Bump formation on a glass surface with a transparent coating using femtosecond laser processing

The morphology of a glass surface having a transparent coating processed with focused femtosecond laser pulses is investigated. The transparent coating is formed of poly-methyl methacrylate (PMMA). When the glass was coated with a PMMA film with a thickness of 2.8 μm, bumps were formed over a wide range of axial focus positions. The same laser pulse energy produced cavities when processing bare glass with no coating. The bumps were formed as a result of suppressing material emission from the glass surface by a shielding effect of plasma generated by ablation of the PMMA film and by physical blocking of the PMMA film. A thinner film with a thickness of 0.7 μm produced a reduced shielding effect, forming an exploded bump with a small pit at its center and debris around the periphery. PACS 44.10.+i; 61.80.Ba; 79.20.Ds     

Resolving Discrepancy between Theoretical and Experimental Optical Trapping Forces Using Effects of Beam Waist and Trapping Position Displacement due to Gravity

Optical trapping forces of polystyrene microspheres are analyzed both theoretically and experimentally, and comparisons are made between the two. Discrepancies are mainly caused by straight-ray approximation for axial trapping, and by trapping-position vertical displacement due to gravity for transverse trapping.     

Evaluating the equivalence of verbal scales and question stems to be used in English and Japanese noise annoyance questions

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the equivalence of noise annoyance scales and questions recommended by Team 6 (Community Response to Noise) of ICBEN for English and Japanese, two strikingly different languages. The first experiment was conducted with bilingual subjects in order to test a key assumption of the method established by ICBEN Team 6 for the development of equivalent noise annoyance scales: subjects who speak different languages interpret the concept of “highest degree” of annoyance similarly. The results indicate that English- and Japanese-speaking subjects do interpret the “highest degree” similarly. The second experiment tested for effects of wording differences. English- and Japanese-speaking subjects were presented with noise annoyance questions of one of three format types. The first type was similar to the question format recommended by ICBEN Team 6. It focused on the degree to which a given noise would “bother, disturb, or annoy” the subject. The second asked subjects to evaluate the “bothersome, annoying, or disturbing” quality of the noise. The third asked how much the noise would “worry, irritate, or concern” the subject. No significant difference was found in responses to the three formats when subjects evaluated noise in laboratory conditions.     

Rate coefficient for the reaction of CCl3 radicals with ozone

The rate coefficient for the reaction of CCl₃ radicals with ozone has been measured at 303 ± 2 K. The CCl₃ radicals were generated by the pulsed laser photolysis of carbon tetrachloride at 193 nm. The time profile of CCl₃ concentration was monitored with a photoionization mass spectrometer. Addition of the O₃–O₂ mixture to this system caused a decay of the CCl₃ concentration because of the reactions of CCl₃ + O₃ → products (5) and CCl₃ + O₂ → products (4). The decay of signals from the CCl₃ radical was measured in the presence and absence of ozone. In the absence of ozone, the O₃–O₂ mixture was passed through a heated quartz tube to convert the ozone to molecular oxygen. Since the rate coefficient for the reaction of CCl₃ + O₂ could be determined separately, the absolute rate coefficient for reaction ( 5 ) was obtained from the competition among these reactions. The rate coefficient determined for reaction ( 5 ) was (8.6 ± 0.5) × 10^?13 cm³ molecule^?1 s^?1 and was also found to be independent of the total pressure (253–880 Pa of N₂). This result shows that the reaction of CCl₃ with O₃ cannot compete with its reaction with O₂ in the ozone layer. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Chem Kinet 35: 310–316, 2003     

Observation on meta-stability of thulium nitrate crystal by using electric measurements

Frequency dependence of ac conductivity from 1 to 10⁵ Hz and time series of the conductivity at 2 kHz were measured along c-axis of thulium nitrate crystal, Tm(NO₃)₃6H₂O at temperatures from 203.15 to 293.15 K. The meta-stability was observed. The frequency spectra of the conductivity were similar to those in disorder system. Aging effect was observed. Non-periodic instability (burst) was found. Non-linear dynamical property was characterized by 1/f noise spectrum, limit cycle in return map and dependence of correlation exponent on embedding dimension.     

Affine threefolds whose log canonical bundles are not numerically effective

Let X?(T,D) be a compactification of an affine 3-fold X into a smooth projective 3-fold T such that the (reduced) boundary divisor D is SNC. In this paper, as an affine counterpart to the work due to S. Mori (cf. [S. Mori, Threefolds whose canonical bundles are not numerically effective, Ann. of Math. 116 (1982) 133-176]), we shall classify (K+D)-negative extremal rays on T. In particular, if such an extremal ray R=R₊[C] intersects K non-negatively, we shall describe the log flips and divisorial contractions appearing explicitly.     

Enhancement of Magneto-Optic Effect in Optical Isolator with Semiconductor Guiding Layer by Selective Oxidation of AlInAs

Selective oxidation of an AlInAs layer was investigated for enhancement of magneto-optic effect in an optical isolator. Twelve times nonreciprocal phase shift enhancement was estimated from a measured AlInAs-oxide refractive index.     

Endoscopic Observation of Tissue by Narrowband Illumination

We propose a new illumination method for a medical endoscope: narrow band imaging (NBI), in which the spectral bandwidth of the filtered light is narrowed. To confirm how the spectral specifications of the filtered light influence a reproduced image, an experiment was conducted observing the endoscopic images of the back mucosa of a human tongue. In addition, the effect of NBI on endoscopic images was investigated through preliminary clinical tests in colonoscopy and upper gastrointestinal endoscopy. It has been shown that NBI can enhance the capillary pattern and the crypt pattern on the mucosa. These patterns are useful features for diagnosing an early cancer.