Since the first days of high-Tc superconductivity, the materials science and the physics of grain boundaries in superconducting compounds have developed into fascinating fields of research. Unique electronic properties, different from those of the grain boundaries in conventional metallic superconductors, have made grain boundaries formed by high-Tc cuprates important tools for basic science. They are moreover a key issue for electronic and large-scale applications of high-Tc superconductivity. The aim of this review is to give a summary of this broad and dynamic field. Starting with an introduction to grain boundaries and a discussion of the techniques established to prepare them individually and in a well-defined manner, the authors present their structure and transport properties. These provide the basis for a survey of the theoretical models developed to describe grain-boundary behavior. Following these discussions, the enormous impact of grain boundaries on fundamental studies is reviewed, as well as high-power and electronic device applications.

/pdf/grain-boundaries-in-high-t-c-superconductors-2widq11ljn.pdf

Grain boundaries in high- T c superconductors

Polymer based MEMS and microfluidic devices have the advantages of mechanical flexibility, lower fabrication cost and faster processing over silicon based ones. Also, many polymer materials are considered biocompatible and can be used in biological applications. A valuable class of polymers for microfabricated devices is piezoelectric functional polymers. In addition to the normal advantages of polymers, piezoelectric polymers can be directly used as an active material in different transduction applications. This paper gives an overview of piezoelectric polymers based on their operating principle. This includes three main categories: bulk piezoelectric polymers, piezocomposites and voided charged polymers. State-of-the-art piezopolymers of each category are presented with a focus on fabrication techniques and material properties. A comparison between the different piezoelectric polymers and common inorganic piezoelectric materials (PZT, ZnO, AlN and PMN?PT) is also provided in terms of piezoelectric properties. The use of piezopolymers in different electromechanical devices is also presented. This includes tactile sensors, energy harvesters, acoustic transducers and inertial sensors.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0964-1726/23/3/033001/pdf

A review of piezoelectric polymers as functional materials for electromechanical transducers

Review of progress, QNDE

Topology and collective phenomena give quantum materials emergent functions that provide a platform for developing next-generation quantum technologies, as surveyed in this Review.

Emergent functions of quantum materials

Soviet Physics JETP

By presenting brief summaries of recent application highlights, an overview of NDE methods using SQUIDs is given. Bridge inspection with a SQUID array integrated with a yoke magnet excitation was shown by scanning along the pre-stressed steel of bridges and verified by opening the bridge deck. As the construction of the megaliner Airbus aircraft progresses, testing procedures for extremely thick-walled structures are needed. Defects at a depth of up to 40 mm were measured in a bolted three-layer aluminum sample with a total thickness of 62 mm. For the investigation of aircraft wheels, a remote eddy current (EC) excitation scheme yields better depth selectivity. Defects with an inside penetration of only 10% could be detected. SQUID magnetometers are well suited for pulsed EC techniques which cover a broader depth range than standard single frequency EC. An inversion procedure is presented providing a tomographic-like conductivity image of stacked aluminum samples. A recent SQUID application is nondestructive testing of niobium sheets used for superconducting cavities of particle accelerators. The detection of tantalum inclusions and other impurities which lower the cavity performance is based on the measurement of local current inhomogeneities caused by EC excitation or thermal gradients. Alternate techniques using SQUID sensors, such as modulated excitation arrays, rotating field schemes, sensor multiplexing, magnetic moment detection, and microscopy setups, are discussed.

Recent developments in SQUID NDE

Active thermography is a nowadays widely used NDT method making use of thermal material properties for defect detection. Basically, the sample is heated and the resulting surface temperature is recorded by an IR camera. For laser thermography a laser is used to heat the sample locally. The resulting spherical heat flow allows the detection of voids in arbitrary orientation. In this work, a method is presented which is suitable for the quantitative characterization of depth and angle of surface cracks. The main idea is to evaluate the crack-caused asymmetries of the laser's thermal footprint. The heat is introduced at fixed reference positions relative to the crack. In this paper a data analysis procedure is presented which allows the crack depth and angle to be described by only two characteristic scalar parameters. By investigating artificial test specimens with spark eroded notches, the feasibility of this method is validated. Furthermore, the behavior of the characteristic parameters with variations of crack angle, depth and experimental conditions is studied systematically by FEM simulations, showing that these parameters are well behaved.

Crack sizing by laser excited thermography

Biodegradable plastics can make an important contribution to the struggle against increasing environmental pollution through plastics. However, biodegradability is a material property that is influenced by many factors. This review provides an overview of the main environmental conditions in which biodegradation takes place and then presents the degradability of numerous polymers. Polylactide (PLA), which is already available on an industrial scale, and the polyhydroxyalkanoates polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) and polyhydroxybutyrate-co-valerate (PHBV), which are among the few plastics that have been proven to degrade in seawater, will be discussed in detail, followed by a summary of the degradability of further petroleum-, cellulose-, starch-, protein- and CO2-based biopolymers and some naturally occurring polymers.

https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/13/20/4586/pdf

Review on the Biological Degradation of Polymers in Various Environments.

We present a generalized analytical model of thermo-acoustic sound generation based on the analysis of thermally induced energy density fluctuations and their propagation into the adjacent matter. The model provides exact analytical prediction of the sound pressure generated in fluids and solids; consequently, it can be applied to arbitrary thermal power sources such as thermophones, plasma firings, laser beams, and chemical reactions. Unlike existing approaches, our description also includes acoustic near-field effects and sound-field attenuation. Analytical results are compared with measurements of sound pressures generated by thermo-acoustic transducers in air for frequencies up to 1 MHz. The tested transducers consist of titanium and indium tin oxide coatings on quartz glass and polycarbonate substrates. The model reveals that thermo-acoustic efficiency increases linearly with the supplied thermal power and quadratically with thermal excitation frequency. Comparison of the efficiency of our thermo-acoustic transducers with those of piezoelectric-based airborne ultrasound transducers using impulse excitation showed comparable sound pressure values. The present results show that thermo-acoustic transducers can be applied as broadband, non-resonant, high-performance ultrasound sources.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maxim_Daschewski/publication/260552325_Physics_of_thermo-acoustic_sound_generation/links/54f6df2f0cf27d8ed71f5494.pdf

Physics of thermo-acoustic sound generation

The defect activation and detection efficiency of low-energy vibrothermography can be further improved by periodically sweeping the ultrasonic excitation frequency and Fourier-transforming the temperature data at the modulation frequency. This is due to the resulting periodic heat production. While typical local defect resonance investigations make use of known resonance frequencies, this technique instead employs a wideband ultrasonic excitation signal. It can therefore be used to detect defects quickly without knowing the LDR frequency in advance, while still keeping the efficient defect activation effects provided by LDR. Otherwise undetectably low thermal defect signals are enhanced by means of Fourier filtering and the defects’ resonance frequencies are characterized by their phase values.

Marc Kreutzbruck

Papers

Recent developments in SQUID NDE

Crack sizing by laser excited thermography

Review on the Biological Degradation of Polymers in Various Environments.

Physics of thermo-acoustic sound generation

Fourier-transform vibrothermography with frequency sweep excitation utilizing local defect resonances