water first interacts with accessible surface sites and enters the near-surface region. Exchange of alkali ions with hydrogen-bearing species can release sodium before the silicate network has dissolved in bulk. A schematic site exchange is
hydrolysis also breaks network linkages, illustrated by
Boron-containing linkages and the rest of the network react in a composition- and pH-dependent way. Alkali exchange changes the water chemistry, and network hydrolysis releases or rearranges constituents rather than simply removing an intact molecular glass unit.
In a finite batch of initially deionised water, dissolved products accumulate and pH evolves. silicon can be retained in a hydrated alteration gel, and condensation or restructuring changes that layer's connectivity and transport properties. Reduced chemical driving force and a less permeable interfacial layer can lower the rate; a residual glass alteration rate can persist rather than all reaction stopping at an apparent plateau. Atomistic work published before the examination provides one account of how gel restructuring can hinder hydrated-species transport, without making that account universal for all glasses.[ref]
Figure 1.
Illustrative normalised sodium, boron and silicon releases in one batch-glass-alteration scenario
. Details.
The original sketch shows one plausible scenario, not measured data or a universal ordering. sodium initially rises rapidly through exchange. boron acts as a relatively mobile tracer of network alteration, while a smaller solution silicon release reflects retention in an alteration layer. The slopes subsequently decrease as batch chemistry and the layer evolve; small continuing slopes represent residual release. Offsets can remain even if later release rates become similar. Initial deionised water does not imply that the solution remains neutral or dilute throughout the test.
boron need not be an ideal fully released tracer: it can be retained in some gels, changing the relation between aqueous boron and the depth of alteration. A later study, published in 2020, explicitly compared solution release with solid depth profiles and demonstrated that limitation; it is cited as a subsequent qualification, not evidence available to a student in May 2019.[ref]
Secondary phases can further modify dissolved inventories and, by consuming solution components, sometimes accelerate alteration again. Neither a permanently flat terminal curve nor a later acceleration is compulsory. Without a specified glass, temperature, area/volume ratio and solution history, the defensible sketch communicates exchange, network reaction and evolving retention, with those assumptions stated.
Let be the measured mass concentration of element , its blank concentration, the leachate volume, the element's mass fraction in the original glass, and the exposed glass surface area. For one closed test, the normalised elemental release is
If concentration is in , volume in litres and area in square metres, is in of glass-equivalent release. Dividing by removes the trivial difference caused by loading different amounts of the measured element; dividing by removes the first-order geometrical scale difference. Normalising only by initial element content or reporting raw solution concentration does not accomplish both corrections.
For repeated sampling with leachant replacement, use cumulative released mass: add the mass removed in all earlier aliquots to the mass present in the final remaining solution, with the corresponding blank correction. A flow-through experiment instead integrates over time. State how surface area was determined and whether it is held at its initial value in the reported normalisation; cracks, fines and alteration can change the genuinely reactive area.
Compare for several constituents. In congruent glass dissolution, the different element-normalised curves coincide, provided the released elements remain in solution. Preferential early alkali release can indicate ion exchange, whereas lower dissolved silicon or actinide release can reflect an alteration layer, sorption or secondary-phase precipitation. boron is often useful as a relatively mobile dissolution tracer, but not if the leachant contains a large boron background or if it is itself retained. A low aqueous concentration of one constituent is therefore not automatically a low glass-dissolution rate.
A near-linear interval gives an approximately constant normalised elemental release rate. A square-root time dependence can be consistent with diffusion-limited transport, and decreasing slopes can indicate saturation or a protective alteration layer; no one curve shape proves a unique mechanism. Compare solution inventories with the altered solid by microscopy, composition and phase analysis. Differences in pH, temperature, leachant composition, duration and surface-area-to-volume ratio remain even after this mass-and-area normalisation. Careful background subtraction and control of solution conditions are experimentally consequential, as demonstrated in primary flow-through measurements.[ref]
A completely filled valence band carries no net current: its occupied crystal-momentum states have velocities that cancel. Near a valence-band maximum, an almost full band is conveniently described by the few missing electrons, or electron holes. Removing an electron of charge , with , changes the charge relative to the filled band by . This is a quasiparticle description of electronic motion, not a mobile positive ion or a Positron.
For an isotropic parabolic maximum, . Assign the missing-electron state momentum and hole energy
It has positive effective mass . Its velocity equals the velocity of the missing electron state, and its positive-charge current replaces the negative of that state's electronic current. Semiclassical motion is thus . With momentum relaxation time , the low-field mobility is and
If electrons also contribute, : the two species' longitudinal conductivities add.
A Hall bar separates carrier concentration from mobility. Apply current density , magnetic field , and measure transverse electric field . For one isotropic hole population, transverse force balance gives , so
For thickness , the Hall-voltage magnitude is . A longitudinal four-terminal resistance measurement supplies independently. Use ohmic contacts, known conducting thickness, controlled temperature and low enough current to avoid self-heating. Reversing magnetic field removes even-in-field longitudinal offsets from contact misalignment; reversing current also helps reject thermoelectric offsets. These are central controls, rather than merely taking one transverse voltage reading.[ref]
The simple inference assumes one carrier type and a known Hall scattering factor. More generally , so measures Hall mobility rather than automatically the drift mobility. With two carrier populations at weak field,
Its sign alone need not identify the more numerous carrier. A Hall experiment also cannot determine and separately: their ratio sets mobility. cyclotron resonance supplies an independent mass measurement by sweeping frequency or magnetic field through and detecting resonant absorption. The measured cyclotron effective mass can depend on band anisotropy and need not equal every curvature mass; the isotropic parabolic model identifies them. Its linewidth provides a scattering-time estimate only with a specified damping model.
Figure 1.
Positive-curvature hole energy, a Hall-bar measurement, and an acceptor level in a semiconductor
. Details.
semiconductor doping generates holes by adding acceptor impurities. In silicon, a substitutional group-III atom such as boron provides one fewer valence electron than silicon. A shallow acceptor level lies slightly above the valence-band edge: accepting a valence electron makes the dopant negatively ionized and leaves a mobile hole in the valence band. The impurity stays fixed in the lattice. charge neutrality and the nondegenerate equilibrium mass-action law give
For fully ionized, uncompensated acceptors in the extrinsic regime, and ; with fully ionized donor compensation, while holes remain dominant. The Fermi level moves towards the valence band. At low temperature, semiconductor carrier freeze-out suppresses mobile electron holes; at high temperature intrinsic electron-hole generation can dominate. Increasing dopant density also changes scattering, so a conductivity increase alone cannot distinguish increased carrier density from changed mobility. Temperature-dependent Hall and conductivity measurements separate these effects, subject to the carrier and scattering qualifications above.
At a convergent margin, the incoming oceanic lithosphere is a chemically and mechanically layered package: sediments, oceanic crust and lithospheric mantle. Subduction does not deliver this whole package unchanged to one destination. Solids can be accreted, underplated, exhumed or recycled deeply, while released fluids and melts carry selected components to the overriding plate. The outcome depends on incoming composition and hydration, slab age, convergence rate, thermal structure, interface coupling and subsequent tectonic history.
Figure 1. . Original process diagram. Solid-material pathways are separated from fluid and melt transfer. The arrows represent possible routes, not universal proportions or fixed reaction depths; temporary storage and later remobilization are possible. Details.
The incoming material already contains a history. Sediments include terrigenous debris, biogenic carbonates, siliceous deposits, clay minerals, pore water and organic matter. Oceanic crust consists mainly of basalt, sheeted dikes and gabbro; hydrothermal alteration can add water, carbonates and mobile elements before subduction. Beneath it, residual peridotite forms the lithospheric mantle. Faulting at a spreading environment, a transform boundary or an outer-rise bending region can let seawater enter and cause serpentinization. The lithospheric mantle is not uniformly hydrated to its full thickness. Consequently, sediment thickness alone does not measure the incoming volatile inventory.
Sediments: separation starts near the trench. Compaction and increasing effective pressure expel pore fluids, which can escape through the forearc, transport dissolved constituents and influence pore pressure on the plate interface. Some sediments are scraped off into an accretionary prism, shortened by thrusts and retained in the upper plate. Others pass beneath the leading edge, then detach and undergo tectonic underplating beneath the forearc. Deeper underplated material may return to the surface during tectonic exhumation, preserving a record of burial and deformation. At a sediment-starved erosive margin, little prism may form, and tectonic erosion can entrain material from the overriding plate as well. Thus net continental gain and net continental loss are both possible; they can even alternate at one margin.
Sediments that remain attached to the slab undergo metamorphism, dehydration, and potentially decarbonation or carbonate dissolution. The released fluids can transport boron, barium, strontium, lead and other soluble constituents. Carbon can leave as dissolved species, remain in carbonate, or occur as reduced carbon depending on redox conditions and reaction history. Along sufficiently hot paths, sediment-derived melts or mixtures of sediment and altered rock can transfer material into the mantle wedge; buoyant mixed material may rise as a mélange diapir. Cold paths can instead retain more solid material and some volatile-bearing phases to greater depths. These are alternative reaction and transport pathways, not a single compulsory sequence. A carbon-budget study explicitly includes fluid dissolution, sediment diapirism and storage in the upper plate, showing why volcanic carbon dioxide alone cannot close the whole subduction carbon budget.[ref]
Oceanic crust: metamorphic transformation and chemical filtration. Altered basalt and gabbro are progressively buried. Depending on their pressure-temperature paths and reaction kinetics, they can pass through blueschist facies or warmer assemblages and eventually form eclogite, dominated by garnet and omphacite. Eclogitization increases density and can strengthen negative slab buoyancy, but a kinetic delay can leave metastable rock. It is incorrect to assign every slab the same sequence or the same fixed depths for these changes.
During burial, breakdown of hydrous phases releases water-rich fluids; different mineral assemblages retain different quantities of water. The fluids migrate through or along the interface and into the mantle wedge, where they cause metasomatism and lower the solidus of peridotite. Flux melting of the mantle wedge generates much of the primary magma feeding a volcanic arc. This is different from saying that the entire descending oceanic crust melts beneath the arc. Most of its refractory mass can remain solid. Partial melting of oceanic crust is more plausible for unusually hot or young slabs, or other favorable thermal conditions, and produces a distinct crustal contribution.
The depth of dehydration is controlled by thermal structure and composition. Global thermal-petrological calculations, for example, predict more efficient deep water transport in old, fast, cold slabs than in hot ones, with substantial differences between volcanic crust, gabbro and hydrated peridotite. Such a calculation supports conditional deep retention; its modeled proportions should not be imposed on every margin.[ref]
Mechanical detachment adds more branches. Upper-crustal slices, seamounts or oceanic plateaus may be accreted or underplated instead of continuing down the slab. A complete or partial ophiolite can be emplaced onto another plate by obduction in suitable convergence histories. Most intact oceanic crust is not saved this way. High-pressure fragments may be entrained in an interface channel or mélange and exhumed; their small preserved volume should not be mistaken for the dominant global mass flux. Magma generated after slab-derived transfer may also pond and crystallize beneath the upper crust by magmatic underplating, which is a different process from mechanical tectonic underplating of solid slices.
Lithospheric mantle: residual rock and a variable water carrier. Most incoming lithospheric mantle is depleted peridotite left after extraction of ridge melts. Its cold, dense, mechanically coherent portion contributes to slab pull and generally sinks with the plate. Hydrated portions contain serpentine and possibly other hydrous minerals. Breakdown of these phases releases water at conditions that depend on the thermal path, feeding further metasomatism of the mantle wedge and sometimes dehydration embrittlement. The latter is a proposed contributor to intermediate-depth earthquakes, not an exclusive explanation for all such events. Very cold paths may transfer some water onward in high-pressure hydrous phases or as hydrogen incorporated in nominally anhydrous minerals.
Do not confuse the incoming hydrated lithospheric mantle with newly serpentinized forearc mantle in the overriding plate. The latter receives slab-derived fluids and can temporarily store their water. Hydrated, relatively buoyant interface material can facilitate return flow and tectonic exhumation, while the colder deeper bulk of the lithospheric mantle continues down. Some peridotite may also be accreted or obducted with an ophiolite. These exchanges mean that even an exposed serpentinite requires structural and chemical context before it can be assigned to its original plate.
Deep recycling and eventual return. The residual eclogite, remaining sediments and lithospheric mantle can enter the deeper mantle. A slab can temporarily stagnate around the mantle transition zone or penetrate into the lower mantle, depending on buoyancy, phase transformations, geometry and mantle viscosity. Crustal material can remain as compositionally distinct domains, mix, or react with surrounding peridotite; it need not retain the near-surface eclogite assemblage indefinitely as pressure rises. Subsequent mantle convection can return recycled components toward spreading regions or mantle plumes, where partial melting incorporates them into new basalt. A primary study of Hawaiian basalt illustrates a specific model in which melts derived from recycled crust react with peridotite to form a pyroxenite source. It is an interpretation of combined chemical evidence, not a unique label attached to every enriched basalt.[ref]
How the pathways can be observed. Seismic reflection profiles, drilling, wedge geometry and balanced structural sections constrain accretion, fluid escape and tectonic erosion. High-pressure metamorphism, mineral zoning, radiometric dating and pressure-temperature-time paths in exhumed rocks reveal burial, reaction and return. Their reconstructable histories are especially useful when deformation and fluid inclusions are linked to the dated mineral growth. Earthquake distributions, seismic tomography, seismic attenuation and electrical conductivity constrain the geometry and physical state of the slab and mantle wedge, although fluids, melts and temperature can produce nonunique signals.
Arc magmas carry complementary chemical evidence: relatively mobile barium, boron, lead or strontium can trace fluid-mediated transfer, whereas sediment-sensitive thorium and isotope ratios can help identify other contributions. Element mobility changes with fluid composition and pressure-temperature conditions, so no one element is an infallible tracer. Boron isotope ratios, radiogenic strontium isotope ratios and lead isotope ratios should be interpreted with measured incoming sediments and altered oceanic crust. Arc gases and forearc fluid discharge constrain volatile return; ocean-island basalts, mantle xenoliths and diamond inclusions provide possible evidence of deeper recycling. Each observation samples only part of the system.
For any element , a useful control-volume statement is
Here permanent accretion is counted outside the chosen reactive control volume, return includes fluid, melt and exhumed-solid exports, and transient underplating or reservoir growth contributes to storage until exported. For a different boundary choice, the terms must be regrouped consistently. The three incoming layers can have very different transfer efficiencies for bulk rock, water, carbon and a particular trace element. A small mass of escaping fluid can dominate an element's return while most of the solid slab continues into the deep mantle.
Dopant atoms and carrier type. Substitutional semiconductor doping places a small fraction of foreign atoms on host lattice sites. In a tetrahedrally bonded group-IV semiconductor, a group-V substitution such as phosphorus in silicon has an extra valence electron. A shallow donor level just below the conduction edge can release that electron, leaving a positively charged donor. In an n-type semiconductor, mobile electrons are the majority carriers and the chemical potential shifts toward the conduction band.
A group-III substitution such as boron in silicon has one fewer valence electron. An acceptor level just above the valence edge captures an electron from the valence states, leaving a mobile electron hole and a negatively charged acceptor. In a p-type semiconductor, electron holes are the majority carriers and the chemical potential shifts toward the valence band. The material can remain electrically neutral in both cases: mobile carrier electric charge is compensated by fixed ionized impurity electric charge. Dopant freeze-out, compensation and degeneracy qualify the simplest one-carrier-per-dopant picture.
Making the junction. Choose p material at and n material at . Electrons initially diffuse from n to p, and electron holes from p to n, recombining near the interface. Negative ionized acceptors are exposed on the p side and positive ionized donors on the n side. They produce an electric field directed from n to p. The field opposes further majority-carrier diffusion until drift and diffusion balance and the equilibrium electrochemical potential is uniform.
The depletion regions are depleted of mobile majority carriers, not of the fixed dopant charges that create the space charge. At equilibrium the conduction and valence edges bend together, while the chemical potential is flat. The specified is a electric potential difference: the corresponding initial chemical-potential energy separation is . This convention is required by the quoted units and width formulas. Write for the absolute permittivity; the paper's is relative permittivity.
Figure 1.
Substitutional donor/acceptor levels, equilibrium band bending, fixed space charge and the junction electric field
. Details.
Poisson equation and widths. Let the depleted intervals be and . Fully ionized number densities correspond to electric charge densities , respectively. Thus
The factor converts a dopant concentration to a space-charge density. Requiring zero field in both neutral regions gives charge neutrality,
With , direct integration gives the triangular field
Continuity at the interface is the same neutrality condition. The field is negative throughout the depleted interval. Set . Its integral gives
Potential continuity therefore requires
Combining it with neutrality yields the abrupt-junction depletion width and capacitance results
The more lightly doped side depletes farther, because equal and opposite space charges must be exposed.
Applied bias. Define positive as forward bias, raising the p-side terminal potential relative to the n-side terminal. It lowers the remaining barrier from to . Reverse bias has and raises that barrier. The same Poisson integration applies, with this replacement:
Forward bias narrows the depleted region; reverse bias widens it. Under bias there need not be one equilibrium chemical potential across the device, so the equilibrium flat-level argument must not be reapplied unchanged. The barrier/width change is illustrated in the next figure.
Differential capacitance and electric charge sign. Put and . The signed p-side fixed electric charge per unit area is
Differentiating with respect to forward electric potential difference gives the positive capacitance per unit area
The n-side electric charge is , so instead. If denotes a positive space-charge magnitude, the positive capacitance is for this forward-voltage convention. This resolves the sign implicit in the paper's positive . The total device capacitance is , where is its cross-sectional area.
Finite device and numerical sketch. For the symmetric device, and each side has thickness . Before full depletion,
Using , the zero-bias width on each side is , less than . The total zero-bias capacitance is .
Full depletion occurs when , so
At larger reverse bias the depleted thickness cannot exceed . In the ideal fully depleted slab, incremental terminal electric charge changes the field uniformly through that fixed thickness, giving the full-depletion capacitance of a symmetric junction slab
Thus the idealized piecewise sketch over the specified range is
It is continuous at full depletion, rises through at zero bias, and has a formal inverse-square-root divergence as from below.
Figure 2.
Bias-dependent depletion geometry and the numerical capacitance curve, including full depletion
. Details.
There are two physical limits to this extension. Once all dopants are exposed, their fixed space charge no longer increases, but the terminal electrodes can still acquire incremental electric charge; differentiating only the fixed ionized electric charge would incorrectly predict zero capacitance. Near , the depletion approximation itself fails as mobile carriers and forward injection become important, so the formal infinite endpoint is not a prediction of an actual infinite measured capacitance. The fully depleted plateau assumes ideal contacts and no breakdown, injection storage or extra series capacitance.
Pentaborane(9) 2026-10-20
, a nido borane with a square-pyramidal boron skeleton. A bridging proton can be removed to form .
Periodic table Created 2026-10-13 Updated 2026-10-20
The periodic table arranges chemical elements in increasing atomic number, across successive periodic table periods. Its columns are periodic groups, numbered 1–18. The layout places recurring outer electron configurations above one another, making similarities in chemical bonds and chemical reactions easier to recognize. Ordering is by proton count, not by mass; the mass number of a particular isotope does not determine its box. See the official IUPAC periodic table and numbering conventions.
For the first eighteen neutral chemical atoms in their ground states, a compact description counts electrons in successive electron shells. Thus carbon has , meaning two electrons in the first electron shell and four in the second; the sum agrees with its atomic number. Sodium has , whose sum is . These are occupancy counts, not circular trajectories of electrons.
Figure 1. . Colours distinguish periodic group columns only, without encoding numerical property trends. The spaces in columns 3–12 preserve the eighteen-column periodic table layout: no chemical elements occupy those positions in these three periodic table periods. Each cell gives a chemical element's symbol, atomic number, and electron shell counts. Details.
Reading each row from left to right gives:
The counting outline is short: the occupied electron subshells in this range are , , , , and , filled in that order for these neutral ground states. Each electron subshell holds up to two electrons and each electron subshell up to six, giving , , and along these three rows. This summary applies only through argon; it is not a general rule that each electron shell fills completely before the next begins, nor a claim that the third electron shell can hold only eight electrons. See Flowers et al., Chemistry 2e, electronic structure and electron configurations.
The recurring outer counts make the arrangement useful. Lithium and sodium each have one valence electron, whereas fluorine and chlorine each have seven valence electrons. Such similarities help anticipate chemical reactions, without making all properties identical throughout a periodic group. Helium is an instructive exception to an eight-electron shortcut: its two electrons complete the first electron shell, so it belongs above neon and argon in periodic group 18. Hydrogen shares column 1 with lithium and sodium but has its own distinct chemistry. See Flowers et al., Chemistry 2e, periodic-table organization.
SNO solar-neutrino flavor experiment Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
In 2001, live days, reconstructed radius below and effective electron kinetic energy above gave a CC neutrino flux of for the assumed boron-8 spectrum. Source calibrations measured instrumental-cut signal loss. SNO's own CC–ES difference was ; comparison with Super-Kamiokande's precise ES flux gave evidence for non-electron active neutrinos. This was not an NC measurement.[ref]
In 2002 the pure-heavy water analysis used live days and a reconstructed kinetic-energy threshold. NC neutrons captured on deuterons emitted gamma rays, producing secondary electron light. The NC reaction threshold was , a different quantity. Californium-252 calibrated capture efficiency, but only detection efficiency after fiducial and energy cuts. Assays constrained backgrounds from radioactive decay and photodisintegration.[ref]
Energy, radius and direction relative to the Sun statistically separated channels. Assuming the standard boron-8 spectral shape, the NC total active neutrino flux was , consistent with stellar structure predictions. The non-electron active component differed from zero by . This established active flavour conversion, without individually tagging muon neutrinos and tau neutrinos. It did not exclude every sterile admixture.[ref]
Inorganic Chemistry 28, 1087–1091. Synthesis of the diphosphaborane and crystallographic identification of an amine-substituted phosphaborane side product. A count of boron NMR signals alone is not a substitute for its positional structure determination.