Theory of sound propagation in superfluid-filled porous media

The theory of sound propagation in macroscopically isotropic and homogeneous porous media saturated with superfluid ⁴He has been developed neglecting all damping processes. The case when the normal fluid component is locked inside a porous medium by viscous forces is investigated in detail. It is shown that in this case one shear wave and two longitudinal, fast and slow, waves exist. Fast wave as well as slow wave is accompanied with temperature oscillations. The velocities of these waves are obtained.     

Observation of a forbidden vibrational absorption band of H2 in nanoporous aerogel

Room-temperature absorption spectra of H₂ in nanoporous aerogel with a pore diameter of ～20 nm have been studied on a Fourier spectrometer in the spectral range of 4000–4800 cm^?1. Absorption at the forbidden transitions of the 0–1 vibrational band has been observed. The recorded spectra of H₂ in aerogel have been compared with the spectra of free high-pressure H₂.     

Observation of a superfluid He-3 A- B phase transition in silica aerogel

A lattice-Boltzmann method has been developed to incorporate solid-fluid boundary conditions on length scales less than the grid spacing. By introducing a continuous parameter, specified at each node and representing the fluid volume fraction associated with that node, we obtain second-order accuracy for boundaries at arbitrary positions and orientations with respect to the grid. The method does not require surface normals, and can therefore be applied to irregular geometries such as porous media. The new rules conserve mass and momentum, and reduce to the link bounce-back rule at aligned interfaces.     

Observation of a topological relaxation mode in microemulsions

We report the observation of two diffusive relaxation modes in a very swollen microemulsion, measured by quasielastic light scattering experiments. In addition to a short-time diffusion process, we observe a long-time diffusive relaxation mode with unusual scaling behavior: the diffusion constant D is an exponential function of the characteristic length scale xi, D~exp(-xi). This observation provides experimental evidence for thermally activated topological relaxation of random fluid phases, as predicted by Milner et al. [J. Phys. (Paris) 51, 2629 (1990)]. We describe the activation energy of such a process by some simple microscopic model for the surfactant layer and give an estimation of the membrane elastic and Gaussian moduli kappa and kappa;, and its spontaneous curvature.     

Observation of a nonlinear mode in a cylindrical Fabry-Perot cavity

We report what is believed to be the first observation of a nonlinear mode in a cylindrical nonlinear Fabry-Perot cavity. The field enhancement from cavity buildup, as well as the large chi((3)) optical nonlinearity that is due to resonantly excited (85)Rb vapor, allows the nonlinear mode to form at low incident optical powers of less than 1 mW. The mode is observed to occur for both self-focusing and self-defocusing nonlinearity.     

Observation of mode conversion in gyrotrons

The observed output power levels in the University of Sydney's gyrotron can be accounted for only by including the effects of mode conversion at waveguidetaper transitions in the vicinity of the resonant cavity. A series of measurements taken from liquid-crystal images of the microwave fields beyond the output window confirms this.     

Observation of Leggett's collective mode in a multiband MgB2 superconductor

We report observation of Leggett's collective mode in a multiband MgB2 superconductor with Tc=39 K arising from the fluctuations in the relative phase between two superconducting condensates. The novel mode is observed by Raman spectroscopy at 9.4 meV in the fully symmetric scattering channel. The observed mode frequency is consistent with theoretical considerations based on first-principles computations.     

Observation of an interedge magnetoplasmon mode in a degenerate two-dimensional electron gas

We study the propagation of edge magnetoplasmons by time-resolved current measurements in a sample which allows for selective detection of edge states in the quantum Hall regime. At filling factors close to nu=3 we observe two decoupled modes of edge excitations, one of which is related to the innermost compressible strip and is identified as an interedge magnetoplasmon mode. From the analysis of the propagation velocities of each mode the internal spatial parameters of the edge structure are derived.     

Observation of critical coupling in a fiber taper to a silica-microsphere whispering-gallery mode system

We present the observation of critical coupling in a high- Q fused-silica microsphere whispering-gallery mode resonator coupled to a fiber taper. Extremely efficient and controlled power transfer to high- Q ( approximately 10(7)) resonators has been demonstrated. Off-resonance scattering loss was measured to be less than 0.3%. On-resonance extinction in transmitted optical power through the fiber coupler was measured as high as 26 dB at the critical coupling point. This result opens up a range of new applications in fields as diverse as near-field sensing and quantum optics.     

Observation of a collective mode of an array of transmon qubits

Arrays of transmon qubits coupled to a λ/2 superconducting coplanar waveguide resonator have been studied by microwave spectroscopy. The emergence of a collective mode has been discovered for a cluster of N > 5 qubits, whose coupling constant to the electromagnetic field in the resonator is √N times greater compared to a single qubit. In addition, the emergence of collective multiphoton transitions exciting higher levels of a qubit cluster has been demonstrated and the interaction of an individual qubit with such a cluster has been investigated.     

Observation of soliton bound states in a graphene mode locked erbium-doped fiber laser

We report on the experimental observation of bound states of solitons in a graphene mode locked erbium-doped fiber laser. By using graphene as a saturable absorber, we have obtained stable, single and bound soliton pulses, the latter with a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 1.49 ps and a fixed pulse separation of 2.46 ps. Our results once again show that bound soliton pulses is an intrinsic feature of fiber lasers independent of the exact mode locking mechanism.     

Optofluidic microchannels in aerogel

We report optofluidic waveguides made by filling microchannels in aerogel with water. The aerogel cladding is a nanoporous material with an extremely low refractive index of ~1.05, giving a large index step from the water core. Channels were formed by removing embedded optical fibers, which could be nonuniform or multiple. The porosity of the aerogel allowed air to be displaced from the channel, preventing the trapping of bubbles. The attenuation of red light in the highly multimode water core waveguide was no greater than 1.5 dB/cm.     

Observation of a high lying van der Waals mode in the intermolecular potential of Ar-CO

A continuous two-dimensional jet expansion in combination with an infrared diode laser spectrometer has been used to record a new subband of the weakly bound complex Ar-CO in the 2168cm^?1 region. Twenty-two transitions were assigned to a thus far unobserved K _a = 0 van der Waals state at 36.765 cm^?l above the ground state. This is the highest van der Waals mode of Ar-CO reported so far. These high lying energy levels will provide a very sensitive test for future ab initio and Semiempirical potential energy surfaces.