Plasma synthesis of nanopowders

There is a huge variety of plasma processes for synthesis of nanoparticulate powders. They may be grouped with respect to operating temperature, which is the essential parameter with respect to the properties of the products. In view of industrial production, the highest degree of maturity is found in high temperature processes working under ambient pressure. For products, where well-defined properties are demanded, low temperature microwave plasma processes are best suited. Additionally, these processes allow coating of the produced particles, even with organic phases. Other processes where plasmas are involved, such as laser or flame processes coupled with electric fields have, to some extent, a high potential for development.     

Detection of quantum critical points by a probe qubit

Quantum phase transitions occur when the ground state of a quantum system undergoes a qualitative change when an external control parameter reaches a critical value. Here, we demonstrate a technique for studying quantum systems undergoing a phase transition by coupling the system to a probe qubit. It uses directly the increased sensibility of the quantum system to perturbations when it is close to a critical point. Using an NMR quantum simulator, we demonstrate this measurement technique for two different types of quantum phase transitions in an Ising spin chain.     

A radiative model with a naturally mild neutrino mass hierarchy

Many neutrino mass models postulate the existence of at least two extra fermions in order to account for the measured solar and atmospheric mass splittings. In these models, however, the predicted hierarchy between the two mass splittings is generically much larger than the observed one, unless extra flavor symmetries are introduced. We present in this Letter a radiative neutrino mass model consisting of the Standard Model extended by one heavy fermionic singlet and two scalars which predicts, under very general conditions, a neutrino mass hierarchy in qualitative agreement with the experimental value.     

Sub-200 fs microjoule pulses from a monolithic linear fiber CPA system

An all-fiber-integrated linear chirped-pulse amplifier system generating microjoule pulse energies is reported. It is seeded by an all-fiber dissipative-soliton laser and incorporates a newly developed fiber stretcher, whose dispersive properties match that of the grating compressor. Pulse durations of 189 fs with energies of 2.2 μJ were achieved after compression. The average power was 9.8 W at the repetition rate of 4.5 MHz.     

Effects of zero-filling and apodization on spectral integrals in discrete Fourier-transform spectroscopy of noisy data

The influence of noise on the standard deviation of spectral integrals is examined. Calculations assuming discrete Fourier-transform data are compared with Monte-Carlo simulations. The effects of zero-filling and apodization are examined for free-induction-decay (FID) signals and for symmetric spin-echo signals in one and two dimensions, with particular attention to features not previously presented in the literature. Findings suggest that for mild apodization, the known sensitivity enhancement due to zero-filling in either the real or the imaginary part signal [E. Bartholdi, R.R. Ernst, Fourier spectroscopy and the causality principle, J. Magn. Reson., 11 (1973) 9-19] is maintained; however, for stronger apodization filters, this enhancement can be obliterated completely. It is shown that results obtained by analysis of one-dimensional signals can be readily applied to multi-dimensional data. Furthermore, zero-filling has a negligible effect for symmetric spin-echo signals with implications for signal averaging in magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopic imaging.