103 counts/hr if one assumes 10% isotropic elastic scattering from the sample.

• Form-factors for different aggregation models of micelles

Spherical micelles in ionic micellar solutions, often aggregate to form spherical, cylindrical or chain-like aggregates on addition of salt to the solution. It is known that the technique of small angle neutron scattering (SANS) can be used to distinguish spherical and cylindrical aggregates. To examine if SANS can be used to distinguish the latter two aggregation processes, we have calculated the angular distribution of scattered neutrons from 0.002 M CTAB solutions. These calculations show that aggregation of CTAB micelles results in large changes in SANS spectra. The shapes of SANS spectra are different for the above three types of aggregates, suggesting that technique of SANS can indeed be used to distinguish the three aggregation processes. The size of the aggregate can also be obtained from such studies.

• Small angle neutron scattering from micellar solutions of triton X-100

Micellar solutions of non-ionic surfactant triton X-100 (8% by weight) show phase separation at cloud pointTcp ∼ 335 K. This paper reports results of small angle neutron scattering (SANS) experiments from this solution as a function of temperature between 298 and 332 K. The range of wave-vector transferQ, covered in these experiments is from 0.02 to 0.15 Å−1. It is seen that as one approachesTcp, the neutron scattering cross section diverges in the region of lowQ (&lt;0.06 Å−1) while it is independent of temperature in region of largeQ(&gt;0.06 Å−1). We believe that the divergence of scattering at lowQ with an increase in temperature is because of changes in the structure factorS(Q) of the solution. The measured distributions have been analyzed using four different models for inter-micellar potential. The models used to calculate the structure factorS(Q) are (1) mean spherical approximation (MSA) with Yukawa tail for attractive potential, (2) MSA with an attractive square well potential, (3) random phase approximation (RPA) with an attractive square-well potential and (4) Sticky hard sphere model (attractive square-well potential with Percus-Yevick approximation). The strengths of the attractive potential required to fit the SANS data are (−6.6 to − 14.4)/kt for model (1), (− 6.6 to − 15.0)/kt for model (2), (− 3.8 to − 7.3)/kB T for model (3) and (−2 to −2.7)/kt for model (4). On the basis of reasonableness of the derived strength of the potential near the phase separation temperature and its relative temperature dependence, it is concluded that present data favour the Sticky hard sphere model.

• # Pramana – Journal of Physics

Volume 94, 2020
All articles
Continuous Article Publishing mode

• # Editorial Note on Continuous Article Publication

Posted on July 25, 2019