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Different methods of determining formation rates of 3nm particles are compared, basing on analysis of simulated data, but the results are valid for analyses of experimental particle size distribution data as well. The study shows that the method of determining formation rates indirectly from measured number concentration data of 3-6nm particles is generally in good agreement with the theoretical calculation with a systematic error of 0-20%. While this is often accurate enough, a simple modification to the approximative equation for the formation rate is recommended. Additionally, the temporal connection between the concentration of the nucleating vapour and the formation rate is studied. It is concluded that the often used power-law connecting these two is inaccurate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atmospheric new particle formation is generally thought to occur due to homogeneous or ion-induced nucleation of sulphuric acid. We compare ambient nucleation rates with laboratory data from nucleation experiments involving either sulphuric acid or oxidized SO2. Atmospheric nucleation occurs at H2SO4 concentrations 2-4 orders of magnitude lower than binary or ternary nucleation rates of H2SO4 produced from a liquid reservoir, and atmospheric H2SO4 concentrations are very well replicated in the SO2 oxidation experiments. We hypothesize these features to be due to the formation of free HSO5 radicals in pace with H2SO4 during the SO2 oxidation. We suggest that at temperatures above ∼250K these radicals produce nuclei of new aerosols much more efficiently than H2SO4. These nuclei are activated to further growth by H2SO4 and possibly other trace species. However, at lower temperatures the atmospheric relative acidity is high enough for the H2SO4-H2O nucleation to dominate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have performed a series of simulations with an aerosol dynamics box model to study the connection between new particle formation and sulphuric acid concentration. For nucleation either activation mechanism with a linear dependence on the sulphuric acid concentration or ternary H2O-H2SO4-NH3 nucleation was assumed. We investigated the factors that affect the sulphuric acid dependence during the early stages of particle growth, and tried to find conditions which would yield the linear dependence between the particle number concentration at 3-6nm and sulphuric acid, as observed in field experiments. The simulations showed that the correlation with sulphuric acid may change during the growth from nucleation size to 3-6nm size range, the main reason being the size dependent growth rate between 1 and 3 nm. In addition, the assumed size for the nucleated clusters had a crucial impact on the sulphuric acid dependence at 3 nm. The simulations yielded a linear dependence between the particle number concentration at 3 nm and sulphuric acid, when a low saturation vapour pressure for the condensable organic vapour was assumed, or when nucleation took place at ∼2 nm instead of ∼1 nm. Comparison of results with activation and ternary nucleation showed that ternary nucleation cannot explain the experimentally observed linear or square dependence on sulphuric acid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study covers four years of aerosol number size distribution data from Pallas and Värriö sites 250km apart from each other in Northern Finland and compares new particle formation events between these sites. In eastern air masses almost all events were observed to start earlier at the eastern station Värriö, whereas in western air masses most of the events were observed to start earlier at the western station Pallas. This demonstrates that particle formation in a certain air mass type depends not only on the diurnal variation of the parameters causing the phenomenon (such as photochemistry) but also on some properties carried by the air mass itself. The correlation in growth rates between the two sites was relatively good, which suggests that the amount of condensable vapour causing the growth must have been at about the same level in both sites. The value of condensation sink was frequently much higher at the downwind station. It seems that secondary particle formation related to biogenic sources dominate in many cases over the particle sinks during the air mass transport between the sites. Two cases of transport from Pallas to Värriö were further analysed with an aerosol dynamics model. The model was able to reproduce the observed nucleation events 250km down-wind at Värriö but revealed some differences between the two cases. The simulated nucleation rates were in both cases similar but the organic concentration profiles that best reproduced the observations were different in the two cases indicating that divergent formation reactions may dominate under different conditions. The simulations also suggested that organic compounds were the main contributor to new particle growth, which offers a tentative hypothesis to the distinct features of new particles at the two sites: Air masses arriving from Atlantic Ocean typically spent approximately only ten hours over land before arriving at Pallas, and thus the time for the organic vapours to accumulate in the air and to interact with the particles is relatively short. This can lead to low nucleation mode growth rates and even to suppression of detectable particle formation event due to efficient scavenging of newly formed clusters, as was observed in the case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have used positron annihilation spectroscopy to study vacancy type defects in strained P doped Si1−xGex layers grown on Si substrates and irradiated with 2 MeV protons. The results show that the dominant defect in the SiGe layer after irradiation is the E-center, the V–P pair. When the sample is annealed at 150–175°C the dominant defect species in the SiGe layer changes into a complex consisting of a vacancy, a P dopant and a Ge atom (V–P–Ge complex). The V–P–Ge complex anneals out at 200°C. The 50°C higher annealing temperature of the V–P–Ge complex corresponds to about 0.1–0.2 eV larger binding energy than that of the V–P pair. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]