A normalised residence time transport equation for the numerical simulation of combustion with high-temperature air

This study concerns the numerical simulation of turbulent non-premixed combustion in highly preheated air streams. One of the objectives is to settle an efficient computational procedure to proceed with the numerical simulation of large-scale industrial devices. It is also expected that the availability of such a computational framework may facilitate comprehensive sensitivity analyses as well as the development of mathematical models able to represent turbulence-chemistry interactions (TCI) in such conditions. Based on the salient physical ingredients that characterise scalar mixing, propagation, and self-ignition processes, a turbulent combustion modelling framework is thus introduced and applied to the numerical simulation of well-documented laboratory flames. In the corresponding geometries, the bulk flow velocities of the reactants streams can reach rather large values, which lead the flame to lift from the burner rim. Partially premixed flame edges thus stabilise the whole flame structure and the temperature of the oxidising stream can be increased by vitiation with burned gases so as to promote the corresponding flame-stabilisation processes. For sufficiently large values of the vitiated airstream temperature, self-ignition mechanisms may be triggered thus leading to a competition between mixing, propagation, and ignition processes. In this context, the ratio of the residence time to the self-ignition delay is thought to be a relevant variable to delineate the possible influence of ignition phenomena. Therefore, a modelled transport equation for this normalised residence time is considered. The performance of the corresponding modelling proposal is analysed with special emphasis placed on its ability to reproduce ‘memory’ or ‘lagrangian’ effects related to thermal aging processes. In this respect, it is noteworthy that the present set of computations makes use of tabulated quantities associated to (i) steady laminar one-dimensional diffusion flamelets, so as to describe the composition of combustion products, (ii) steady laminar one-dimensional premixed flamelets, to describe the flame brush propagation, and (iii) temporal evolution of zero-dimensional homogeneous mixtures to account for the possible occurrence of self-ignition phenomena. In particular, the tabulated self-ignition time value is used to evaluate the increase in the normalised residence time. Finally, two modelling parameters are put into evidence and studied through a detailed sensitivity analysis.     

Broadly tunable single-frequency cw mid-infrared source with milliwatt-level output based on difference-frequency generation in orientation-patterned GaAs

A narrow-linewidth mid-IR source based on difference-frequency generation of an amplified 1.5 microm diode laser and a cw Tm-doped fiber laser in orientation-patterned (OP) GaAs has been developed and evaluated for spectroscopic applications. The source can be tuned to any frequency in the 7.6-8.2 microm range with an output power of 0.5 mW. The measured characteristics of the OP-GaAs sample demonstrate a high quality of the material.     

From X- to O-shaped spatiotemporal spectra of light filaments in water

We show that the angle-wavelength spectra of light filaments excited by ultrashort pulses experience a transition from X- to O-like structures when their carrier wavelengths are switched from normal to anomalous dispersion. Calculations confirm that the O-shaped conical emission follows the elliptic geometry of the nonlinear Schr?dinger equation with anomalous dispersion.     

Huge excitonic effects in layered hexagonal boron nitride

The all-electron GW approximation energy band gap of bulk hexagonal boron nitride is shown to be of indirect type. The resulting computed in-plane polarized optical spectrum, obtained by solving the Bethe-Salpeter equation for the electron-hole two-particle Green function, is in excellent agreement with experiment and has a strong anisotropy compared to out-of-plane polarized spectrum. A detailed analysis of the excitonic structures within the band gap shows that the low-lying excitons belong to the Frenkel class and are tightly confined within the layers. The calculated exciton binding energy is much larger than that obtained by Watanabe et al. [Nat. Mater. 3, 404 (2004).] based on a Wannier model assuming h-BN to be a direct-band-gap semiconductor.     

In situ spectroscopic ellipsometry: Application to Sb coverage measurement in the monolayer range on Si (111)

In this paper, we present an analysis of antinomy deposition on silicon in the range of 0.1 to 1 monolayer by in situ spectroscopic ellipsometry. After a careful choice of viewpoint material, ellipsometric measurements are found to be sensitive to small surface perturbations, especially with antimony. In fact, less than a 0.1 monolayer of antimony on silicon at room temperature is detectable. Moreover, a linear dependence of the ellipsometric signal on Sb coverage is observed in the monolayer range. Consequently, the signal versus time variation directly gives the Sb adsorption kinetics on silicon. The saturation to one monolayer of compact antimony on silicon surface is used in order to calibrate the spectra.     

Direct measurement of the single-metal-cluster optical absorption

The absorption of a single isolated metal cluster is directly measured using a novel far-field optical technique based on modulation of its position. Single gold nanoparticles with average diameters down to 5 nm, dispersed on a transparent substrate, are optically detected and their absolute absorption cross section determined.     

Femtosecond laser fabrication of tubular waveguides in poly(methyl methacrylate)

Femtosecond laser direct writing is employed for the fabrication of buried tubular waveguides in bulk poly(methyl methacrylate). A novel technique using selective chemical etching is presented to resolve the two-dimensional refractive-index profile of the fabrication structures. End-to-end coupling in the waveguides reveals a near-field intensity distribution that results from the superimposition of several propagating modes with different azimuthal symmetries. Mode analysis of the tubular waveguides is performed using the finite-difference method, and the possible propagating mode profiles are compared with the experimental data.     

Precision of degree of polarization estimation in the presence of additive Gaussian detector noise

We address the problem of degree of polarization (DOP) estimation in images limited by additive Gaussian detector noise. We derive and analyze the probability density function (PDF) of the pixelwise DOP estimate, which is shown to have significantly different statistical properties than when noise is Gamma distributed (speckle). We then determine the Cramer-Rao Lower Bound and the maximum likelihood estimator of the DOP. We deduce from this study practical solutions for characterizing and reducing the noise in these images.