Tesi di Dottorato

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    Adsorption properties of carbon nanotubes and application of thermal desoprtion spectroscopy to ammonia and methane ices and zoisite
    (2010-12-14) Vasta, Roberta; Bonanno, Assunta; Falcone, Giovanni
    In this work we wanted to underline the importance of Thermal Desorption Spectroscopy and its applications to several branches of Physics. Temperature-programmed desorption techniques (TPD) are important to determinate kinetic and thermodynamic parameters of desorption processes and decomposition reactions. Knowledge of the nature of the desorption process is fundamental to understand the nature of the elementary chemical processes of adsorbates, as the energetics of bonding, the specification of the chemical nature of the bound species and the nature and magnitude of interactional effect between adsorbed species. We focused our attention on the applications of Thermal Desorption Spectroscopy (TDS) to High-Energies Physics, Astrophysics and Geophysics; in fact this technique was used, respectively, to investigate the molecular hydrogen adsorption on carbon nanotubes, the effects of electron bombardment on ammonia and methane ices and changes of zoisite mineral after heating. The molecular hydrogen adsorption on carbon nanotubes was studied to find a possible solution to vacuum system problems of Large Hadron Collider (LHC); in fact, the circular path of photon beams produces synchrotron radiation which deteriorates LHC vacuum desorbing gas molecules from the ring walls. Among the desorbed species the most problematic to pump out is H2. Since LHC elements operate at low temperatures, a possible solution to vacuum problem is the installation of cryosorbent materials on the LHC walls. In this work we study the possibility to use carbon nanotubes as criosorbers in future accelerators. Our sample, furnished by Prof. Nagy group of Chemical Engineering Department of Calabria University, is constituted by MWNTs synthesized by chemical vapor deposition using C2H4 and subsequently purified. Our investigations confirm that the carbon nanotubes have a great adsorption capacity also at low temperatures both for H2 and noble gases as Kr; then we observed that H2 adsorption on CNT is described by a first kinetic-order, while Kr adsorption is characterized by a zero kinetic-order. By means of TDS we calculate the activation energy for H2 adsorption on carbon nanotubes and we found a value of about 3KJ/mol, perfectly coherent with theoretic one. Moreover, from a comparison between nanotubes and other carbon-based material (as charcoal), we noted that adsorption efficiency for CNT is almost an order of magnitude higher then charcoal. So carbon nanotubes are good candidates to cryosorbers in future accelerators. 2 As Thermal Desorption Spectroscopy application to Astrophysics we studied the effect of electron bombardment on ammonia and methane ices. The interstellar medium is composed for 99% by gas; molecules, atoms and radicals at gas state condense on dust grains surface of molecular clouds (at 10 K) creating an icy mantle with a thickness of 0.1 μm. The presence of ices is confirmed by IR spectroscopy of obscured stellar sources and in interstellar grains are localized solid mixture containing H2O, CO, CH4 and NH3. In these environments ices are subjected to chemical and physical processes, specifically to bombardment of photons and cosmic rays, with the consequent synthesis of new organic species In this work we conducted an investigation of the chemical processing of ammonia and methane ices subjected to energetic electrons. By Thermal Desorption Spectroscopy we verify the production of new organic species, after energetic irradiation in interstellar ices, as diazene (N2H2), ethane (C2H6) and acetylene (C2H2). Finally, in Geophysics and Petrology Thermal Desorption Spectroscopy can be used to study minerals chemical composition. Our interest was focused on zoisite and the sample investigated was furnished by prof. Ajò from “Institute of Inorganic Chemistry and Surfaces” of CNR, in Padova. In this work we used TDS to investigate zoisite behaviour during heating form room temperature to 650oC and to understand if its modification into tanzanite variety after heating is due to structural changes or to a dehydration mechanism.
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    Integration of mercury atmospheric models in a framework for interoperable workflow execution
    (2017-01-16) Boldrini, Enrico; Carbone, Vincenzo; Pirrone, Nicola; Nativi, Stefano
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    Viaggio nel mondo dei quanti. Le avventure di Alice nel paese delle meraviglie
    (2014-11-12) Santopaolo, Valentina; Pantano, Pietro; Piperno, Francesco
    L’era digitale, internet e la multimedialità hanno notevolmente modificato il modo in cui ragazzi e adolescenti fruiscono le informazioni, rispetto alla precedente generazione. Abbiamo di fronte degli individui, i nativi digitali, che hanno accesso giornaliero ai social network, agli smartphone, alle app, tutti ricchi di contenuti multimediali che implicano una propensione verso le immagini, la lettura veloce e il multitasking. Sono cresciuti con una minore capacità di attenzione verso il testo scritto e un’attenzione più spiccata verso l’immagine. Tutto ciò deve far riflettere sulla necessità di creare nuovi modelli e contenuti per la divulgazione scientifica, che siano più appropriati e si adeguino al nuovo modo di approcciarsi e fruire le informazioni. Il presente progetto propone un prodotto multimediale che comprende il fumetto, il libro illustrato e il CD interattivo come mezzo alternativo di comunicazione e insegnamento della fisica quantistica agli adolescenti, essendo questi contenuti molto prossimi ai modelli comunicativi che risultano familiari agli adolescenti. Contenuto del progetto è una storia, con un personaggio molto noto, Alice del celebre romanzo di Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, protagonista di un viaggio “alternativo” rispetto a quello che ‘storicamente’ ha fatto. Un viaggio in un mondo popolato da elettroni, fotoni e scienziati impegnati a spiegare gli strani principi della fisica quantistica, che sembrano curiosi almeno quanto quelli del paese delle meraviglie.
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    Optical trapping and manipulation exploiting liquid crystalline systems
    (2012-11-30) Hernandez, Raul Josue; Versace, Carlo; Cipparrone, Gabriella
    This thesis and all the research contained within, pretends to develop new ideas and concepts on liquid crystals (LC) and optical trapping and manipulation. The combination between optical tweezers and LC systems promises unique and exciting results. The content on the thesis is presented for those with some experience in the elds of liquid crystal and optical manipulation, and for those who are interested in begin to learn about these matters, proposing an overview of much existing work and a correlation between di erent science branches like soft matter, photonics and optical control. Two main research lines has been developed involving liquid crystalline systems and polarized optical tweezers. In the rst part, nematic LC droplets in water have been adopted to study the mechanical properties of light elds with a polarization gradient, i.e. optical tweez- ers based on polarization holographic techniques with non conventional trapping in an extended interferometric optical trap. For this purpose, LC emulsions in wa- ter were prepared, obtaining droplets with radial or bipolar director con guration, which result in optically isotropic or anisotropic particles. Exploiting the vecto- rial nature of the light and its interaction with LC droplets, an unconventional opto-hydrodynamical control and trapping has been demonstrated. The planned experiments shown that a hydrodynamic force, known as Magnus force, never con- sidered in optical micromanipulation experiments, can play an important role in the optical micromanipulation and should be considered whenever particles are forced to spin and dragged in a uid. In the second part, the study was mainly focused into developing an innovative and versatile soft matter object, namely chiral-solid microspheres. They were created by combining very simple self-assembling and photoinduced processes of the soft mat- ter, i.e. photopolymerizing cholesteric LC droplets in water emulsion. The ability to control the internal helical geometry using chemical agents in the precursor LC emulsion enables to obtain solid microspheres with radial, conical, or cylindrical con gurations of the helical structures that exhibit unique optical properties. Their exclusive capabilities were demonstrated by optical manipulation experiments in- volving optical tweezers. A unique and dichotomous behavior has been revealed by polarized circularly polarized tweezers: an attractive or repulsive optical force is ex- erted by varying the light polarization. Moreover, the application of the chiral-solid microspheres as optical microresonators for creating microlasers was also demon- strated. The high performance as well as the novel and exclusive properties make these chiral microparticles good candidates for developing new concepts in colloidal materials science, microphotonics, microlasers, optical trapping and manipulation, micro- and opto uidics and microsensors.
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    Electronic Excitations ofGraphene, Graphene Nickel interfaces, and Carbon Nanotubes
    (2012-11-30) Pisarra, Michele; Riccardi, Pierfrancesco; Fiore, Roberto
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    Aspects of Integrability in AdS/CFT duality
    (2011) Infusino, Gabriele; Rossi, Marco; Falcone, Giovanni
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    Turbulence and structures in plasma astrophysics
    (2011) Donato, Sandro; Carbone, Vincenzo; Falcone, Giovanni
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    A Lévy Walk approach to the propagation of solar energetic particles
    (2013-11-26) Trotta, Enrico Maria; Bertolini, Roberto; Zimbardo, Gaetano
    This thesis is dedicated to the problem of energetic particle propagation in the solar wind, with special emphasis on the propagation of solar energetic particles (SEPs). Those particles are accelerated either in the low corona by flares, usually giving rise to so-called impulsive SEP events, or in the higher corona by the shock driven by coronal mass ejections, giving rise to the so-called gradual SEP events. In either case, energetic particles propagate in the solar wind along the spiral magnetic field, and then reach the Earth’s environment, where they can intensify the auroral emission and downgrade or even damage spacecraft operations. Indeed, SEPs represent one of the major hazards of the research programme known as space weather, which aims at reducing the risks associated with the solar and space activities. The fluxes of energetic particles measured in the Earth’s environment depend both on the source strength and on the propagation properties. Traditionally, two limiting transport regimes are considered, that is, di usive transport and scatter-free, i.e., ballistic, transport. However, in the last two decades, anomalous transport regimes in which the mean square displacement grows nonlinearly with time have become more and more common. An anomalous transport regime, either subdi usive or superdi usive, would influence in a fundamental way the flux of solar energetic particles reaching the Earth. To study this problem we have developed two approaches, one based on the analysis of SEP fluxes measured by spacecraft in the solar wind, and the other on the numerical simulation of SEPs in the case of superdi usive transport. In the first approach, we considered SEPs measurements by ACE, Wind and other spacecraft for the case o mpulsive SEP events, and compared the time profile of the energetic particles with that corresponding to the di erent forms which the propagator assumes in the case of superdi usive transport. The comparison gives direct information on the transport regime, showing that electrons propagate in a superdi usive way with anomalous di usion exponent alpha running from 1.2 to 1.75. For protons, quasi-ballistic transport regimes are also found. In the second approach, the statistical mechanism giving rise to superdi usion, namely the Lévy random walk, is investigated numerically. We developed a new numerical code which simulates the Lévy walk while changing the parameters which determine the pace of transport, that is the exponent of the power law tails of the jump probability distribution. This code reproduces well the anomalous transport predictions for the mean square displacement and for the propagator of Lévy walks, while allowing a clear and simple identification of the parameters determining the transport regime. Therefore this code represents a powerful tool to compare the simulation results to spacecraft data. Comparison with the data has been considered both for impulsive and gradual SEP events. In this thesis, we show that the numerical code reproduces well the observations o mpulsive events for the various transport regimes. Additional work is required to apply the code to the propagation of gradual SEP events, as modeling of the shock source is required. While this will be implemented in the near future, the e ectivitiy of the numerical code will allow an important improvement in the understanding of SEP propagation and in the prediction of space weather perturbations