The effects of nonlocal impact ionization on the speed of avalanche photodiodes

The nonlocal enhancement in the velocities of charge carriers to ionization is shown to outweigh the opposing effects of dead space, increasing the avalanche speed of short avalanche photodiodes (APDs) over the predictions of a conventional local model which ignores both of these effects. The trends in the measured gain-bandwidth product of two short InAlAs APDs reported in the literature support this result. Relatively large speed benefits are predicted to result from further small reductions in the lengths of short multiplication regions.     

AGE method simulations of a turbulent far‐wake compared to spectral DNS

Turbulent flow simulation methods based on finite differences are attractive for their simplicity, flexibility and efficiency, but not always for accuracy or stability. This paper demonstrates that a good compromise is possible with the advected grid explicit (AGE) method. Starting from the same initial field as a previous spectral DNS, AGE method simulations of a planar turbulent wake were carried out as DNS, and then at three levels of reduced resolution. The latter cases were in a sense large‐eddy simulations (LES), although no specific sub‐grid‐scale model was used. Results for the two DNS methods, including variances and power spectra, were very similar, but the AGE simulation required much less computational effort. Small‐scale information was lost in the reduced resolution runs, but large‐scale mean and instantaneous properties were reproduced quite well, with further large reductions in computational effort. Quality of results becomes more sensitive to the value chosen for one of the AGE method parameters as resolution is reduced, from which it is inferred that the numerical stability procedure controlled by the parameter is acting in part as a sub‐grid‐scale model. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Aberrations theory of a time dependent magnetic field lens

We analyze new forms of aberrations affecting a time dependent magnetic field lens recently proposed. The lens consist of an axially symmetric ellipsoidal solenoid producing a spatially uniform but time pulsating homogeneous field. The dynamics of electrons emitted by some object and injected into this coil shows that this system is capable of focusing a parallel beam or produce images free of geometrical aberrations. The cardinal elements of this lens change periodically in positions and therefore to obtain a stationary image it is necessary to employ a chopped electron beam. Two forms of aberrations originate from the finite duration of the electron pulse and the energy dispersion of the incoming beam (chromatic aberration). Their image degradation effects are quite similar and result from recording different axially displaced images at some fixed stationary plane. We show how, by adjusting the parameters characterizing the magnetic pulse and introducing small apertures that increase the depth of focus, their effects can be reduced or in some cases eliminated. Other forms of instrumental aberrations characteristic of this time dependent magnetic field lens are briefly discussed.     

Magnetic properties of oxygenated carbon nitride films from RF-discharge in an acetylene, nitrogen, and oxygen mixture environments

Properties of oxygenated carbon nitride films have attracted the attention of physics researchers due to their magnetic and physical properties, as well as for their usefulness in the industry. The free radicals were investigated using electron paramagnetic resonance applied in the study of spin concentration due to the different mechanism of preparation of carbon nitride films by RF-discharge with different kinds of plasma. Unpaired spin concentrations, in the order of 10²⁰ per cm³, were measured and their time recombination dependency was important in those films. The films were grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition using mixtures of hydrocarbons, N₂ and O₂ in different proportions.     

Linear demosaicing inspired by the human visual system.

There is an analogy between single-chip color cameras and the human visual system in that these two systems acquire only one limited wavelength sensitivity band per spatial location. We have exploited this analogy, defining a model that characterizes a one-color per spatial position image as a coding into luminance and chrominance of the corresponding three colors per spatial position image. Luminance is defined with full spatial resolution while chrominance contains subsampled opponent colors. Moreover, luminance and chrominance follow a particular arrangement in the Fourier domain, allowing for demosaicing by spatial frequency filtering. This model shows that visual artifacts after demosaicing are due to aliasing between luminance and chrominance and could be solved using a preprocessing filter. This approach also gives new insights for the representation of single-color per spatial location images and enables formal and controllable procedures to design demosaicing algorithms that perform well compared to concurrent approaches, as demonstrated by experiments.     

Anionic iron(II) alkoxides as initiators for the controlled ring‐opening polymerization of lactide

Hetero‐bimetallic Fe(II) alkoxide/aryloxides were evaluated as initiators for the ring‐opening polymerization of rac‐lactide. [(THF)NaFe(O^tBu)₃]₂ ( 1 ) and [(THF)₄Na₂Fe(2,6‐diisopropylphenolate)₄] ( 2 ) (THF = tetrahydrofuran) both polymerized lactide efficiently at room temperature, with complex 1 affording better control over the molecular weight parameters of the resultant polymer. At conversions below 70%, a linear increase in molecular weight with conversion was observed, indicative of a well‐controlled polymerization process. Complex 2 is the first example of a dianionic Fe(II) alkoxide and has been structurally characterized to reveal a distorted square planar FeO₄ array in which both Na counterions bridge two aryloxide ligands and are further complexed by two THF ligands. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 41: 3798–3803, 2003     

Resolution of Some Open Problems Concerning Multiple Zeta Evaluations of Arbitrary Depth

We prove some new evaluations for multiple polylogarithms of arbitrary depth. The simplest of our results is a multiple zeta evaluation one order of complexity beyond the well-known Broadhurst–Zagier formula. Other results we provide settle three of the remaining outstanding conjectures of Borwein, Bradley, and Broadhurst. A complete treatment of a certain arbitrary depth class of periodic alternating unit Euler sums is also given.     

Numerical simulations of a filament in a flowing soap film

Experiments concerning the properties of soap films have recently been carried out and these systems have been proposed as experimental versions of theoretical two‐dimensional liquids. A silk filament introduced into a flowing soap film, was seen to demonstrate various stable modes, and these were, namely, a mode in which the filament oscillates and one in which the filament is stationary and aligns with the flow of the liquid. The system could be forced from the oscillatory mode into the non‐ oscillatory mode by varying the length of the filament. In this article we use numerical and computational techniques in order to simulate the strongly coupled behaviour of the filament and the fluid. Preliminary results are presented for the specific case in which the filament is seen to oscillate continuously for the duration of our simulation. We also find that the filament oscillations are strongly suppressed when we reduce the effective length of the filament. We believe that these results are reminiscent of the different oscillatory and non‐oscillatory modes observed in experiment. The numerical solutions show that, in contrast to experiment, vortices are created at the leading edge of the filament and are preferentially grown in the curvature of the filament and are eventually released from the trailing edge of the filament. In a similar manner to oscillating hydrofoils, it seems that the oscillating filaments are in a minimal energy state, extracting sufficient energy from the fluid to oscillate. In comparing numerical and experimental results it is possible that the soap film does have an effect on the fluid flow especially in the boundary layer where surface tension forces are large. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.