The temperature dependence of the electrical conductivity, thermoelectric power and dielectric constant of the antiferromagnetic CuWO₄ have been studied in the temperature range 300–1000 K. The conductivity results can be summarised by the equations σ_I=6.31 × 10⁻³ exp (−0.29 eV/kT) ohm⁻¹ cm⁻¹ in the temperature range 300–600 K and σ_II=3.16 × 10⁵ exp (−1.48 eV/kT) ohm⁻¹ cm⁻¹ between 600 K and 1000 K. The thermoelectric power can be expressed byθ=[− 1.25 (10³/T) + 3.9] mV/K. Initially dielectric constant increases slowly but for high temperatures its increase is fast.

The Raman spectrum of polycrystalline α-naphthylamine was recorded in the region 100–4000 cm⁻¹. Polarisation measurements were made in CS₂ and CHCl₃ solutions. The infrared spectrum was recorded in nujol mull in the region 200–4000 cm⁻¹. The resolution was better than 2 cm⁻¹ and the accuracy of the measurements was within ± 2 cm⁻¹ for all the spectra. Vibrational assignments have been proposed for the observed frequencies. Out of the 54 normal modes of vibrations, 51 modes could be observed experimentally.

A dedicated working setup for studying the process of atomic-field bremsstrahlung and its dependence on various parameters for keV electrons incident on a solid or a gaseous target has been indigenously developed. The setup consists of a high vacuum scattering chamber attached with a rotatable X-ray photon detector, a home-built high voltage electron gun with a replaceable tungsten-filament cathode, an isolated floating high voltage system, high vacuum pumping units, various signal processing electronic modules and an IBM PC/XT based 4K-multichannel analyzer. A brief description of the facility is presented. The performance of the facility has been tested by recording the bremsstrahlung spectra from 7.0 keV electrons on thin Ag, Au and 7.5 keV electrons on Hf targets; the corresponding spectra are presented and discussed. The gun can operate in the range of 0–8.0 kV accelerating voltage in the present configuration. Other feasible experiments that can be performed on the setup are also briefly mentioned.

An on-line facility to measure coincidences between the recoil ions and the scattered projectiles (SCORPION) has been designed, fabricated and commissioned at Nuclear Science Centre (NSC), New Delhi. The facility consists of a four jaw slit assembly, a time of flight (TOF) spectrometer, a parallel plate electrostatic charge analyser and a one dimensional position sensitive parallel plate avalanche counter (PPAC). Details of the design and working principles of various components and the test results obtained for the Si^q+-Ar collision system are presented to highlight the performance of the system. A multiple loss of up to four electrons has been observed for 60 MeV Si⁴⁺ ions colliding with argon atoms in a single collision condition. Spectra of recoil ions detected in coincidence with a particular charge state of the scattered projectile show a bell shaped distribution as a function of the recoil charge state (r) for the electron loss events. However, the yield of recoil ions drops asr increases for the direct ionization channel. Also for electron loss, the peak of the recoil ion distribution is seen to shift to a higher recoil charge state as the number of lost electrons from the projectile increases.

A projectile ion-recoil ion coincidence technique has been employed to study the multiple ionization and the charge transfer processes in collisions of 60–120 MeV Si^q+ (q = 4−14) ions with neutral argon atoms. The relative contribution of different ionization channels, namely; direct ionization, electron capture and electron loss leading to the production of slow moving multiply charged argon recoil ions have been investigated. The data reported on the present collision system result from a direct measurement in the considered impact energy for the first time. The total ionization cross-sections for the recoil ions are shown to scale as q^1.7/E_p^0.5, where E_p is the energy in MeV of the projectile and q its charge state. The recoil fractions for the cases of total- and direct ionizations are found to decrease with increasing recoil charge state j. The total ionization fractions of the recoils are seen to depend on q and to show the presence of a ‘shell-effect’ of the target. Further, the fractions are found to vary as 1/j² upto j = 8+. The average recoil charge state 〈j〉 increases slowly with q and with the number of lost or captured electrons from or into the projectile respectively. The projectile charge changing cross-sections σ_qq′ are found to decrease with increasing q for loss ionization and to increase with q for direct-and capture ionization processes respectively. The physics behind various scaling rules that are found to follow our data for different ionization processes is reviewed and discussed.

Development of a new lectron-recoil ion/photon coincidence setup for investigating some of the electron induced collision processes, such as electron bremsstrahlung, electron backscattering, innershell excitation and multiple ionization of target atoms/molecules in bombardment of electrons having energies from 2.0 keV to 30.0 keV with solid and gaseous targets is described. The new features include the use of a compact multipurpose scattering chamber, a time-of-flight spectrometer for detection of multiply charged target ions, a 45°-parallel plate electrostatic analyzer for measuring energy and angle of the ejected electrons, a room temperature high resolution Si-PIN photo diode X-ray detector for counting the collisionally induced photons, a coincidence data acquisition system consisting of a 200 MHz Pentium based 8K-multichannel analyzer and a standard network of a fast/slow coincidence electronics. In particular, the details of design, fabrication and assembly of indigenous components employed in the setup are presented. Selected experiments planned with the setup are mentioned and briefly discussed. A report on performance, optimization, efficiency, time resolution etc. of the time-of-flight (TOF) spectrometer and that of the 45°-parallel plate electrostatic analyzer (PPEA) is presented. Test spectra of electron-recoil ion coincidences, energy distribution of ejected electrons and characteristic plus non-characteristic X-ray spectrum are illustrated to exhibit the satisfactory performance of the developed setup.

A time-of-flight spectrometer has been designed and fabricated for measuring the charge state distributions of target ions produced in collisions of keV-electrons with gaseous target atoms/molecules. The design details of the spectrometer and the description of experimental procedures for optimizing various parameters are presented and discussed. The working principle of the spectrometer, its time- and mass-focussing conditions, transmissions and detection efficiency etc. are given. A few typical test runs on multiple ionization of Ne and Ar gas atoms are illustrated. These spectra are found to yield the time resolution of about 10 ns for Ar⁴⁺ ion peak in 24.0 keV e⁻ — Ar collisions while the mass resolution of the spectrometer is obtained about 10% at mass m=20.