Coupling of one-dimensionally confined optical modes in porous silicon: Spectral observation and photonic-quantum-well description

Single and double photonic-quantum-wells (PQWs) have been fabricated, using refractive-index-modulated porous silicon multilayer structures. The one-dimensionally confined optical modes observed are consistent with those calculated using the transfer matrix method. While single PQWs exhibit atom-like discrete spectral features, molecule-like energy level splitting is accessible by combining two single PQWs into a double PQW structure. Similar to an electron in a double-quantum-well structure, the energy separation between the split ‘anti-bonding’ and ‘bonding’ photonic states can be ‘tuned’ by changing the strength of inter-well coupling.     

Critical ray-like propagation modes along graded-index planar optical waveguides

Graded-index planar optical waveguides and surface compression layers were formed simultaneously in the surface layer of glass plates by ion exchange. A change in the refractometer patterns was observed. Before ion exchange, only a critical ray fringe was observed, but with ion exchange a guided wave fringe appeared on the high effective refractive index side of the ‘critical ray’ fringe, and the number of guided wave fringes increased. The guided wave fringe or fringes were birefringent, whereas the ‘critical ray’ fringe was kept nonbirefringent. It was concluded that the ‘critical ray’ propagated along the bottom of a waveguide, ie at the foot of the refractive index distribution.     

Non-contact optical fibre phased array generation of ultrasound for non-destructive evaluation of materials and processes

The use of non-contact laser techniques for the generation of ultrasound has extended the limits of the application of traditional ultrasonic techniques. This paper focusses on the use of one such non-contact laser technique, known as ‘optical fibre array’, to generate shear and surface waves. The shear wave experimental directivity pattern results are presented and compared with the theoretical results of a single source and an array source. The experimental directivity results for the surface wave are also presented, and compared with the theoretical results. The data show that the array enhances signal generation in the forward direction for both shear and surface waves. The array gain is also discussed. The receiver for the directivity measurements was a contact piezoelectric transducer.     

Characteristics pathlength Fresnel number equations and ideal lens wavefront Kirchhoff formulation: analysis of focused spherical wave diffraction fields

Derivation and applications of the characteristics optical pathlength Fresnel number equation for spherical waves focused by an ‘ideal’ circular lens illustrate the wealth of information which is quickly available from its use. A Kirchhoff wavefront diffraction formulation of this problem is developed and used to aid in this analysis. New characteristics about the diffraction field are revealed.     

The tube peeper: a new concept in endoscopy

In conventional endoscopy the imaging device has to rotated to produce a full 360° image. A new ‘tube peeper’ has been devised that can view the whole panoramic field simultaneously. The image produced has flat cylinder perspective rather than the familiar central convergence perspective.The device is simpler to manufacture than conventional ones, and has the potential for miniaturization     

Two-element laser beam expander

A simple laser beam expander is described which possesses several attractive features: there are only two optical elements; it is unobscured; it covers a wide spectral range with excellent performance; it can be made for any particular expansion ratio; and one of the two elements can usually be bought as an ‘off-the-shelf’ item.     

Generation of tunable green radiation in bulk periodically poled KTiOPO4

We report a characterisation of a flux-grown periodically poled KTiOPO₄ crystal used for second-harmonic generation in a diode laser source, that operates with fundamental radiation tunable around 1083 nm wavelength. The conversion efficiency is measured for the three different grating periods of the crystal, as a function of input wavelength, crystal temperature and fundamental power. The measurements were fitted to the theoretical model of Boyd and Kleinman for frequency conversion of focused Gaussian beams. This enabled us to determine the temperature and wavelength dependence of the difference in refractive index between the interacting waves.     

Stretched exponential relaxation and dispersive conductivity behavior in lithium bismuth silicate glasses

Glasses having compositions xLi₂O∙(85 − x)Bi₂O₃∙15SiO₂ (x = 35, 40, and 45 mol%) were prepared by normal melt quenching technique. Electrical relaxation and conductivity in these glasses were studied using impedance spectroscopy in the frequency range from 20 Hz to 1 MHz and in the temperature range from 453 to 603 K. The ac and dc conductivities, activation energy of the dc conductivity and relaxation frequency were extracted from the impedance spectra. The dc conductivity increases with increase in Li₂O content providing modified glass structure and large number of mobile lithium ions. Similar values of activation energy for dc conduction and for conductivity relaxation time indicate that the ions overcome the same energy barrier while conducting and relaxing. The non-exponential character of relaxation processes increases with decrease in stretched exponential parameter ‘β’ as the composition parameter ‘x’ increases. The observed conductivity spectra follow a power law with exponent ‘s’ which increases regularly with frequency and approaches unity at higher frequencies. Nearly constant losses (NCL) characterize this linearly dependent region of the conductivity spectra. A deviation from the ‘master curve’ for various isotherms of conductivity spectra was also observed in the high-frequency region and at low temperatures, which supports the existence of different dynamic processes like NCL in addition to the ion hopping processes in the investigated glass system.     

Global noise characteristics of a laser Doppler vibrometer-II. Experiments using beam dynamics

The use of a laser Doppler vibrometer to obtain velocity information from vibrating structures has gained wide acceptance in recent years. Although use of such an instrument can yield a spatially dense matrix of velocity information, several users have noted ‘noise’ at certain points in the spatial field. The technique by which the SLDV system operates results in occasional velocity ‘drop-outs’ which are unidirectional, always estimating the velocity response closer to zero than reality. These ‘drop-out’ areas occur more predominately at points of maximum velocity response with small rotational components. Alternatively, points exhibiting minimum velocity response with large rotational components are less susceptible to the ‘noise’. In this paper, an experiment to visualize the speckle pattern motions received by the photo-detectors during these vibration conditions is presented. Theories regarding the source(s) of the ‘noise’ are developed.     

A spatial filtering technique for improved holographic character recognition

Conventional holographic pattern recognition systems suffer from the disadvantage that, in dealing with highly ordered patterns such as Arabic numerals or the letters of the Roman alphabet it is sometimes impossible to distinguish between patterns with a high degree of similarity (eg the capital letters ‘E’ and ‘F’ or ‘B’ and ‘P’).The present paper analyzes a simple case and shows how the insertion of a suitable spatial filter in the Fourier transform plane can reduce the unwanted cross-correlation signal between dissimilar patterns to zero, without removing the desired auto-correlation signal between similar patterns. Although no attempt is made to generalize the analysis, it seems probable that in cases involving the recognition of a small number of patterns with a strong ‘family resemblance’ a compromise filtering arrangement could be developed which would lead to a substantially improved performance.     

New Developments in the Eight Vertex Model II. Chains of Odd Length

We study the transfer matrix of the 8 vertex model with an odd number of lattice sites N. For systems at the root of unity pointsη=mK/L with m odd the transfer matrix is known to satisfy the famous ‘‘TQ’’ equation where Q(υ) is a specifically known matrix. We demonstrate that the location of the zeroes of this Q(υ) matrix is qualitatively different from the case of evenN and in particular they satisfy a previously unknown equation which is more general than what is often called ‘‘Bethe’s equation.’’ For the case of even m where no Q(υ) matrix is known we demonstrate that there are many states which are not obtained from the formalism of the SOS model but which do satisfy the TQ equation. The ground state for the particular case of η=2K/3 and N odd is investigated in detail.     

Interferometric testing of optical aspherical surfaces

This paper explains theoretically the principle of the Talbot interferometer using two ‘Fourier images’. The experimental results show that video techniques are more useful for superimposing two ‘Fourier images’ than photographic techniques.     

Linear and nonlinear optical properties of CdSexS1−x microcrystallites

Microcrystals of CdSe_xS_1−x (x≈0.6) with nanometer dimensions have been investigated experimentally by a range of optical techniques. This system of ‘quantum dot’ consists of nanometer sized semiconductor particles embedded within an insulating glass matrix. The existence of microscopic CdSeS crystals within the glass matrix is demonstrated by the observation of Raman scattering from the ‘CdSe-like’ and ‘CdS-like’ LO phonons. The nature of the electronic states within these three dimensionally confined systems is investigated by linear absorption and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The photoluminescence spectra show features which are attributed to direct electron-hole recombination and recombination via states within the ‘blue shifted’ energy gap (which are possibly surface related). Carrier relaxation is also investigated by a pump-probe experiment whereby the absorption is partially bleached by a short pump pulse then probed some variable time later by a delayed probe pulse of much lower intensity. Fast and slow components in the carrier relaxation process are identified, and a relationship is suggested between the carrier relaxation and the features observed in the photoluminescence spectra. The well known ‘photodarkening’ properties of such materials are also investigated by the above techniques.     

Hybrid lens with corrected sphero-chromatic aberration

An optical imaging element is considered, which consists of a plano-convex spherical glass lens and a holographic lens recorded on the flat surface. Such a ‘hybrid lens’ enables one simultaneously to correct spherical aberration and longitudinal chromatism for two given wavelengths. The imaging quality of such an achromatic lens of focal length f = 100 mm and relative aperture 1:10 is evaluated by the ray tracing method. The results ensure that the performance of such a hybrid lens is acceptable for field angles as high as 5:100.     

CO2 laser treatment system of tinea pedis

The CO₂ laser treatment system ‘Melase 1000’ has been developed for the treatment of Tinea pedis and the efficacy of the treatment using the system and its optimum irradiation condition are studied. The present system enables us to make the healing time of Tinea pedis treatment far shorter than conventional pharmaceuticals. This is in spite of using heat levels low enough for patients not to feel discomfort. Features offered by the system are a safe-and-easy operation and a stable laser power for a prolonged use. The efficacy of the present therapy is excellent; only two treatments a week for three weeks, i.e. six consecutive treatments, attained an improvement rate of 71.8% in the skin findings and a ‘usefulness’ of 66.2% determined from cases rated as ‘useful’ or ‘better’. The optimum laser irradiation condition for a single treatment found in this experiment is a light fluence of about 3 J/cm² and four laser pulses with a time interval between pulses of 1 s for a typical horny layer thinner than 0.5 mm.     

On the environmental decoherence and spin interference in mesoscopic loop structures

Mechanisms of ‘environmental decoherence’ such as surface scattering, Elliot–Yafet process and precession mechanisms, as well as their influence on the spin phase relaxation are considered and compared. It is shown that the ‘spin ballistic’ regime is possible, when the phase relaxation length for the spin part of the wave function (L^(s)) is much greater than the phase relaxation length for the ‘orbital part’ (L^(e)). In the presence of an additional magnetic field, the spin part of the electron's wave function (WF) acquires a phase shift due to additional spin precession about that field. If the structure length L is chosen to be L^(s)>L>L^(e), it is possible to ‘wash out’ the quantum interference related to the phase coherence of the ‘orbital part’ of the WF, retaining at the same time that related to the phase coherence of the spin part and, hence, to reveal corresponding conductance oscillations.     

Red in Estonian popular belief and folk costume

A visit by one of the authors to Estonia, and the discovery that the term ‘red’ was used locally for the colour ‘orange’, led to a detailed study of the colour red in Estonian belief and culture. The study is reported here, together with an interpretation of the red/orange substitution based on Berlin and Kay's model of colour term development in language.     

Fundamental processes in long air gap discharges

The development of atmospheric lightning is initiated and sustained by the formation in virgin air of ‘streamer corona’ and ‘leader’ discharges, very similar to those observed in laboratory long sparks. Therefore, the experimental and theoretical investigations of these laboratory discharges have become of large interest to improve the physical knowledge of the lightning process and to develop self-consistent models that could be applied to new protection concepts.In the present paper the fundamental processes of the subsequent phases of long air gap discharges are analyzed, from the first corona inception and development to the leader channel formation and propagation. For all these processes simulations models are discussed that have been essentially derived and simplified by the authors, in order to develop sequential time-dependent simulation of the laboratory breakdown, with both positive and negative voltages. The possibility of extending these models to the case of natural lightning is discussed in the companion paper, presented in this same volume. To cite this article: I. Gallimberti et al., C. R. Physique 3 (2002) 1335–1359.     

Performance of active and passive night viewing systems under low ambient illumination levels

A comparison of the estimated field performance of some typical active and passive night viewing systems under low illumination levels is presented. In addition to the ‘range’, a generalized figure of merit, the minimum detectable object size (MIDOS), is suggested and used as a basis of comparison. The influence of the optics and other parameters is discussed and the usefulness of the results in the optimization of system design is illustrated. The results indicate that active systems perform better than similar passive systems under certain commonly encountered ambient conditions.