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EPJ E Colloquium: nanoparticles, nanorods and nanosheets at fluid interfaces

pH-induced, SWCNT segregation transition

In this EPJ E Review, Toor, Feng and Russel present many examples of self-assembly of nanoscale materials (both synthetic and biological) such as nanoparticles, nanorods and nanosheets at liquid/liquid interfaces. For biological nanoparticles, the nanoparticle assembly at fluid interfaces provide a simple route for directing nanoparticles into 2-D or 3-D constructs with hierarchical ordering.

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EPJ.org Mobile App available

EPJ Mobile App

EDP Sciences launches EPJ.org mobile app. Available and free to download from the iTunes App Store and from Google Play (for Android devices).

EPJ Mobile App Screenshot

Keep up with the latest research in the physical sciences with the EPJ Journals app. The app offers a news sections with lay summaries highlighting the findings reported in selected research papers, updates on the journals contents as soon as they are published, including research papers, reviews, colloquia and proceedings papers from all European Physical Journals (http://www.epj.org). You can search to find specific papers, navigate the journals contents by issue and find out about active calls for papers.

Note: if you are accessing through a mobile device connected through your institutional VPN, you will be able to access the full text PDFs if your institution has a subscription to the journals. Some of the EPJ journals are published in Open Access so they are fully accessible to anyone, from anywhere.

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EPJ A Managing Editor Reviews Ulf-G. Meißner receives 2016 Lise Meitner Prize

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Prof. Ulf-G.Meißner

The Nuclear Physics Division of the EPS awards the prestigious Lise Meitner Prize every alternate year to one or several individuals for outstanding work in the fields of experimental, theoretical or applied nuclear science. Professor Ulf-G.Meißner, Universität Bonn and Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany, Managing Editor for Reviews and former Editor-in-Chief of EPJ A, receives the 2016 Lise Meitner Prize “for his developments and applications of effective field theories in hadron and nuclear physics, that allowed for systematic and precise investigations of the structure and dynamics of nucleons and nuclei based on Quantum Chromodynamics”.

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EPJ E Highlight - Travelling wave drives magnetic particles

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Optical microscope images separated by 6.63 s showing the formation of chains between only the large particles starting from an initially random mixture of two particles sizes.

New method for selectively controlling the motion of multiple sized microspheres suspended in water

As our technology downsizes, scientists often operate in microscopic-scale jungles, where modern-day explorers develop new methods for transporting microscopic objects of different sizes across non uniform environments, without losing them. Now, Pietro Tierno and Arthur Straube from the University of Barcelona, Spain, have developed a new method for selectively controlling, via a change in magnetic field, the aggregation or disaggregation of magnetically interacting particles of two distinct sizes in suspension in a liquid. Previous studies only focused on one particle size. These results, just published in EPJ E, show that it is possible to build long chains of large particles suspended in a liquid, forming channels that drive the small particles to move along. This could be helpful, for example, when sorting magnetic beads by size, separating biological or chemical entities in lab-on-a-chip devices or transporting biological species to analyse them.

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EPJ D Highlight - How repeated spot microdischarges damage microdevices

Simulated velocity field of the microfilament in the vicinity of the dielectric wall after the train of 150 localised breakdowns

New study blames temperature increase on locally reoccurring discharges in microelectronic devices

In microelectronics, devices made up of two electrodes separated by an insulating barrier are subject to multiple of microdischarges—referred to as microfilaments—at the same spot. These stem from residual excited atoms and ions from within the material, the surface charge deposited on the insulating part of the device, and local temperature build-up. These reoccurences can lead to the creation of pin-holes in the material of the microelectronic devices where they occur, and are due to local reductions in the electric field. Now, Jozef Ráhel and colleagues from Masaryk University in the Czech Republic have elucidated the mechanism of microdischarge reoccurrence, by attributing it to the temperature increase in a single microdischarge. These results were recently published in EPJ D.

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EPJ D Highlight - Bending hot molecules

Japanese scientists have developed a method to study hot carbon dioxide molecules by controlling the likelihood that reactions occur between electrons and hot molecules. vector_master / Fotolia

New model for controlling hot molecules reactions, which are relevant to fusion, space exploration and planetary science

Hot molecules, which are found in extreme environments such as the edges of fusion reactors, are much more reactive than those used to understand reaction studies at ambient temperature. Detailed knowledge of their reactions is not only relevant to modelling nuclear fusion devices; it is also crucial in simulating the reaction that takes place on a spacecraft’s heat shield at the moment when it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere. Further, it can help us understand the physics and chemistry of planetary atmospheres. In a novel and comprehensive study just published in EPJ D, Masamitsu Hoshino from Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan, and colleagues reveal a method for controlling the likelihood that these reactions between electrons and hot molecules occur, by altering the degree of bending the linear molecules, modulated by reaching precisely defined temperatures.

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EPJ Plus Highlight - You were right: rotational motion is relative, too, Mr Einstein!

Einstein's relativity theory also applies to rotational motion. © sakkmesterke / Fotolia

Extension of the relativity theory to rotational motion, one hundred years after Einstein first published the general theory of relativity

It has been one hundred years since the publication of Einstein’s general theory of relativity in May 1916. In a paper recently published in EPJ Plus, Norwegian physicist Øyvind Grøn from the Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences and his co-author Torkild Jemterud demonstrate that the rotational motion in the universe is also subject to the theory of relativity.

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EPJ A Highlight - Nuclear physics’ interdisciplinary progress

Nuclear physics’ interpretations could benefit from approaches found in other fields of physics.
© Christoph Burgstedt / Fotolia

Theoretical nuclear physics could yield unique insights by extending methods and observations from other research fields

The theoretical view of the structure of the atom nucleus is not carved in stone. Particularly, nuclear physics research could benefit from approaches found in other fields of physics. Reflections on these aspects were just released in a new type of rapid publications in the new Letters section of EPJ A, which provides a forum for the concise expression of more personal opinions on important scientific matters in the field. In a Letter to the EPJ A Editor, Pier Francesco Bortignon and Ricardo A. Broglia from the University of Milan, Italy, use, among others, the example of superconductivity to explain how nuclear physics can extend physical concepts originally developed in solid state physics.

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EPJ A Highlight - Analysing Coulomb-excitation experiments with exotic beams

Dedicated detection arrays for particle--ray coincidences are now routinely in use at radioactive-ion beam facilities around the world.

This paper presents a number of novel and alternative analysis techniques to extract transition strengths and quadrupole moments from Coulomb excitation data with Radioactive Ion Beams (RIBs) using the GOSIA code. It is anticipated that related approaches and techniques will gain an even greater importance as a wider range of post-accelerated RIBs becomes available at the next generation of ISOL facilities.

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EPJ A Highlight - First measurement of 60Ge β-decay

A sample image recorded by the OTPC detector’s CCD camera showing the particle trajectories. The vertical track corresponds to the 60Ge ion entering the detector and the other track corresponds to the (β-delayed) proton.

60Ge, with its 28 neutrons and 32 protons, is an extremely exotic nucleus, discovered about 10 years ago when only three ions were produced. Its decay properties were measured for the first time in this work. In this experiment, performed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (MSU, USA), the

60Ge ions were produced in 78Kr beam fragmentation reactions and separated from the other reaction products in the A1900 separator. The ions were detected in the active volume of the gaseous time-projection chamber with optical readout (OTPC), where they later decayed. This detector allows exotic decay modes to be identified, even with very small statistics present. The decay of about 20

60Ge ions was observed by β-delayed proton emission yielding a branching ratio of ~100% and a half-life of 20+7-5 ms. This value agrees well with theoretical predictions.

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Open calls for papers