Between 8 September 1943 and the end of the war, Italian Military Internees were confronted daily with a stark choice between continued resistance and opting to assist the Reich by fighting or working. Extraordinarily, over 600,000 said no, and endured internment or forced labour until they were liberated or died. Paradoxically, the minority who made the more predictable choice of opting to cooperate, the so-called optanti, constituted an anomaly. This article examines their motivation by giving an overview of the political background, the experience of deportation, the Lager environment and the phases and methods of propaganda. Primary sources indicate that hunger was a common denominator in their decision, but that the weight of other factors, which varied with individuals, broadly speaking fell into three categories: bleak honesty, specious cynicism and maverick idealism. These categories are illustrated by four case studies: the mass adhesion at Biala Podlaska and the individuals Pietro Faraci, Tranquillo Frigeni and Remo Faustini.

Numerous spurious X-ray peaks were encountered during grazing incidence angle diffractometer scans of ceramic and polymeric thin films on crystalline and amorphous substrate materials. At least three possible sources of spurious peaks are identified. (1) At (2θ) values greater than ∼ 10°, Laue reflections from characteristic and Bremsstrahlung continuum radiation produce spurious peaks with a (2θ) dependence on X-ray incident angle and sample orientation. At (2θ) values less than 10°, (2) specular X-ray reflection from a boundary between two media of different indices of refraction and (3) diffuse surface scattering produces spurious peaks with a dependence on X-ray incident angle and sample surface topography. From an understanding of the spurious peaks, improved experimental techniques may be developed. Because these peaks can interfere significantly with grazing incidence diffractometer scans, it is particularly important to those making studies of thin films by this asymmetric diffraction geometry to be aware of the existence and origins of these spurious peaks.

We investigated the structural evolution of the Ni/Au contact on GaN(000l) during annealing in N2, using in-situ x-ray diffraction, anomalous x-ray scattering, and high resolution electron microscopy. GaN decomposition occurred mostly along GaN dislocations at temperature higher than 500°C. The decomposed Ga diffused into Au and Ni substitutional positions, and the decomposed nitrogen reacted with Ni, forming Ni4N. Interestingly, Ni4N was grown epitaxially. The epitaxial relationship of the Ni4N, Au, and Ni was identified as M(111)//GaN(0002) and M[1 −1 0]//GaN[1 1 −2 0] (M= Ni4N, Au, and Ni). At dislocation free regions, however, the atomically smooth interface remained intact up to 700 °C. Remarkable improvement of device reliability is expected in the contact on dislocation free regions compared with the contact on dislocations.