Evanescent tunneling of an effective surface plasmon excited by convection electrons

We introduce the subwavelength transmission of an effective surface plasmon beyond the light zone via the proximity interaction of convection electrons with a metal grating. A comparative analysis of dielectric homogenization and a finite-difference-time-domain simulation shows that out-of-phase-like modes (pi modes) have strong transmission below the cutoff frequency relying on the parametric condition of structural dimension and electronic energy. The synchronous spatial field and charge distribution of the pi mode system confirms the evanescent tunneling effect of the electron-coupled plasmons.     

Synthesis and characterization of β-Ga2O3 nanostructures grown on GaAs substrates

β-Ga₂O₃ nanostructures including nanowires, nanoribbons and nanosheets were synthesized via thermal annealing of gold coated GaAs substrates in N₂ ambient. GaAs substrates with different dopants were taken as the starting material to study the effect of doping on the growth and photoluminescence properties of β-Ga₂O₃ nanostructures. The nanostructures were investigated by Grazing Incident X-ray Diffraction, Scanning Electron Microscopy, Transmission Electron Microscopy, Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy, room temperature photoluminescence and optical absorbance. The selected area electron diffraction and High resolution-TEM observations suggest that both nanowires and nanobelts are single crystalline. Different growth directions were observed for nanowires and nanoribbons, indicating the different growth patterns of these nanostructures. The PL spectra of β-Ga₂O₃ nanostructures exhibit a strong UV-blue emission band centered at 410 nm, 415 nm and 450 nm for differently doped GaAs substrates respectively. A weak red luminescence peak at 710 nm was also observed in all the samples. The optical absorbance spectrum showed intense absorption features in the UV spectral region. The growth and luminescence mechanism in β-Ga₂O₃ nanostructures are also discussed.     

First principles calculations of armchair graphene nanoribbons interacting with Cu atoms

We have investigated the electronic properties of bare, H-terminated, Cu-terminated and Cu-doped armchair graphene nanoribbons (AGNRs) using ab-initio approach. We found that H-termination enhances the stability and band gap whereas H extraction introduces dangling bands and lowers the band gap making bare ribbons indirect band gap semiconductors. The calculations revealed that strong hybridization between Cu atoms and AGNRs, lessen the band gap for Cu-terminated ribbons and gives rise to metallicity in Cu-doped AGNRs irrespective of their widths. Formation energy of considered ribbons yield that H-terminated AGNRs with lowest formation energy are most energetically favored, next are one edge Cu-terminated ribbons followed by bare ones whereas both edges Cu-doped ribbons are least energetically plausible. We predict that presence of Cu atoms in GNRs, significantly alter the band gap and can be used in band gap engineering of nanoribbons.     

Two-dimensional cell parameters measurement of nematic liquid crystal using optical interferometry and Fourier transform fringe analysis technique

We report a method for the measurement of nematic liquid crystal (NLC) cell parameters i.e., switching voltage, birefringence, retardation, dielectric anisotropy, average tilt angle and change in refractive index with applied DC voltage to LC material. The proposed method is based on optical interferometry and Fourier transform fringe analysis technique, in which we obtain 2-dimensional (2D) phase map of the interferograms as a function of applied voltage. Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) was used for the study of cell parameters and interferograms were recorded at different applied DC voltages to NLC cell using CCD camera. From the phase map, 2D-refractive index distribution of the LC cell with applied voltage was reconstructed. Analytical equations are derived based on optical interferometry and then solved to obtain cell parameters. The present method is fast and can give 2D-cell parameters from only two quick interferograms.     

Inequalities for a unified family of Voigt functions in several variables

The classical Voigt functions occur frequently in a wide variety of problems in astrophysical spectroscopy, emission, absorption and transfer of radiation in heated atmosphere, and plasma dispersion, and indeed also in the theory of neutron reactions. Here, in the present paper, by applying several known upper bounds for the first-kind Bessel function J _ν (x) given recently by (for example) Landau, Olenko and Krasikov, sharp bounding inequalities are obtained for the unified multivariable Voigt function V _μ,ν (x; y) in terms of the confluent Fox-Wright function ₁ψ₀ and its incomplete variant ₁ψ₀. Connections of the unified multivariable Voigt function V _μ,ν (x; y) with other unifications and generalizations of the classical Voigt function are also briefly pointed out.     

Theory of transport of long polymer molecules through carbon nanotube channels

A theory of transport of long chain polymer molecules through carbon nanotube (CNT) channels is developed using the Fokker-Planck equation and direct molecular dynamics simulations. The mean transport or translocation time tau is found to depend on the chemical potential energy, the entropy, and the diffusion coefficient. A power law dependence tau approximately N2 is found, where N is the number of monomers in a molecule. For 10(5)-unit long polyethylene molecules, tau is estimated to be approximately 1 micros. The diffusion coefficient of long polymer molecules inside CNTs, like that of short ones, is found to be a few orders of magnitude larger than in ordinary silicate based zeolite systems.     

Carbon nanotube "T Junctions": formation pathways and conductivity

Using tight-binding molecular dynamics we simulate the formation of single wall carbon nanotube T junctions via the fusing of two nanotubes. We propose energetically efficient pathways for this process in which all atoms maintain their sp(2) arrangements throughout. Recent experimental advances have greatly increased the plausibility of synthesizing T junctions as proposed in the simulations. We further report I-V characteristics of the formed junctions.     

AWG and EDFA based optical packet switch using feedback shared loop buffer memory

Optical packet switching provides high speed, data rate/format transparency, efficient use of bandwidth and flexibility. The major problem in the implementation of “all-optical” switching is contention which occurs when two or more packets arrive at the same time for the same destination. To resolve the contention, we have proposed an optical packet switch architecture based on WDM loop buffer memory in the feedback configuration. In that architecture, the contending packets are stored in a loop buffer module, and routed in the free time slots. The buffering duration in the recirculating loop is limited by a circulation limit. The analysis was been done to obtain the maximum number of allowed circulations. This paper proposes improved version of that optical packet switch architecture, to increase the number of maximum allowed circulations. The modification is done either by adding an extra erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) in the original switch or by replacing the core space switch with arrayed waveguide grating (AWG). The performance analysis has been done by the simulations.     

Theoretical investigation on structural, magnetic and electronic properties of ferromagnetic GdN under pressure

The tight-binding linear muffin tin orbital (TB-LMTO) method within the local density approximation is used to calculate structural, electronic and magnetic properties of GdN under pressure. Both nonmagnetic (NM) and magnetic calculations are performed. The structural and magnetic stabilities are determined from the total energy calculations. The magnetic to ferromagnetic (FM) transition is not calculated. Magnetically, GdN is stable in the FM state, while its ambient structure is found to be stable in the NaCl-type (B₁) structure. We predict NaCl-type to CsCl-type structure phase transition in GdN at a pressure of 30.4 GPa. In a complete spin of FM GdN the electronic band picture of one spin shows metallic, while the other spin shows its semiconducting behavior, resulting in half-metallic behavior at both ambient and high pressures. We have, therefore, calculated electronic band structures, equilibrium lattice constants, cohesive energies, bulk moduli and magnetic moments for GdN in the B₁ and B₂ phases. The magnetic moment, equilibrium lattice parameter and bulk modulus is calculated to be 6.99 μ_B, 4.935 Å and 192.13 GPa, respectively, which are in good agreement with the experimental results.