Onset of crater formation during short pulse laser ablation

We report morphologic changes of metallic surfaces at the onset of ablation, starting from gentle ablation to the emergence of ablation craters. The evolution of both observed melting zones and of ablation craters therein are investigated in dependence of the ablation laser fluence for nanosecond ultraviolet laser pulses. Further, consequences of crater formation for cluster synthesis within the released atomic vapor are pointed out. PACS 52.38.Mf; 79.20.Ds; 65.40.De     

Piecewise Deterministic Markov Control Processes with Feedback Controls and Unbounded Costs

The control of piecewise-deterministic processes is studied where only local boundedness of the data is assumed. Moreover the discount rate may be zero. The value function is shown to be solution to the Bellman equation in a weak sense; however the solution concept is strong enough to generate optimal policies. Continuity and compactness conditions are given for the existence of nonrelaxed optimal feedback controls.     

Potential for micromachined actuation of ultra-wide continuously tunable optoelectronic devices

Tailored scaling represents a principle of success that, both in nature and in technology, allows the effectiveness of physical effects to be enhanced. Mutation and selection in nature are imitated in technology, e.g. by model calculation and design. Proper scaling of dimensions in natural photonic crystals and our fabricated artificial 1D photonic crystals (DBRs, distributed Bragg reflectors) enable efficient diffractive interaction in a specific spectral range. For our optical microsystems we illustrate that tailored miniaturization may also increase the mechanical stability and the effectiveness of spectral tuning by thermal and electrostatic actuation, since the relative significance of the fundamental physical forces involved considerably changes with scaling. These basic physical principles are rigorously applied in micromachined 1.55-μm vertical-resonator-based devices. We modeled, implemented and characterized 1.55-μm micromachined optical filters and vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser devices capable of wide, monotonic and kink-free tuning by a single control parameter. Tuning is achieved by mechanical actuation of one or several air-gaps that are part of the vertical resonator including two ultra-highly reflective DBR mirrors of strong refractive index contrast: (i) Δn=2.17 for InP/air-gap DBRs (3.5 periods) using GaInAs sacrificial layers and (ii) Δn=0.5 for Si₃N₄/SiO₂ DBRs (12 periods) with a polymer sacrificial layer to implement the air-cavity. In semiconductor multiple air-gap filters, a continuous tuning of >8% of the absolute wavelength is obtained. Varying the reverse voltage (U=0–5 V) between the membranes (electrostatic actuation), a tuning range of >110 nm was obtained for a large number of devices. The correlation of the wavelength and the applied voltage is accurately reproducible without any hysteresis. In two filters, tuning of 127 and 130 nm was observed for about ΔU=7 V. The extremely wide tuning range and the very small voltage required are record values to the best of our knowledge. For thermally actuated dielectric filters based on polymer sacrificial layers, Δλ/ΔU=-7 nm/V is found. Received: 10 May 2002 / Published online: 8 August 2002     

Magnetic anisotropy of textured CrO2 thin films investigated by X-ray magnetic circular dichroism

Highly a-axis-textured CrO₂ films have been deposited on Al₂O₃ (0001) substrates by chemical vapor deposition. CrO₂ has been found to have highly a-axis (010)-oriented columnar growth on a Cr₂O₃ (0001) initial layer. The six-fold surface symmetry of the Cr₂O₃ initial layer leads to three equivalent in-plane orientations of the a-axis-oriented CrO₂ unit cell. We report Cr L_2,3 X-ray magnetic circular dichroism data along the surface normal and at 60° off-normal sample orientation. For a 60° sample alignment, a strong increase of the projected orbital moment could be observed for unoccupied majority t_2g states using moment analysis. Therefore, the c axis is identified as the intrinsic magnetic easy axis of CrO₂. In addition, a small spin moment and a very strong magnetic dipole term T_z have been found. Received: 8 January 2002 / Accepted: 8 January 2002     

Stability of Crystalline Ion Beams

Hyperfine Interactions - In this paper, the conditions for which three-dimensional crystalline ion beams were attained in the rf quadrupole storage ring PALLAS at a velocity of around 2800 m/s are...     

Stratifiable Families of Extremals and Sufficient Conditions for Optimality in Optimal Control Problems

It is shown that, if a parametrized fämily of extremals F can be stratified in a way compatible with the flow map generated by F, then those trajectories of the family which realize the minimal values of the cost in F are indeed optimal in comparison with all trajectories which lie in the region R covered by the trajectories of F. It is not assumed that F is a field covering the state space injectively. As illustration, an optimal synthesis is constructed for a system where the flow of extremals exhibits a simple cusp singularity.     

Capabilities and limits of ICP-MS for direct determination of element traces in saline solutions

An ICP-MS method for the determination of ultra-traces of 24 Elements (Li, Be, Mg, Al, Cr, Mn, Co, Zn, Cu, Ga, As, Se, Rb, Sr, Mo, Ag, Cd, Sn, Sb, Ba, Tl, Pb, Bi, U) at ng/L to μg/L levels in highly saline solutions (up to 30 g/L NaCl) was developed. Calculated to the salt content of the samples, limits of detection at the sub-μg/kg level were obtained. This allows the measurement of samples like sea water, or clinical samples like urine, serum and whole blood, with few or without sample preparation and a drastic improvement to the limits of detection. Compared to the determination in solutions of 1 g/L NaCl the limits of detection in the original sample were improved by one order of magnitude. Improvements in instrumental stability are achieved by the use of an additional gas, that is introduced to the aerosol stream and avoids salt deposition in the aerosol tube of the torch, the use of High Matrix Content (HMC) cones, that show no clogging even at NaCl-concentrations up to 50 g/L. With this setup the long term stability for measurements with changing matrix concentrations is < 10% without and < 5% with use of an internal standard for the individual samples. Cleaning up is necessary after 2 days of operation. The direct analysis of the Nearshore Seawater Reference Material NRC-CNRC CASS3 showed a good agreement with the certified and measured concentrations. Elements, that do not suffer from an isobaric overlap of matrix compounds can be determined clearly at ng/L levels. Measurement of different matrix concentrations showed, that acceptable results can be achieved with a single calibration for concentrations from 5 g/L NaCl to 30 g/L NaCl, though matrix matching shows the best results.     

Effective-field theory and the nuclear many-body problem

We review many-body calculations of the equation of state of dilute neutron matter in the context of effective-field theories of the nucleon-nucleon interaction.