Fiber optic evanescent field absorption sensor: Effect of fiber parameters and geometry of the probe

A comparative experimental study of the fiber-optic evanescent field absorption sensor based on straight and U-shaped probes is presented. The effects of numerical aperture and the core radius of the fiber on the sensitivity of the sensor are experimentally investigated. Increase in the numerical aperture of the fiber increases the sensitivity of the sensor in the case of both the probes. The effect of core radius on the sensitivity depends on the bending radius of the probe. In the case of straight probe (i.e. infinite bending radius) the fiber with smaller core radius has high sensitivity while in the case of U-shaped probe with 0.17 cm bending radius, the fiber with larger core radius has high sensitivity. Thus, which fiber (with small or large core radius) has maximum sensitivity depends on the bending radius of the probe. For a given fiber, decrease in the bending radius increases the sensitivity of the U-shaped probe. An inverse power law relationship between the bending radius and the evanescent absorbance and hence the sensitivity is established.     

Analysis of thermal expansion coefficients under the effect of high temperature for minerals

A simple and straightforward method for the determination of thermal expansion is investigated and applied for four minerals of geophysical importance. The results obtained for four minerals such as Mg₂SiO₃, Al₂O₃, Grossular garnet and Pyrope garnet at different temperatures are found to be in excellent agreement with the experimental data. The simplicity of the method is discussed in the light of another method in high temperature research on minerals.     

A Class of Charged Relativistic Superdense Star Models

In this article we obtain a new class of well behaved charged solutions by using particular forms of the metric potential g ₄₄ and electric intensity, which involves a parameter K. The metric describing the superdense stars joins smoothly with the Reissner-Nordstrom metric at the pressure free boundary. This class of solutions describes well behaved charged fluid balls. The class of solutions gives range of parameter K (0.13≤K≤1.9999) for which the solution is well behaved hence, suitable for modeling of super dense star. The interior of the stars possess there energy density, pressure, pressure-density ratio and velocity of sound to be monotonically decreasing towards the pressure free interface. In view of the surface density 2×10¹⁴ gm/cm³, the maximum mass of the charged fluid balls and corresponding radius are 0.4711M _Θ and 7.0122 km. The red shift at the centre and boundary are found to be 0.1640 and 0.1100 respectively.     

Improved electrical parameters of vacuum annealed Ni/4H-SiC (0 0 0 1) Schottky barrier diode

The reported work has been focused on the improvement of electrical parameters of Schottky diode using vacuum annealing at mild temperature in Ar gas ambient. Nickel Schottky barrier diodes were fabricated on 50 μm epitaxial layer of n-type 4H-SiC (0 0 0 1) substrate. The values of leakage current, Schottky barrier height (?_B), ideality factor (η) and density of interface states (N_SS) were obtained from experimentally measured current–voltage (I–V) and capacitance–voltage (C–V) characteristics before and after vacuum annealing treatment. The data revealed that ?_B, η and reverse leakage current for the as-processed diodes are 1.25 eV, 1.6 and 1.2 nA (at ?100 V), respectively, while for vacuum annealed diodes these parameters are 1.36 eV, 1.3 and 900 pA (at same reverse voltage). Improved characteristics have been resulted under the influence of vacuum annealing because of lesser number of minority carrier generation due to incessant reduction of number of available discrete energy levels in the bandgap of 4H-SiC substrate and lesser number of interface states density at Ni/4H-SiC (0 0 0 1) interface.     

The valence state of M-ions in the chemically stabilized YSr2Cu3-xMxO7+δ (M=Mo, W and Re) superconductors

 Single phase Ba-free Sr-based YSr₂Cu _3-x M _x O_7+δ (M=Mo, W and Re) compounds have been stabilized by chemical doping. Superconductivity is observed for these phases in the range 30–45 K. X-ray diffraction studies suggest a relatively small orthorhombicity compared to Ba-analogue. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic investigations reveal that the stabilizing cations are in the hexavalent state. The observation of the higher oxidation state of M-ions accounts for the excess oxygen content in these phases which is in accordence with the diffraction results. Received: 10 June 1996 / Accepted: 20 September 1996     

Study of rapid stress annealed nano-crystalline Fe74.5Cu1Nb3Si15.5B6 alloy

Rapid stress annealing induced changes in structural and magnetic properties in Fe_74.5Cu₁Nb₃Si_15.5B₆ are reported. Obtained results suggest changes in spin texture with preferred orientation along ribbon axis. Fraction of A site in the DO₃ lattice occupied by Si atoms, increases, with increase of applied stress during annealing. Volume fraction of the nanograins up to 60% (exhibiting quite similar mean grain diameter ～9 nm) is observed. Lattice parameter values suggest that Si content in the nanocrystalline phase is between 14% and 19% and increase of lattice parameter suggests the elongation of the unit cell. Studied stress annealed samples exhibit soft magnetic behavior (coercive field ranging between 4 and 8 Am^???1). Stress annealing reduces permeability whereas anisotropy field increases almost linearly exhibiting the induction of uniaxial and perpendicular to the ribbon axis anisotropy. Obtained stress-induced-anisotropy constant values range between 50 and 2,140 Jm^???3.     

Working group report: Quantum chromodynamics sub-group

This is the report of the QCD working sub-group at the Tenth Workshop on High Energy Physics Phenomenology (WHEPP-X).      

Vapour and plasma ignition thresholds for visible pulsed-laser ablation of metallic targets

The coupling of visible nanosecond laser pulses to metallic targets irradiated in vacuum is studied. The expressions of the vapour and plasma ignition times are obtained. Two cases for vapour breakdown in the plasma ignition process are considered. The first case is that 40 generations of new electrons are born in vapour generation time before plasma formation as assumed in the literature. The second case is that 10 generations of new electrons are born in vapour generation time. Molybdenum (Mo), niobium (Nb) and aluminium (Al) targets are considered for illustrations of our results. The expression of the plasma ignition time for the Al target is substantially different from that reported in the literature. The vapour and plasma ignition threshold laser intensities are calculated and compared with those reported in the literature. Reasons for disagreement are discussed. The plasma ignition threshold estimated in the second case is noted to be in good agreement with the reported experimental result.     

Principal eigenvector field segmentation for reproducible diffusion tensor tractography of white matter structures

The study was aimed to test the feasibility of utilizing an algorithmically determinable stable fiber mass (SFM) map obtained by an unsupervised principal eigenvector field segmentation (PEVFS) for automatic delineation of 18 white matter (WM) tracts: (1) corpus callosum (CC), (2) tapetum (TP), (3) inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), (4) uncinate fasciculus (UNC), (5) inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFO), (6) optic pathways (OP), (7) superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF), (8) arcuate fasciculus (AF), (9) fornix (FX), (10) cingulum (CG), (11) anterior thalamic radiation (ATR), (12) superior thalamic radiation (STR), (13) posterior thalamic radiation (PTR), (14) corticospinal/corticopontine tract (CST/CPT), (15) medial lemniscus (ML), (16) superior cerebellar peduncle (SCP), (17) middle cerebellar peduncle (MCP) and (18) inferior cerebellar peduncle (ICP). Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)-derived fractional anisotropy (FA) and the principal eigenvector field have been used to create the SFM consisting of a collection of linear voxel structures which are grouped together by color-coding them into seven natural classes to provide PEVFS signature segments which greatly facilitate the selection of regions of interest (ROIs) for fiber tractography using just a single mouse click, as compared with a manual drawing of ROIs in the classical approach. All the 18 fiber bundles have been successfully reconstructed, in all the subjects, using the single ROIs provided by the SFM approach, with their reproducibility characterized by the fact that the ROI selection is user independent. The essentially automatic PEVFS method is robust, efficient and compares favorably with the classical ROI methods for diffusion tensor tractography (DTT).     

Synthesis and characterization of various phases of cobalt oxide nanoparticles using inorganic precursor

Controllable and uniform doping of nanowires (NWs) is the ultimate challenge prior to their effective application. Si NWs amorphize and bend toward the impinging ions under ion irradiation as a result of viscous flow. We demonstrate that thermal annealing induces a full recovery of the crystalline phase corresponding to the unbending of the NWs. The competition between Solid Phase Epitaxy and Random Nucleation and Growth at the nanoscale is the key parameter controlling the recovery.