Synthesis and thermal behaviour of salicylaldimine-based liquid crystalline symmetrical dimers

A series of symmetrical dimers consisting of salicylaldimine moieties connected by flexible alkylene central spacer via ether linkages has been synthesized. In order to validate the empirical rule suggested by Date et al. to account for the smectic behaviour of such dimers, the chain length of the terminal alkoxy chain has been kept constant (C₈) while the number of methylene units in the central spacer was varied from C₃ to C₁₁. Another aim of the present investigation was to understand structure-property relationship in these dimers in which the salicylaldimine mesogenic segment has been used for the first time in dimers. The mesomorphic behaviour of these dimers was evaluated using optical microscopy and differential scanning calorimetry and the structure of some of the mesophases has been further investigated with the help of X-ray diffraction. Our studies reveal that the dimers consisting of 3 to 8 methylene units in the flexible spacer show only smectic (smectic C and smectic A) phases. For the dimers containing 4, 6 and 8 methylene units in the central spacer, a unique filament growth pattern has been observed in the smectic A phase while cooling from the isotropic phase. The dimers containing of C₉ to C₁₁ methylene groups exhibit the nematic phase in addition to smectic modifications. This observation indicates that when the terminal chains are shorter than the spacer, the tendency to form smectic phases is not fully extinguished but is perhaps reduced.     

Machine assignment in a nonlinear multi-product flowline

A group of machines for processing a set of jobs in a manufacturing system is often located in a serial line. An efficient strategy for locating these machines such that the total travel distance or the cost of transporting the jobs is minimized is desired. In this research, the assumption of a linear line with equally spaced machine location is relaxed. This research addressed problems of locating unique machines. It is found that the machine distances possess unique properties in this type of a problem. Utilizing these properties, heuristic strategies are proposed to obtain efficient solution where optimal methods are expected to be computationally prohibitive. A lower bound for the optimum solution is also proposed. Results are encouraging.     

Fabrication and characterization of sputtered titanium dioxide films

TiO₂ thin films were prepared under various conditions by using a reactive RF sputtering technique. The structural, optical and electrical characteristics of the films have been investigated. All as-deposited films were amorphous. After annealing at T > 673 K, the crystallinity of the observed tetragonal anatase phase appeared improved. The optical band gap, determined by using Tauc plot, has been found to amount to 3.38 ± 0.03 and 3.21 ± 0.03 eV for the direct and indirect transition, respectively. Also the complex optical constants for the wavelength range 300-2500 nm are reported. Using the two-point probe technique, the dark resistivity has been measured as a function of the film thickness, d. The resistivity, ρ, of the samples has been found to decrease markedly with increasing thickness, but only for d < 100 nm. The behaviour of ρd versus d was found to fit properly with the Fuchs and Sondheimer relation with parameters ρ_o = 4.95 × 10⁶ Ω cm and mean free path, l = 310 ± 2 nm. The log ρ versus 1/T curves show three distinct regions with values for the activation energy of 0.03 ± 0.01, 0.17 ± 0.01 and 0.50 ± 0.02 eV, respectively.     

Approximate and Exact Small Signal Analysis for Single-Mode Fiber Near Zero Dispersion Wavelength with Higher Order Dispersion

This article presents the comparison of approximate and exact small-signal theories for analyzing the influence of the higher-order dispersion terms on dispersive optical communication systems operating near zero dispersion wavelength for linear single-mode fiber. For the approximate theory, the generalized conversion matrix has been reported and gives the transfer function of intensity and phase from the fiber input to fiber output for a laser source including the influence of any higher-order dispersion term. In addition, expressions for the small-signal frequency response and the relative intensity noise (RIN) response of an ultrafast laser diode including noises are derived. However, it is observed that the approximation assumed for the second-order dispersion term for the approximate analysis is not valid. From the approximate theory, the exact generalized conversion matrix and exact expressions for small-signal frequency response and relative intensity noise (RIN) are obtained. We show that for the exact theory, the second-order dispersion term has no effect on intensity and frequency response even at large modulating frequencies and large propagation distances contrary to the approximate theory as reported by other authors. But we show that third-order dispersion term certainly has some minute impact on the frequency and RIN response for long distance links at high modulating frequencies.     

Some hydrodynamic aspects of 3-phase inverse fluidized bed

Hydrodynamics of 3-phase inverse fluidized bed is studied experimentally using low density particles for different liquid and gas velocities. The hydrodynamic characteristics studied include pressure drop, minimum liquid and gas fluidization velocities and phase holdups. The minimum liquid fluidization velocity determined using the bed pressure gradient, decreases with increase in gas velocity. The axial profiles of phase holdups shows that the liquid holdup increases along the bed height, whereas the solid holdup decreases down the bed. However, the gas holdup is almost uniform in the bed.     

High responsivity, LWIR dots-in-a-well quantum dot infrared photodetectors

In this paper we report studies on normal incidence, InAs/In_0.15Ga_0.85As quantum dot infrared photodetectors (QDIPs) in the dots-in-a-well (DWELL) configuration. Three QDIP structures with similar dot and well dimensions were grown and devices were fabricated from each wafer. Of the three devices studied, the first served as the control, the second was grown with an additional 400 Å AlGaAs blocking layer, and the third was grown on a GaAs n+ substrate with the intention of testing a single pass geometry. Spectral measurements on all three devices show one main peak in the long-wave IR (≈8 μm). The absorption was attributed to the bound-to-bound transition between the ground state of the InAs quantum dot and the ground state of the In_0.15Ga_0.85As well. Calibrated peak responsivity and peak detectivity measurements were performed on each device at 40, 60, and 80 K. For the same temperatures, frequency response measurements from 20 Hz to 4 kHz at a bias of V_b=−1 V were also performed. The addition of the blocking layer was shown to slightly enhance responsivity, which peaked at 2.4 A/W at 77 K, V_b=−1 V and responsivity was observed to be significantly reduced in the single pass (n+ substrate) sample. The rolloff of the frequency response was observed to be heavily dependent on temperature, bias, and irradiance. The results from the characterization of each sample are reported and discussed.     

Stability analysis of structurally unstable man–machine system involving time delays

In this paper, a structurally unstable man–machine system is considered and a rigorous mathematical analysis is performed to study the influence of time delays in the control force on stability of the equilibrium solution of this system. Results on stability, instability and conditions for the preservation of stability (instability), besides the existence of bifurcation are presented.     

The sojourn time and related characteristics of the age-dependent branching process

An age-dependent branching process where disasters occur as a renewal process leading to annihilation or survival ofall the cells, is considered. For such a process, the total mean sojourn time of all the cells in the system is analysed using the regeneration point technique. The mean number of cells which die in timet and its asymptotic behaviour are discussed. When the disasters arrival as a Poisson process and the lifetime of the cells follows exponential distribution, elegant inter-relationships are found among the means of (i) the total number of cells which die in timet (ii) the total sojourn time of all cells in the system upto timet and (iii) the number of living cells at timet. Some of the existing results are deduced as special cases for related processes.     

Precise measurement of hyperfine structure in the state of Rb

We demonstrate a technique to measure hyperfine structure using a frequency-stabilized diode laser and an acousto-optic modulator locked to the frequency difference between two hyperfine peaks. We use this technique to measure hyperfine intervals in the 5 P _3/2 state of ⁸⁵Rb and obtain a precision of 20 kHz. We extract values for the magnetic-dipole coupling constant A = 25.038(5) MHz and the electric-quadrupole coupling constant B = 26.011(22) MHz. These values are a significant improvement over previous results. Received 6 March 2003 Published online 15 April 2003