This paper investigates ballasting and remineralization controls of carbon sedimentation in the twilight zone (100-1000 m) of the Southern Ocean. Size-fractionated (<1 {micro}m, 1-51 {micro}m, >51 {micro}m) suspended particulate matter was collected by large volume in-situ filtration from the upper 1000 m in the Subantarctic (55 S, 172 W) and Antarctic (66 S, 172 W) zones of the Southern Ocean during the Southern Ocean Iron Experiment (SOFeX) in January-February 2002. Particles were analyzed for major chemical constituents (POC, P, biogenic Si, CaCO3), and digital and SEM image analyses of particles were used to aid in the interpretation of the chemical profiles. Twilight zone waters at 66 S in the Antarctic had a steeper decrease in POC with depth than at 55 S in the Subantarctic, with lower POC concentrations in all size fractions at 66 S than at 55 S, despite up to an order of magnitude higher POC in surface waters at 66 S. The decay length scale of >51 {micro}m POC was significantly shorter in the upper twilight zone at 66 S ({delta}{sub e}=26 m) compared to 55 S ({delta}{sub e}=81 m). Particles in the carbonate-producing 55 S did not have higher excess densities than particles from the …

Niobium oxide was deposited reactively using a new type of high-density plasma sputter source. The plasma beam used for sputtering is generated remotely and its path to the target defined by the orthogonal locations of two electromagnets: one at the orifice of the plasma tube and the other just beneath the target plane. To accommodate very large batches of substrates, the trade-off between load capacity and deposition rates was evaluated. The effect on deposition rate was determined by moving the plasma source away from the target in one direction and by moving the target assembly away in an orthogonal direction. A simple methodology was used to reestablish the reactive deposition rate and oxide quality even when large changes were made to the chamber geometry. Deposition parameters were established to produce nonabsorbing niobium oxide films of about 100- and 350-nm thicknesses. The quality of the niobium oxide films was studied spectroscopically, ellipsometrically, and stoichiometrically.

We describe a simple model for electron-molecule collisions that has one nuclear and one electronic degree of freedom and that can be solved to arbitrarily high precision, without making the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, by employing a combination of the exterior complex scaling method and a finite-element implementation of the discrete variable representation. We compare exact cross sections for vibrational excitation and dissociative attachment with results obtained using the local complex potential approximation as commonly applied in the ''boomerang'' model, and suggest how this two-dimensional model can be used to test the underpinnings of contemporary nonlocal approximations to resonant collisions.

We report orientation-specific, surface-sensitive structural characterization of colloidal CdSe nanorods with extended X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy and ab-initio density functional theory calculations. Our measurements of crystallographically-aligned CdSe nanorods show that they have reconstructed Cd-rich surfaces. They exhibit orientation-dependent changes in interatomic distances which are qualitatively reproduced by our calculations. These calculations reveal that the measured interatomic distance anisotropy originates from the nanorod surface.