A clinical study of failure in microchannel cooled diodes used in large laser systems

In this paper we investigate the source of failure in commercial, microchannel cooled CW diode bars placed in 12 bar horizontal arrays. The arrays were used to pump Nd:YAG rods in our 10 kW developmental laser. The laser was operated at low duty factor over a period of over 2 years. Experimental evidence indicated that the sudden, catastrophic failure was because of degraded cooling. We used optical microscopes, an X-ray microfocus imager, and a thermal neutron scattering camera to look inside the microcoolers. Our investigations revealed only one possible failure mechanism: cooling flow reduction because of delamination of the Au coating the walls of the microcoolers and the entrapment of Au flakes within the microchannel structures. We observed blisters in the microcoolers under working bars, and flake-like structures in the microcoolers under burnt-out bars (all taken from the laser). We observed no evidence of either massive blockages because of electrochemical deposits, or of corrosion/erosion in the microchannel walls. Integral operation times of the high flow-rate cooling system and of the diodes themselves were too short by one and two orders of magnitude, respectively, to explain the observed failures. Microchannel immersion times in the deionized water were, however, long enough to allow for corrosion of metals that may have been exposed through defects in the Au coatings. Three-dimensional heat flow simulations showed that blockage of multiple microchannels towards the edge of a bar can easily lead to catastrophic temperature increases.     

The Complete Differential Game of Active Target Defense

In the Target–Attacker–Defender differential game, an Attacker missile strives to capture a Target aircraft. The Target tries to escape the Attacker and is aided by a Defender missile which aims at intercepting the Attacker, before the latter manages to close in on the Target. The conflict between these intelligent adversaries is naturally modeled as a zero-sum differential game. The Game of Degree when the Attacker is able to win the Target–Attacker–Defender differential game has not been fully solved, and it is addressed in this paper. Previous attempts at designing the players’ strategies have not been proven to be optimal in the differential game sense. In this paper, the optimal strategies of the Game of Degree in the Attacker’s winning region of the state space are synthesized. Also, the value function is obtained, and it is shown that it is continuously differentiable, and it is the solution of the Hamilton–Jacobi–Isaacs equation. The obtained state feedback strategies are compared to recent results addressing this differential game. It is shown that the correct solution of the Target–Attacker–Defender differential game that provides a semipermeable Barrier surface is synthesized and verified in this paper.

     

Dynamics of cooperativity in chemical sensing among cell-surface receptors

Cooperative interactions among sensory receptors provide a general mechanism to increase the sensitivity of signal transduction. In particular, bacterial chemotaxis receptors interact cooperatively to produce an ultrasensitive response to chemoeffector concentrations. However, cooperativity between receptors in large macromolecular complexes is necessarily based on local interactions and consequently is fundamentally connected to slowing of receptor-conformational dynamics, which increases intrinsic noise. Therefore, it is not clear whether or under what conditions cooperativity actually increases the precision of the concentration measurement. We explicitly calculate the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for sensing a concentration change using a simple, Ising-type model of receptor-receptor interactions, generalized via scaling arguments, and find that the optimal SNR is always achieved by independent receptors.     

Indistinguishable photon pairs from independent true chaotic sources

Indistinguishability of events in quantum mechanics is manifested by interference between their probability amplitudes. We report a unique kind of interference occurring between indistinguishable events of photon-pair emission, where each photon of the pair is emitted from a distinct true chaotic light source and has a different energy. The indistinguishability results in an interference which is observed as an ultrafast modulation of the second-order coherence function, measured on a femtosecond time scale by two-photon absorption in a semiconductor photomultiplier tube.     

A construction of a normal number for the continued fraction transformation

It is shown that if the continued fractions of the rationals $\text{1}\text{2}\text{,}\text{1}\text{3}\text{,}\text{2}\text{3}\text{,}\text{1}\text{4}\text{,}\text{2}\text{4}\text{,}\text{3}\text{4}\text{,}\text{1}\text{5}\text{,}\text{2}\text{5}\text{,}\text{3}\text{5}\text{,}\text{4}\text{5}\text{,…}$ are concatenated, a normal continued fraction is obtained.     

Oligopeptides and copeptides of homochiral sequence, via beta-sheets, from mixtures of racemic alpha-amino acids, in a one-pot reaction in water; relevance to biochirogenesis

As part of our studies on the biochirogenesis of peptides of homochiral sequence during early evolution, the formation of oligopeptides composed of 14-24 residues of the same handedness in the polymerization of dl-leucine (Leu), dl-phenylalanine (Phe), and dl-valine (Val) in aqueous solutions, by activation with N, N'-carbonyldiimidazole and then initiation with a primary amine, in a one-pot reaction, was demonstrated by MALDI-TOF MS using deuterium enantio-labeled alpha-amino acids. The formation of long isotactic peptides is rationalized by the following steps occurring in tandem: (i) creation of a library of short diasteroisomeric oligopeptides containing isotactic peptides in excess in comparison to a binomial kinetics, as a result of an asymmetric induction exerted by the N-terminal residue of a given handedness; (ii) precipitation of the less soluble racemic isotactic penta- and hexapeptides in the form of beta-sheets that are delineated by homochiral rims; (iii) regio-enantiospecific chain elongation occurring heterogeneously at the beta-sheets/solution interface. Polymerization of l-Leu with l-isoleucine (Ile) or l-Phe with l- (1) N-Me-histidine yielded mixtures of copeptides containing both residues. In contrast, in the polymerization of the corresponding mixtures of l- + d-alpha-amino acids, the long oligopeptides were composed mainly from oligo- l-Leu and oligo- d-Ile in the first system and oligo- d-Phe in the second. Furthermore, in the polymerization of mixtures of hydrophobic racemic alpha-amino acids dl-Leu, dl-Val, and dl-Phe and with added racemic dl-alanine and dl-tyrosine, copeptides of homochiral sequences are most dominantly represented. Possible routes for a spontaneous "mirror-symmetry breaking" process of the racemic mixtures of homochiral peptides are presented.     

Self-Assembled Monolayers of N-Heterocyclic Olefins on Au(111)

Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of N-heterocyclic olefins (NHOs) have been prepared on Au(111) and their thermal stability, adsorption geometry, and molecular order were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, polarized X-ray absorption spectroscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The strong σ-bond character of NHO anchoring to Au induced high geometrical flexibility that enabled a flat-lying adsorption geometry via coordination to a gold adatom. The flat-lying adsorption geometry was utilized to further increase the surface interaction of the NHO monolayer by backbone functionalization with methyl groups that induced high thermal stability and a large impact on work-function values, which outperformed that of N-heterocyclic carbenes. STM measurements, supported by DFT modeling, identified that the NHOs were self-assembled in dimers, trimers, and tetramers constructed of two, three, and four complexes of NHO−Au-adatom. This self-assembly pattern was correlated to strong NHO−Au interactions and steric hindrance between adsorbates, demonstrating the crucial influence of the carbon-metal σ-bond on monolayer properties.     

Energy Transport in Dichroic Metallo-organic Crystals: Selective Inclusion of Spatially Resolved Arrays of Donor and Acceptor Dyes in Different Nanochannels**

In this study, the precise positioning and alignment of arrays of two different guest molecules in a crystalline host matrix has been engineered and resulted in new optically active materials. Sub-nm differences in the diameters of two types of 1D channels are sufficient for size-selective inclusion of dyes. Energy transport occurs between the arrays of different dyes that are included in parallel-positioned nanochannels by Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET). The color of individual micro-sized crystals are dependent on their relative position under polarized light. This angular-dependent behavior is a result of the geometrically constrained orientation of the dyes by the crystallographic packing of the host matrix and is concentration dependent.