Improving the specularity of magnetic mirrors for atoms

An array of anti-parallel current-carrying wires creates an inhomogeneous magnetic field capable of reflecting neutral atoms. We present analytical and numerical analyses of the magnetic field produced by such an array, and describe methods for reducing the resulting rms angular deviation from specular reflection to less than 0.1 mrad. Careful choice of cross-sectional wire profiles is shown to dramatically improve specularity of reflection close to the surface. Additionally, we find that the specularity depends on whether the number of wires in the mirror is even or odd, and that there exists an optimal turning height above the surface that maximizes the specularity of reflection from the mirror. Received 16 November 1998     

Optical pumping and coherence effects in fluorescence from a four level system

An effective four-level system around the D2 line of ⁸⁵Rb at room temperature, is experimentally investigated by fluorescent studies under the action of two driving fields L1 and L2. This system exhibits unique features in fluorescence as a function of frequency separation between L1 and L2. In particular, at two-photon resonance, when the Rabi frequency of L1 exceeds that of L2, signatures of Electromagnetically Induced Transperancy effect (EIT) arising from the three-level Λ sub-system is present as a sub-natural dip in fluorescence from the fourth level. At comparable strengths of L1 and L2 the fluorescence features indicate a regime, where the effects arising from optical pumping and EIT effect due to ground hyperfine level coherence coexist. We see in the coexistence regime, saturation effects arising from difference frequency crossing (DFC) resonances and optical pumping around the EIT window. At low strengths of L1, all signs of coherence vanishes from the system and the fluorescent features result from incoherent optical pumping through the Autler-Townes split states of the excited state hyperfine levels, which are split due to the stronger L2 laser. The dominant role of the L1 laser in creating a robust transparency signal even in the presence of an off-resonant excitation is brought out. The results are supported by density matrix calculations.     

Be(d,n)反应中子源能谱测量及应用

 利用中子飞行时间技术和BC501A液体闪烁探测器的粒子分辨特性,测量了0°方向、20 MeV氘束轰击厚金属铍靶反应产生的中子源能谱,测量的中子能谱范围为0.7～25.0 MeV。在60°方向放置芪晶体闪烁探测器,由刻度好的BC501A液体闪烁探测器归一校正后,用于中子源强度监测。利用Be(d, n) 反应中子源,采用单粒子灵敏度标定方法,实验标定了0.75~15.75 MeV能量范围内的薄膜闪烁探测器中子能量响应曲线,实验结果与蒙特卡罗模拟计算结果在8%的不确定度范围内一致。     

Photocatalytic and superhydrophilicity properties of N-doped TiO2 nanothin films

Pure TiO₂ and nitrogen doped titanium dioxide (N-TiO₂) thin films were prepared by sol-gel method through spin coating on soda lime glass substrates. TiCl₄ and urea were used as Ti and N sources in the sol. XRD results showed nitrogen doping has retarded anatase to rutile phase transformation. The doping also leads to a decrease in roughness of the samples from 4 nm (TiO₂) to 1 nm (N-TiO₂). However, surface analysis by statistical methods reveals that both surfaces have self-affine structure. Optical band gap of thin films was shifted from 3.65 eV (TiO₂) to 3.47 eV (N-TiO₂). Hydrophilic conversion and photocatalytic degradation properties of thin films were investigated and exhibited that N-TiO₂ thin film has more preferable hydrophilicity and photocatalytic properties under UV illumination.     

Adiabatic focusing of cold atoms in a blue-detuned laser standing wave

Adiabatic focusing of cold atoms in a blue-detuned laser standing wave is analyzed. It is shown that using repulsive light forces that push atoms towards dark regions and thus minimizes heating, cold atoms can be adiabatically compressed by more than an order of magnitude to yield background-free sub-10-nm (rms) spots. The optimal parameters for the atomic lens and the maximal compression ratio are predicted using an analytic model and found to be in agreement with the exact results of our Monte Carlo simulations. A combined adiabatic-coherent scheme is proposed and shown to yield 8.8 nm spot size even for a thermal atomic beam. Received: 1 October 1999 / Revised version: 13 December 1999 / Published online: 5 April 2000     

Orientation of Cs 6p 2P3/2 atomic photofragments in a magnetic field: interference in the photodissociation of diatomic molecules

In a magnetic field, Cs₂ molecules were excited from the ground X¹Σ⁺_g(v_X=0,J_X=55) level to the D ¹Σ⁺_u(v=46,J=54) level by dissociation laser light linearly polarized parallel to the field, for which the magnetic sublevels were degenerated and thus all the transitions between them were simultaneously stimulated. Probe laser light excited the dissociated Cs 6p²P_3/2 atomic fragments to 6p²D_3/2 level and the resultant 6p²P_1/2 - 6d²D_3/2 emission was detected as the function of the wavelength of the probe light. The populations of the 6p²P_3/2,mj magnetic sublevels were determined from the relative strengths of the 6p²P_3/2,mj - 6d²D_3/2,m'j transitions induced by the probe light. Non-zero orientation O₀ was found in the ensemble of dissociated Cs 6p²P_3/2 atomic fragments. The orientation O₀ increased as the magnetic field strength increased. It was demonstrated both experimentally and theoretically that the orientation O₀ was induced through the interference in the excitation and dissociation paths in the presence of an external magnetic field, even when all degenerated transitions between the magnetic sublevels of the molecules are simultaneously excited by the light linearly polarized parallel to the field.     

A new superhard material: Osmium diboride OsB2

Superhard materials have many industrial applications, wherever resistance to abrasion and wear are important. The synthesis of new superhard materials is one of the great challenges to scientists. We re-examined the phase diagram of the binary osmium-boron system and confirmed the existence of two hexagonal phases, OsB_1.1, Os₂B₃, and an orthorhombic phase, OsB₂. Almost nothing is known about the physical properties of osmium borides. Microhardness measurements show that OsB₂ is extremely hard. Ab initio calculations show that this is due to formation of covalent bonds between boron atoms. OsB₂ is also a low compressibility material. It can be used as hard coating.     

Absolute absorber quantification in turbid media at small source–detector separations

The aim of our studies was to develop a method to determine the absorption coefficient of a turbid medium in a reflection geometry with small source–detector separations. Therefore, the time-integrated microscopic Beer–Lambert law (MBL) was modified in order to obtain the absolute absorption coefficient from mean time of flight and dc-intensity measurements. The new technique was evaluated using turbid phantoms having varying scattering (μ_s ^′ between 0.2 and 2.2 mm^-1) and absorbing properties (μ_a between 0.04 and 0.14 mm^-1), comparable to many biological tissues at various source–detector separations between 3 and 11 mm. The measurements were performed at a wavelength of 1064 nm. We found that this new method was able to determine the absolute absorption coefficient of the selected phantoms with a standard error of less than 0.005 mm^-1 over the range of optical properties investigated. Received: 23 November 2001 / Revised version: 28 February 2002 / Published online: 14 May 2002     

A 2-dimensional detector with high spatial and temporal resolution for metastable rare gas atoms

We describe a detector for metastable rare gas atoms which allows the investigation of transverse atomic beam distributions on the single atom level with lateral dimensions of 1 m, which occur frequently in the field of atom optics. In contrast to existing detection techniques, the conversion step from the metastable atom to an electron is separated from the charge amplification to improve spatial resolution. The conversion is performed at a metal surface, which is followed by an electron-optical system imaging the electron distribution with a proper magnification onto a single electron detection unit. The spatial resolution that we achieve with this technique is on the order of 1 m, the temporal resolution on the order of 1 s. The application of the detector for atom interferometry is discussed. Received: 22 May 1996 / Revised version: 21 June 1996     

Detection of small traces of 15N2 and 14N2 by Faraday LMR spectroscopy of the corresponding isotopomers of nitric oxide

15 N₂ in a gas phase sample is described. The nitrogen is transformed by a microwave discharge into nitric oxide NO. The latter is analyzed by recording both a ¹⁵NO and a ¹⁴NO Faraday LMR signal. The determination of the transformation rate from N₂ into NO is described. The method of measurement and the achieved sensitivity (∼0.1 ppm ¹⁵N₂≈4 nanomoles ¹⁵N₂/litergas) of the spectrometer are discussed. An application in pharmacology, where ¹⁵N is used as a tracer for metabolism is indicated. First experiments with the exhalation of a rat show that the apparatus is useful to give a new quality of results. Received: 30 April 1996/Revised version: 29 July 1996