Disordered surface layer amorphization

Grinding or abrasion during sample preparation produces a disturbed, disordered or amorphous surface layer which is hydrous. Acid leaching removes this material. 

For crystalline pol5aners, the incorporation of filler also leads to changes in density of the amorphous phase of pol5mier. If the density of disordered regions in filled semi-crystalline pol5mier, pj, is an additive sum of the density of the disordered region in the bulk, po, and in the surface layer, ps, then we have ... 

As a final point, we note that typical surfaces are usually not crystalline but instead are covered by amorphous layers. These layers are much rougher at the atomic scale than the model crystalline surfaces that one would typically use for computational convenience or for fundamental research. The additional roughness at the microscopic level from disorder increases the friction between surfaces considerably, even when they are separated by a boundary lubricant.15 Flowever, no systematic studies have been performed to explore the effect of roughness on boundary-lubricated systems, and only a few attempts have been made to investigate dissipation mechanisms in the amorphous layers under sliding conditions from an atomistic point of view. 

The most obvious choice to determine phases that may be present in the molybdena catalyst is XRD. Matching of diffraction lines obtained for the catalyst with those of pure bulk compounds gives unequivocal identification of phases present. This is one of the few techniques that yields positive results. The absence of matching diffraction lines, however, is not proof that the phase in question is not present in the catalyst. The XRD technique is limited to particle sizes of above approximately 40 A for oxides or sulfides, lower sized particles giving no discernible pattern over that of the broad alumina pattern. Thus, the presence of a highly dispersed phase, either as small crystallites or as a surface compound of several layers thickness will not be detected. Also, if the phase is highly disordered (amorphous), a sharp pattern will not be obtained, although some broad structure above that of the alumina may be detected. It is a moot point as to whether such a case is considered as a separate phase or a perturbation of the alumina structure. Ratnasamy et al. (11) have examined their CoMo/Al catalyst from the latter point of view, with particular emphasis on the effect of calcination temperature. 

The non-diamond carbon phase in polycrystalline diamond films (often referred to as graphite, although this conclusion is far from accurate [23]) is first and foremost the disordered carbon in the intercrystallite boundaries. Their exposure to the film surface can be visualized by using a high-resolution SEM techniques [24] the intercrystallite boundaries thickness comes to a few nanometers. In addition to the intercrystallite boundaries, various defects in the diamond crystal lattice contribute to the non-diamond carbon phase, not to mention a thin (a few nanometers in thickness) amorphous carbon layer on top of diamond. This layer would form during the latest, poorly controlled stage of the diamond deposition process, when the gas phase activation has ceased. The non-diamond layer affects the diamond surface conduc-... 

Mesoporous materials of the M41S family with their regular arrays of uniform pore openings and high surface areas have attracted much attention since their first synthesis in 1992 (61), because their properties were expected to open new applications as catalysts and/or adsorbents. These materials are formed by condensation of an amorphous silicate phase in the presence of surfactant molecules (usually ammonium salts with long alkyl chains). However, the chemistry of the steps of the synthesis process is still not fully clear. Ideas put forward so far include (a) condensation of a silicate phase on the surface of a liquid crystalline phase preformed by the surfactant molecules (62) (b) assembly of layers of silicate species in solution followed by puckering of those layers to form hexagonal channels (63) and (c) formation of randomly disordered rod-like micelles with the silicate species... 

Many techniques for the preparation of nanosized materials (sol-gel, thermal treatment of polymeric precursor, electrochemical deposition, atomic layer deposition [ALD], etc.) lead to amorphous or low-crystallinity compounds by quenching of a liquid-state local structure or a very disordered state. At a given temperature, two phenomena can be at the origin of the broadening of the Raman spectrum (1) the loss of periodicity because of the large contribution of surface atoms, and (2) a low crystallinity, that is to say, short-range disorder or bond distortion, hi many cases the exact origin is not obvious and a comparison must be made with TEM. ... 

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