Raman random lasing in Ba(NO3)2 powder

Random lasing in Raman active material – barium nitrate powder – has been registered in two temporal regimes: nanosecond and picosecond. Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) in Ba(NO3)2 for picosecond excitation has been shown to have much lower threshold and spectrum containing more components than for nanosecond excitation opposite to the case of a bulk medium. In picosecond regime SRS intensity increased with temperature decreasing and redistributed in favor of the higher order components. SRS pulse duration in picosecond regime was estimated to be in the range 16.5-22 ps. High conversion efficiency of SRS in barium nitrate powder in picosecond regime and its larger stability under laser impact than for bulk samples gives possibility to use it as an active material in Raman converters.

Utilization of structural high entropy alloy for CO oxidation to CO2

The nanoengineered high entropy alloy (HEAs) catalysts have attracted the attention of the scientific community due to their exceptional characteristics; wide range of compositional tunability and the utilization of low-cost transition metals. During various electrochemical reactions, the oxidation of carbon-mono-oxide (CO) is an intermediate and it acts as a poison to reduce the efficiency of the reactions. A nanocrystalline HEA catalyst (CoFeNiGaZn) is prepared by easily scalable cast-cum-crush method, providing pristine catalyst surfaces. It is capable of catalyzing the CO-oxidation to CO2 with high conversion efficiency (99.8%). DFT calculations show that the high activity of the HEA can be attributed to the presence of a considerable amount of filled states of dxz and dyz orbital near the Fermi level for Ni atoms over the surface. Due to the favourable transfer of electrons from this orbital to the LUMO of reactant molecules, the endothermicity of the rate-determining step is 1.13 eV.