Characterization of Kovar-to-Kovar laser welded joints and its mechanical strength

For the packaging of a pump laser in butterfly package, the most crucial assembly step is the fiber-to-laser diode coupling and attachment. The use of laser welding as the joining method offers several advantages if compared with the adhesive joints: strong joining strength, short process time and less contamination. This paper reports on laser welding process characteristics; weld strength and its fracture mode. The penetration depth and melt area of laser spot welds were found to be complicated functions of laser pulse energy, intensity, and beam diameter. Effects of pulse width, input power and size of the focal spot on the rate of energy input to the workpieces and consequently, the weld strength were reported. The weld strength was found to be dependent on the overlapping area between the two joining materials. Surface roughness, R_a, has influence on the fraction of energy absorbed, A, and therefore, affecting the penetration depth. Thermal analysis was carried out on the laser-welded joints and its heat-affected zone (HAZ) induced by various power densities was examined. These data are important in order to optimize and utilize the laser welding process as an effective manufacturing tool for fabrication of reliable pump laser.     

Charmed-meson decay constants in three-flavor lattice QCD

We present the first lattice QCD calculation with realistic sea quark content of the D+-meson decay constant f(D+). We use the MILC Collaboration's publicly available ensembles of lattice gauge fields, which have a quark sea with two flavors (up and down) much lighter than a third (strange). We obtain f(D+)=201+/-3+/-17 MeV, where the errors are statistical and a combination of systematic errors. We also obtain f(Ds)=249+/-3+/-16 MeV for the Ds meson.     

SIMS as a subnanometer probe: A new tool for chemical profile analysis of grafted molecules

The complexity of modern engineered surfaces requires the development of very powerful methods to analyze and characterize them. We demonstrate that it is possible to obtain chemical information about the skeleton of organic molecules constituting SAMs grafted on a silicon surface by using a new type of SIMS method. A profile can be achieved by the investigation of the temporal variation of secondary ion intensities that correspond to the fractional parts of the molecule constituting the SAMs. The equivalent ablation rate is less than 0.5 nm/min.     

Antibody immobilization on gold nanoparticles coated layer-by-layer with polyelectrolytes

Nanoscale materials are used in the biomedical field for magnetic resonance imaging, protein detection and drug/gene delivery. Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are particularly investigated in cancer treatment and imaging. In this study, we described a simple and reliable liquid method to coat AuNPs (diameter: 21 nm) layer-by-layer with alternative cationic polyallylamine and anionic polystyrenesulfonate. The C-terminal amino acid of the antibody directed against anti-bovine serum albumin was activated by EDC/NHS, and then condensed with the amino functions of the external polyallylamine layer. An ELISA test confirmed that the antigen recognition of the bioconjugate antibody was conserved. This AuNP coating and the covalently coupling could be used as a generic process for binding other specific antibodies, particularly those overexpressed in cancer cells and angiogenesis.     

On the reflection of coupled Rayleigh-like waves at surface defects in plates

The reflection of coupled Rayleigh-like waves from surface defects in elastic plates is investigated experimentally and analyzed on the basis of an analytical model and finite difference simulations. The propagation of Rayleigh-like waves in plates is characterized by an energy transfer to the opposite plate side and back over a distance called the beat length. Experimental results clearly show this beating effect and its dependency on the frequency-thickness product, and excellent agreement is obtained with existing analytical predictions. The propagation and scattering are modeled separately for the fundamental A(0) and S(0) Lamb modes that constitute the incident Rayleigh-like wave. The reflection coefficients from surface slots are investigated using finite difference simulations and the reflected Rayleigh-like wave is obtained by superposition. The theoretical model reveals strong dependencies of the reflected field on the ratio between excitation distance and beat length and on the cutoff frequencies of specific higher Lamb modes. Standard pulse-echo measurements allow for the detection of small defects from a remote transducer location. Good agreement is obtained between the predicted and measured amplitude spectra of the reflected Rayleigh-like wave. The developed model allows for the evaluation of defect location and damaged plate side using a combination of time-of-flight and frequency measurements.     

Casimir force in dense confined electrolytes

ABSTRACT

Understanding the force between charged surfaces immersed in an electrolyte solution is a classic problem in soft matter and liquid-state theory. Recent experiments showed that the force decays exponentially but the characteristic decay length in a concentrated electrolyte is significantly larger than what liquid-state theories predict based on analysing correlation functions in the bulk electrolyte. Inspired by the classical Casimir effect, we consider an additional mechanism for force generation, namely the confinement of density fluctuations in the electrolyte by the walls. We show analytically within the random phase approximation, which assumes the ions to be point charges, that this fluctuation-induced force is attractive and also decays exponentially, albeit with a decay length that is half of the bulk correlation length. These predictions change dramatically when excluded volume effects are accounted for within the mean spherical approximation. At high ion concentrations the Casimir force is found to be exponentially damped oscillatory as a function of the distance between the confining surfaces. Our analysis does not resolve the riddle of the anomalously long screening length observed in experiments, but suggests that the Casimir force due to mode restriction in density fluctuations could be an hitherto under-appreciated source of surface–surface interaction.