Design Consideration for a Two-Distributed-Junction Tuning Circuit

We describe a novel method of designing a tuning circuit with two half-wave distributed junctions separated by a half-wavelength microstripline, which analytically determines the circuit parameters such as the minimum current density of the junctions and the characteristic impedances of the distributed junctions and the microstripline. The tuning circuit was approximated by simple transmission theory and then simplified with ideal circuit components for analysis. We applied Chebyshevs band-pass filter theory, in part, to optimize the circuit design. The analytical results revealed that a high characteristic-impedance ratio between the distributed junctions and the microstripline is necessary to obtain broadband matching using low-current-density junctions. The experimental results for all-NbN SIS mixers we designed with this method demonstrated double-sideband (DSB) receiver-noise temperatures of 6–10 quanta from 710 to 810 GHz for a mixer with a current density of only 4 kA/cm² (estimated C_JR_N product of 37 at 750 GHz). The RF bandwidth was broader than that of a conventional full-wave distributed SIS mixer with the same current density.     

Ruthenium-catalyzed hydrogenation of alkynylstannanes with migration of the stannyl group

Molecular hydrogen adds to aliphatic and aromatic alkynylstannanes in the presence of a ruthenium catalyst, pushing the stannyl group to the adjacent carbon atom to give alpha-substituted vinylstannanes. This is the first achievement of hydrogenation of alkynylstannanes, which is applicable also to the deuteration affording precursors for an important class of deuterium-labeled compounds.     

Reduction of propagation and bending losses of heterostructured photonic crystal waveguides by use of a high-delta structure

We describe the fabrication and evaluation of a low-loss, high-delta optical waveguide consisting of heterostructured photonic crystals. The waveguide is composed of a multilayer stack of Ta2O5/SiO2 and is prepared by use of the autocloning technique. Light is guided in the waveguide by the difference in the effective refractive indices of the constituent photonic crystals. By improving the design of the core region so that is has a flat multilayer structure, we achieve delta = 3.09% for the in-plane direction and net propagation loss of 0.56 dB/mm at lambda = 1.6 microm. Experiments also suggest that the bending loss of the waveguide can be reduced to less than 0.1 dB if the curvature radius is larger than 700 microm.     

Itinerant memory dynamics and global bifurcations in chaotic neural networks

We have considered itinerant memory dynamics in a chaotic neural network composed of four chaotic neurons with synaptic connections determined by two orthogonal stored patterns as a simple example of a chaotic itinerant phenomenon in dynamical associative memory. We have analyzed a mechanism of generating the itinerant memory dynamics with respect to intersection of a pair of alpha branches of periodic points and collapse of a periodic in-phase attracting set. The intersection of invariant sets is numerically verified by a novel method proposed in this paper.     

A novel migrative addition reaction of hydrazines to the diketone derivative of C60

A novel addition reaction of an aromatic hydrazine to the diketone derivative of C60 occurs highly regioselectively with an unusual migration of two hydrogen atoms from the hydrazine to the fullerene and affords a fluorescent product having a methylene carbon along the orifice.     

Real three-dimensional microstructures fabricated by photopolymerization of resins through two-photon absorption

Effective energy windows for two-photon absorption (TPA) photopolymerization of resins were investigated and, with a properly selected laser pulse energy, exquisite three-dimensional (3D) microstructures with submicrometer spatial resolution were achieved. The results show the inherent utility of TPA in the fabrication of real 3D patterns. In particular, we propose and utilize a resin pre-exposure technique by which freely movable components affixed to an axle are built, demonstrating a new application of TPA in laser microfabrication.