Bepcii and Besiii
The Beijing Electron Collider has been upgraded (BEPCII) to a two-ring collider with a design luminosity of $1 \times 10^{33}$cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ at a center-of-mass energy of 3.78 GeV. It will operate between 2 and 4.6 GeV in the center of mass. With this luminosity, the BESIII detector will be able to collect, for example, 10 billion $J/\psi$ events in one year of running. This will be a unique facility in the world opening many physics opportunities. BEPCII and BESIII are both currently being commissioned, first events have been obtained, and data taking will take place in fall 2008.
First results of the RPC commissioning at BESIII
The commissioning of the RPC-based Muon detector in the BESIII experiment has been carried out. The RPC modules, front-end electronics, online and offline software of the muon system have been studied. The detector performances including efficiency, counting rate, noise ratio, spacial resolution, dark current, and muon charge ratio were obtained by cosmic ray data with and without magnetic field. The new operating high voltage and threshold were chosen after the scan experiment. The long-term stability of the BESIII RPCs made of bakelite without oil treatment was Studied. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Unidirectional hexagonal rare-earth disilicide nanowires on vicinal Si(100)-2×1
Rare-earth disilicide nanowires grown on vicinal Si(100) with a miscut of 2–2.5° toward the [110] azimuth at 600 °C were studied by scanning tunneling microscopy and compared with those grown on flat Si(001). In contrast to rare-earth disilicide nanowires grown on flat Si(100) surfaces, the nanowires grow unidirectionally along the [01̄1] direction of the vicinal Si(100) surface. Rare-earth disilicide nanowires form bundles composed of single nanowire units on both flat and vicinal surfaces. Yet, on the vicinal surface, the bundle width is comparable to the width of the terrace. The average nanowire length on the vicinal substrate is longer than that on the flat substrate. Scanning tunneling spectroscopy shows that the rare-earth disilicide nanowires have metallic properties.