Micromachining of circular ring microstructure by femtosecond laser pulses

In this paper, integration of interference phenomenon into femtosecond laser micromachining was reported as the femtosecond laser pulses were reshaped spatially to perform ablation. The generation of circular interference pattern was demonstrated by overlapping infrared femtosecond laser pulses. The interference pattern was subsequently focused on a copper substrate to ablate microstructures of concentric circular rings. The present technique is expected to open up new applications in the areas of rapid fabrication of micro-Fresnel lenses, hybrid microlenses and lens arrays.     

The mechanism of ethylene polymerization by nickel salicylaldiminato catalysts - Agostic interactions and their kinetic isotope effects

The ethylene polymerization reaction of a neutral nickel catalyst was studied by DFT calculations at the Becke3LYP/6-31G(d) level of theory. As in related cases a β-agostic bond stabilizes the nickel alkyl ground states. Transition states for the insertion of the olefin show a distinct α-agostic interaction, which has not been observed for late metal polymerization catalysts before. An ethylene-alkyl complex was identified as the resting state of the reaction. The overall barrier height of the reaction amounts to 17.54 kcal/mol, which slightly increases to 17.60 kcal/mol for the polymerization of deuterated ethylene. Therefore, a small positive kinetic isotope effect (k_H/k_D = 1.09) can be calculated, which is caused by the α-agostic interaction in the transition state. A comparison to other late metal based polymerization systems reveals that the ethylene coordination step of highly active catalysts is significantly lower in energy compared to catalysts which are only moderately active.     

Phase separation in blends of two homopolymers and a diblock copolymer during film casting

Demixing during film casting of blends of polystyrene, polymethylmethacrylate, and a symmetric diblock copolymer of styrene and methylmethacrylate is discussed. The concentration fluctuations in the homogeneous solutions were calculated in mean field approximation. The structures in the homogeneous and demixed solutions and in the dry films were measured by small-angle x-ray scattering, and the morphologies of the dry films were characterized by transmission electron microscopy. The structure of the dry blends is evidently already pre-formed in solution.     

ON A PAIR OF NON-ISOMETRIC ISOSPECTRAL DOMAINS WITH FRACTAL BOUNDARIES AND THE WEYL-BERRY CONJECTURE

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First excitations of the spin 1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the kagomé lattice

We study the exact low energy spectra of the spin 1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on small samples of the kagomé lattice of up to N=36 sites. In agreement with the conclusions of previous authors, we find that these low energy spectra contradict the hypothesis of Néel type long range order. Certainly, the ground state of this system is a spin liquid, but its properties are rather unusual. The magnetic () excitations are separated from the ground state by a gap. However, this gap is filled with nonmagnetic () excitations. In the thermodynamic limit the spectrum of these nonmagnetic excitations will presumably develop into a gapless continuum adjacent to the ground state. Surprisingly, the eigenstates of samples with an odd number of sites, i.e. samples with an unsaturated spin, exhibit symmetries which could support long range chiral order. We do not know if these states will be true thermodynamic states or only metastable ones. In any case, the low energy properties of the spin 1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the kagomé lattice clearly distinguish this system from either a short range RVB spin liquid or a standard chiral spin liquid. Presumably they are facets of a generically new state of frustrated two-dimensional quantum antiferromagnets. Received: 27 November 1997 / Accepted: 29 January 1998     

Experimental investigation and numerical simulation of the influence of resonator-length detuning on the output power,pulse duration and spectral width of a cw mode-locked picosecond optical parametric oscillator

We report on a cw mode-locked non-critically phase matched KTP optical parametric oscillator synchronously pumped by a picosecond Ti:Sapphire laser. High average signal output power of up to 950 mW over a large tuning range has been achieved. For this OPO the influence of resonator-length detuning on the output power, pulse duration and spectral bandwidth has been investigated. The measured data are in good agreement with the results of a numerical simulation using a split-step Fourier method which considers the group-velocity mismatch, the group-velocity dispersion and the self-phase modulation. The numerical simulation also describes the measured strong pump depletion and its influence on the OPO output and efficiency.     

Adiabatic passage Hartmann-Hahn cross polarization in NMR under magic angle sample spinning

We have recently demonstrated that polarization transfer using an adiabatic passage through the Hartmann-Hahn condition (APHH-CP) by a variation of the radio-frequency amplitude can substantially improve the transfer efficiency over Hartmann-Hahn cross polarization. Here we show that APHH-CP can be combined with fast magic angle sample spinning (MAS). The heteronuclear dipolar order, established in the course of the transfer, can indeed be created and preserved.     

An M/G/1 Retrial Queueing System with Two-Phase Service and Preemptive Resume

An M/G/1 retrial queueing system with additional phase of service and possible preemptive resume service discipline is considered. For an arbitrarily distributed retrial time distribution, the necessary and sufficient condition for the system stability is obtained, assuming that only the customer at the head of the orbit has priority access to the server. The steady-state distributions of the server state and the number of customers in the orbit are obtained along with other performance measures. The effects of various parameters on the system performance are analysed numerically. A general decomposition law for this retrial queueing system is established.