arXiv subjects

Q. Cheng

Publications and source records attributed to Q. Cheng.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Unveiling the Puzzle of Brittleness in Single Crystal Iridium

Materials for extreme environments require high strength yet ductile to tolerate catastrophic damage. Face-centered cubic (FCC) metals are typically ductile under stress, but single-crystal FCC iridium exhibits intrinsically brittle, limiting its wider applications. Great efforts on theoretical studies have attributed this to non-planar dislocation cores or impurities, while direct experimental evidence has remained elusive. Here we report that high-density, sessile Frank dislocation loops with zero-net Burgers vectors are the primary cause of the brittleness, identified through atomic-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy. Through first-principles calculations, supported by discrete dislocation dynamics simulations, we reveal that these loops form via an energetically favorable transformation from mixed perfect dislocations under stress, a process unique to iridium among other FCC metals. The immobile loops act as potent barriers, drastically increasing yield strength and work hardening by impeding dislocation glide and consuming mobile dislocations. These decisive results not only deepen the understanding of the iridium brittleness, but also describe the existence of a new embrittlement mechanism inherent to the FCC lattice and not previously described in the literature. The latter may enable novel routes for property tuning across a broad class of materials, which is of paramount importance to metallurgical technology

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2025

SVOM GRB 250314A at z $\simeq$ 7.3: an exploding star in the era of reionization

Most long Gamma-ray bursts originate from a rare type of massive stellar explosion. Their afterglows, while rapidly fading, can be initially extremely luminous at optical/near-infrared wavelengths, making them detectable at large cosmological distances. Here we report the detection and observations of GRB 250314A by the SVOM satellite and the subsequent follow-up campaign with the near-infrared afterglow discovery and the spectroscopic measurements of its redshift z $\simeq$ 7.3 . This burst happened when the Universe was only $\sim$ 5% of its current age. We discuss the signature of these rare events within the context of the SVOM operating model, and the ways to optimize their identification with adapted ground follow-up observation strategies.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2020

Effect of bed temperature on solute segregation and mechanical properties in Ti-6Al-4V produced by selective laser melting

Advanced characterisation techniques were used on LPBF Ti-6Al-4V samples produced on a heated base plate. When the substrate temperature is 100{\deg}C the elongation is 6\%, which increases and peaks at 10\% at 570{\deg}C, then sharply decreases to zero ductility at 770{\deg}C. At 100{\deg}C, a heavily strained and twinned microstructure, primarily composed of {\alpha}+{\alpha}', was observed and it was comparable to asbuilt microstructures obtained by conventional LPBF methods. At higher temperatures, twins are no longer present and instead nano-scale {\beta} precipitates are observed within {\alpha}' and {\alpha}, as well as dislocation networks (570{\deg}C) and tangles (770{\deg}C). Solute segregation at crystal defects was observed in all pre-heating conditions. Al and V segregation at microtwins was observed in the 100{\deg}C sample, reporting for the first time `selective' and mutually exclusive Al- and V-rich regions forming in adjacent twins. V segregation at dislocations was observed in the 570{\deg}C and 770{\deg}C samples, consistent with the higher preheating temperatures. High O contents were measured in all samples but with apparent opposing effects. At 100{\deg}C and 570{\deg}C was estimated to be below the critical threshold for O embrittlement and locally aids in maintaining a strength high by solid solution strengthening, whereas at 770{\deg}C it was above the threshold, therefore failing in a brittle fashion. Based on these observations, the initial increase in ductility from 100{\deg}C to 570{\deg}C is attributed to a reduction in microtwins and the dislocation networks acting as `soft barriers' for slip within a coarser microstructure. The lack of ductility at 770{\deg}C was attributed to local solute redistribution causing dislocation pinning and an increase of O content in this sample.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2020

Discovery of delayed spin-up behavior following two large glitches in the Crab pulsar, and the statistics of such processes

Glitches correspond to sudden jumps of rotation frequency ($\nu$) and its derivative ($\dot{\nu}$) of pulsars, the origin of which remains not well understood yet, partly because the jump processes of most glitches are not well time-resolved. There are three large glitches of the Crab pulsar, detected in 1989, 1996 and 2017, which were found to have delayed spin-up processes before the normal recovery processes. Here we report two additional glitches of the Crab pulsar occurred in 2004 and 2011 for which we discovered delayed spin up processes, and present refined parameters of the largest glitch occurred in 2017. The initial rising time of the glitch is determined as $<0.48$ hour. We also carried out a statistical study of these five glitches with observed spin-up processes. The two glitches occurred in 2004 and 2011 have delayed spin-up time scales ($\tau_{1}$) of $1.7\pm0.8$\,days and $1.6\pm0.4$\,days, respectively. We find that the $\Delta{\nu}$ vs. $|\Delta{\dot\nu}|$ relation of these five glitches is similar to those with no detected delayed spin-up process, indicating that they are similar to the others in nature except that they have larger amplitudes. For these five glitches, the amplitudes of the delayed spin-up process ($|\Delta{\nu}_{\rm d1}|$) and recovery process ($\Delta{\nu}_{\rm d2}$), their time scales ($\tau_{1}$, $\tau_{2}$), and permanent changes in spin frequency ($\Delta{\nu}_{\rm p}$) and total frequency step ($\Delta{\nu}_{\rm g}$) have positive correlations. From these correlations, we suggest that the delayed spin-up processes are common for all glitches, but are too short and thus difficult to be detected for most glitches.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2019

A new interface capturing method for Allen-Cahn type equations based on a flow dynamic approach in Lagrangian coordinates, I. One-dimensional case

We develop a new Lagrangian approach --- flow dynamic approach to effectively capture the interface in the Allen-Cahn type equations. The underlying principle of this approach is the Energetic Variational Approach (EnVarA), motivated by Rayleigh and Onsager \cite{onsager1931reciprocal,onsager1931reciprocal2}. Its main advantage, comparing with numerical methods in Eulerian coordinates, is that thin interfaces can be effectively captured with few points in the Lagrangian coordinate. We concentrate in the one-dimensional case and construct numerical schemes for the trajectory equation in Lagrangian coordinate that obey the variational structures, and as a consequence, are energy dissipative. Ample numerical results are provided to show that only a fewer points are enough to resolve very thin interfaces by using our Lagrangian approach.

math.NA↗

arXiv2018

A Robust Deep Learning Approach for Automatic Classification of Seizures Against Non-seizures

Identifying epileptic seizures through analysis of the electroencephalography (EEG) signal becomes a standard method for the diagnosis of epilepsy. Manual seizure identification on EEG by trained neurologists is time-consuming, labor-intensive and error-prone, and a reliable automatic seizure/non-seizure classification method is needed. One of the challenges in automatic seizure/non-seizure classification is that seizure morphologies exhibit considerable variabilities. In order to capture essential seizure patterns, this paper leverages an attention mechanism and a bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) to exploit both spatial and temporal discriminating features and overcome seizure variabilities. The attention mechanism is to capture spatial features according to the contributions of different brain regions to seizures. The BiLSTM is to extract discriminating temporal features in the forward and the backward directions. Cross-validation experiments and cross-patient experiments over the noisy data of CHB-MIT are performed to evaluate our proposed approach. The obtained average sensitivity of 87.00%, specificity of 88.60% and precision of 88.63% in cross-validation experiments are higher than using the current state-of-the-art methods, and the standard deviations of our approach are lower. The evaluation results of cross-patient experiments indicate that, our approach has better performance compared with the current state-of-the-art methods and is more robust across patients.

cs.LG↗