Broadband microwave frequency doubler based on left-handed nonlinear transmission lines

A bandwidth microwave second harmonic generator is successfully designed using composite right/left-handed nonlinear transmission lines(CRLH NLTLs) in a GaAs monolithic microwave integrated circuit(MMIC) technology. The structure parameters of CRLH NLTLs, e.g. host transmission line, rectangular spiral inductor, and nonlinear capacitor,have a great impact on the second harmonic performance enhancement in terms of second harmonic frequency, output power, and conversion efficiency. It has been experimentally demonstrated that the second harmonic frequency is determined by the anomalous dispersion of CRLH NLTLs and can be significantly improved by effectively adjusting these structure parameters. A good agreement between the measured and simulated second harmonic performances of Ka-band CRLH NLTLs frequency multipliers is successfully achieved, which further validates the design approach of frequency multipliers on CRLH NLTLs and indicates the potentials of CRLH NLTLs in terms of the generation of microwave and millimeter-wave signal source.     

A k-band broadband monolithic distributed frequency multiplier based on nonlinear transmission line

A fabrication technology of GaAs planar Schottky varactor diode (PSVD) is successfully developed and used to design and manufacture GaAs-based monolithic frequency multiplication based on 23-section nonlinear transmission lines (NLTLs) consisting of a coplanar waveguide transmission line and periodically distributed PSVDs. The throughout design and optimization procedure of 23-section monolithic NLTLs for frequency multiplication in the k-band range is based on a large signal equivalent model of PSVD extracted from small-signal S-parameter measurements. This paper reports that the distributed SPVD exhibits a capacitance ratio of 5.4, a normalized capacitance of 0.86 fF/μm2 and a breakdown voltage in excess of 22 V. The integrated 23-section NLTLs fed by 20-dBm input power demonstrates a 26-GHz peak second harmonic output power of 14-dBm with 25.3% conversion efficiency in the second harmonic output frequency range of 6 GHz-26 GHz.     

Understanding Soliton Wave Propagation in Nonlinear Transmission Lines for Millimeter Wave Multiplication

In this paper, soliton propagation in nonlinear transmission lines (NLTLs) periodically loaded with symmetric voltage dependent capacitances is studied. From the lumped element equivalent circuit of the line we have analyzed the influence of nonlinear shunt reactances on soliton propagation characteristics. It is shown that by increasing the non linearity of the C–V characteristic, a faster separation of input signal into solitons is achieved. The fact that frequency multiplication in NLTLs is governed by soliton formation makes the results of this work relevant to understand the influence of nonlinear loading devices on multiplier performance. Since a heterostructure barrier varactor (HBV)-like voltage dependent capacitance has been considered for the nonlinear devices, this study can be of interest for the design of millimeter wave frequency multipliers loaded with HBVs.     

Effects of Line Parameters on Soliton-Like Propagation in Nonlinear Transmission Lines: Application to the Optimization of Frequency Triplers

In this paper, soliton propagation in nonlinear transmission lines (NLTLs) periodically loaded with heterostructure barrier varactors is studied. From the lumped element equivalent circuit of the line we have analyzed the influence of transmission line parameters (i.e, per-section inductance and capacitance) on soliton propagation characteristics. It is shown that by increasing these parameters, a faster separation of input signals into solitons is achieved. From the point of view of NLTL harmonic generation, this gives additional flexibility to optimize multiplier performance by appropriate circuit design. These conclusions are supported from the analysis of a frequency tripler, where device losses are included.     

Ni与钇稳定的氧化锆(111)表面相互作用以及界面活性的第一性原理研究

采用基于密度泛函理论的第一性原理方法, 系统研究了Ni原子在钇稳定的氧化锆(YSZ)(111)和富氧的YSZ(YSZ+O)(111)表面不同位置的吸附, 以及CO和O₂分子在Ni₁(单个镍原子)/YSZ和Ni₁/YSZ+O表面吸附的几何与电子结构特征. 结果表明: 1) 单个Ni原子倾向于吸附在O原子周围, 几乎不吸附在Y原子周围, 且Ni原子在氧空位上吸附最稳定; 2)和YSZ相比, 单个Ni原子在YSZ+O表面易发生氧化现象, Ni原子失去1.06 e电子, 被氧化成了Ni⁺, 吸附能力更强; 3)被氧化的Ni催化活性大幅下降, 大大减弱了表面对O₂和CO等燃料气体的吸附作用.     

Determination of the reduced thickness of surface layers by means of the substrate method

Layers on solid surfaces have a marked influence on the results of quantitative XPS analysis. Since knowledge of the total thickness of such layers is necessary in compensating for this influence, the substrate method with variation of the take-off angle must be applied. An analysis of (a) XPS data, (b) calculations performed for rough surfaces, and (c) XRFA data leads to the conclusion that at small take-off angles it is uncertainties in the measurements (count-statistics, take-off angle) that predominate, whereas at large angles, it is surface roughness. An evaluation procedure is developed and discussed on the basis of these results.     

Influence of the substrate structure on the bonding of chemisorbed acetylene to transition metal surfaces

The electronic spectrum of acetylene adsorbed on various transition metals has been measured by ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy in various laboratories. At low temperatures (T < 150 K), all measurements concur in finding an electron spectrum that differs only moderately from the gas phase spectrum of acetylene. At room temperature, the electron spectrum of acetylene is reported to be similar to the low-temperature form on Ir(100) and Pt(100), but acetylene is reported to form an olefinic surface complex on Pd(111) and Pt(111) surfaces. In order to examine whether the surface structure of the substrate is responsible for the difference, we have measured the electronic spectrum of acetylene adsorbed on the Pd(100) and Ru(0001) surfaces. At 120 K, the spectrum of adsorbed acetylene is again a distorted gas phase spectrum on both surfaces. At 330 K, we find the acetylenic form (with a splitting of 2.5 eV of the σ-orbitals) on Pd(100) and an olefinic form on the basal plane of Ru. We conclude that the olefinic complex is proper to the threefold symmetry of the (111) and (0001) surfaces and the gas-like form is favored on the (100) surfaces of the fcc crystals.     

壁面催化对再入飞行器等离子体鞘套及电磁参数的影响

针对超高声速流动中的高温真实气体效应,采用数值模拟求解考虑化学非平衡的三维Navier-Stokes(N-S)方程,研究了壁面催化对典型再入飞行器等离子体鞘套及电磁参数的影响规律.研究发现:(1)完全催化壁条件下等离子体密度计算结果与飞行试验符合较好;(2)完全催化壁条件下,离解原子在壁面的复合导致波后气体可压缩性增强...     

Effect of the Arsenic Concentration on the Characteristics of the Growth Step Echelon in GaAs Epitaxy

The effect of the arsenic concentration in the vapor phase on the growth step distribution over the surface of GaAs epitaxial layers grown in a chlorine-hydride vapor-transport system on substrates with 4° (111)A and (113)A orientations is studied. It is demonstrated that the average distance between steps in the echelon depends on the arsenic concentration and increases with it up to a certain constant value. It is assumed that this is connected with the change in the kink density at the steps.     

Entropy-Based Behavioural Efficiency of the Financial Market

The most known and used abstract model of the financial market is based on the concept of the informational efficiency (EMH) of that market. The paper proposes an alternative which could be named the behavioural efficiency of the financial market, which is based on the behavioural entropy instead of the informational entropy. More specifically, the paper supports the idea that, in the financial market, the only measure (if any) of the entropy is the available behaviours indicated by the implicit information. Therefore, the behavioural entropy is linked to the concept of behavioural efficiency. The paper argues that, in fact, in the financial markets, there is not a (real) informational efficiency, but there exists a behavioural efficiency instead. The proposal is based both on a new typology of information in the financial market (which provides the concept of implicit information—that is, that information ”translated” by the economic agents from observing the actual behaviours) and on a non-linear (more exactly, a logistic) curve linking the behavioural entropy to the behavioural efficiency of the financial markets. Finally, the paper proposes a synergic overcoming of both EMH and AMH based on the new concept of behavioural entropy in the financial market.     

Pb液滴在Ni基底润湿铺展行为的分子动力学模拟

采用分子动力学方法研究了Pb液滴在Ni(100)晶面、(110)晶面和(111)晶面的铺展润湿行为. 结果表明: Pb液滴在Ni(100)及(111)基底上的润湿铺展现象呈各向同性, 而在Ni(110)基底上的润湿铺展现象呈明显的各向异性, 且这种各向异性源于Ni(110)晶面点阵结构上Pb原子沿不同晶向的扩散机制及速度的明显差异; Pb液滴在Ni(111)晶面上铺展时, 未发生表面合金化, 液滴铺展动力学描述近似满足 R² ∝ t, 而液滴在(100)晶面和(110)晶面上铺展时表面产生合金化现象, 铺展动力学关系近似满足 R⁴ ∝ t, 且液滴在(100)晶面上的铺展速度高于(110)晶面上的铺展速度. 关键词： 分子动力学 润湿各向异性 铺展膜 扩散机制     

Effect of the phase composition of steel-based composites on the electrical resistance of the friction zone under conditions of current collection

The current-voltage diagram of the electric contact zone and the wear rate of sintered composites based on ball-bearing wastes steel (1.5% Cr) and Hadfield steel (13% Mn) at sliding over quenched steel (0.45% C) are investigated with tin and lead incorporated in the friction zone. It is established that melting is accompanied by a significant decrease in the electrical resistance which causes the nonlinearity of the current-voltage diagram of the contact. An increase in the strength of the contact layers manifested through the increased wear resistance is simultaneously observed. Based on the Ohm law, it is qualitatively demonstrated that the nonlinearity is caused by the change of the true area of electrical contact. Results of analogous experiments for composites that do not contain lead or tin are presented. It is established that the electrical conductivity and the strength of the surface layer sharply decrease for such change of the phase composition.     

Evaluation of activity through dynamic laser speckle using the absolute value of the differences

When a material is illuminated with a laser beam, it is possible to verify a phenomenon known as dynamic speckle or biospeckle. It exhibits an interference image that contains lots of information about the process being analyzed, and one of its most important applications is determining the activity quantity from the materials under study. The numerical analysis of the dynamic speckle images can be carried out by means of a co-occurrence matrix (COM) that assembles the intensity distributions of a speckle pattern with regard to time. An operational method that is widely used on the biospeckle COMs is the inertia moment (IM). Some studies demonstrate that IM is more sensitive on analyzing processes that involve high activities or high frequencies if considering the spectral analysis of the phenomena. However, when this variation is not so intense, this method is less efficient. For low variations on the activity or low frequencies, qualitative methods such as wavelet based entropy and cross-spectrum analysis have presented better results; however, processes that are in the intermediate range of activity are not well covered for any of these techniques mentioned earlier. The contribution of this research is to present an alternative approach, based on the absolute value of the differences (AVD) when handling the biospeckle COM. By using AVD on the seed-drying process, was found that it is efficient on verifying the behavior of the intermediate frequencies. Accumulated sum test (Coates and Diggle) showed that AVD and IM are generated from the same stochastic process. Thus, AVD is useful as an alternative method in some cases or even as a complementary tool for analyzing the dynamic speckle, mainly when the information of the activity is not present on high frequencies.     

Study of the surface electromigration of In on Si(111) surfaces by the use of micro-electron-beams

The surface electromigration (SE) of ultrathin In films on Si(111)4 × 1-In surfaces has been investigated using experimental techniques based on μ-electron beams. On the basis of the finding that the SE velocity enhances as the strength of the electrostatic field (EF) fed through the substrate enhances, it is strongly suggested that the driving force of SE is an EF rather than a DC current fed through the substrate. It is found that a patch of ultrathin In film changes to an In patch of 1 × 1 periodicity during SE which is accompanied by spotty parts (named fine-polygons) at both the cathode and anode sides of the In patch. It is found that the fine-polygons are created at the cathode side and are stationary but grow in size to be eventually incorporated into the In-patch. A few In-islands are found on the cathode side of the In-patch and they show no translation but cycles of appearance, growth, decay, and disappearance during SE, by which mass-transportation is achieved. A plausible microscopic model for the SE is presented based on these findings.     

Investigation of the particular features of the structure factor of liquid Al-based alloys

We study the structure of liquid binary and ternary alloys of aluminum with transition metals (Al-TM) obtained by Reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) and Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulation methods. Two distinctive features of their structure factor are discussed: the shoulder on the second peak and the prepeak on the left side of the main peak. The quadruples of mutually neighboring atoms (Delaunay simplexes) with a shape close to a regular tetrahedron's (quasi-regular tetrahedra) have been selected in the models and examined. They combine into clusters of different morphology (polytetrahedra) forming a polytetrahedral order (PTO), and there are no compact clusters of these tetrahedra similar to icosahedron in our alloys. It is discussed that the second peak feature of the structure factor is associated with PTO, and does not require for its explanation the presence of icosahedral short-range order (ISRO) in the liquid alloys. The prepeak is caused by the chemical short-range order (CSRO). In our models it is observed mainly on the subsystem of atoms which is complementary to the subsystem of the polytetrahedra. Simulation of the CSRO was performed on a model of monatomic liquid. A new length scale responsible for the prepeak has been obtained in this simulation.     

Direct measurement of the out-of-plane spin texture in the Dirac-cone surface state of a topological insulator

We have performed spin- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy of Bi(2)Te(3) and present the first direct evidence for the existence of the out-of-plane spin component on the surface state of a topological insulator. We found that the magnitude of the out-of-plane spin polarization on a hexagonally deformed Fermi surface of Bi(2)Te(3) reaches maximally 25% of the in-plane counterpart, while such a sizable out-of-plane spin component does not exist in the more circular Fermi surface of TlBiSe(2), indicating that the hexagonal deformation of the Fermi surface is responsible for the deviation from the ideal helical spin texture. The observed out-of-plane polarization is much smaller than that expected from the existing theory, suggesting that an additional ingredient is necessary for correctly understanding the surface spin polarization in Bi(2)Te(3).     

Influence of the isotopic composition of Li, Rb, and Ag on the absorption of their resonance lines

For the resonance lines of the two-isotope elements Li, Rb, and Ag an investigation is made of the influence of the isotopic composition (b) of an absorbing layer on the magnitude of absorption (A). It is assumed that the contours of the superfine structure (SS) components are of Doppler type and that the source of the line spectrum contains elements of natural isotopic composition. It is shown that A=f(b) for the LiI 670.8 nm line is characterized by a one-to-one dependence on b, and for the RbI 780 nm line it passes through a maximum. For the AgI 383.3 nm line with overlapping SS components the dependence of A on b is practically absent. Translated from Zhurnal Prikladnoi Spektroskopii, Vol. 67, No. 2, pp. 251–252, March–April, 2000.     

Fermi-edge singularity in the vicinity of the resonant scattering condition

Fermi-edge absorption theory predicting the spectrum A(ω) ∝ ω(-2δ(0)/π+δ(0)92)/π2) relies on the assumption that scattering phase δ(0) is frequency independent. The dependence of δ(0) on ω becomes crucial near the resonant condition, where the phase changes abruptly by π. In this limit, because of the finite time spent by electron on a resonant level, the scattering is dynamic. We incorporate the finite time delay into the theory, solve the Dyson equation with a modified kernel, and find that, near the resonance, A(ω) behaves as ω(-3/4)|lnω|. Scattering off the core hole becomes resonant in 1D and 2D in the presence of an empty subband above the Fermi level; then a deep hole splits off a level from the bottom of this subband. Fermi-edge absorption in the regime when resonant level transforms into a Kondo peak is discussed.     

Explicit Confinement Effect on the Helicity Amplitudes of the Low-Lying Nucleon Resonances

Calculations of helicity amplitudes for the low-lying nucleon resonances are displayed based on a non-relativistic constituent quark model with a harmonic oscillator confinement. The explicit effect of quark confinement is shown. Our results show that the effect plays sizable role on some transition amplitudes of S11 (1535) and D13(1520) resonances. The effect on the △(1232) transition amplitudes is less than 10%. However, the effect on the Roper resonance is remarkable but is inconclusive.     

Enhancing the superconducting transition temperature of the heavy fermion compound CeIrIn5 in the absence of spin correlations

We report on a pressure- (P-)induced evolution of superconductivity and spin correlations in CeIrIn(5) via the (115)In nuclear-spin-lattice-relaxation rate measurements. We find that applying pressure suppresses dramatically the antiferromagnetic fluctuations that are strong at ambient pressure. At P = 2.1 GPa, T(c) increases to T(c) = 0.8 K, which is twice T(c) (P = 0 GPa), in the background of Fermi-liquid state. This is in sharp contrast to the previous case in which a negative, chemical pressure (replacing Ir with Rh) enhances magnetic interaction and increases T(c). Our results suggest that multiple mechanisms work to produce superconductivity in the same compound CeIrIn(5).