Noise in miniature microphones

The internal noise spectrum in miniature electret microphones of the type used in the manufacture of hearing aids is measured. An analogous circuit model of the microphone is empirically fit to the measured data and used to determine the important sources of noise within the microphone. The dominant noise source is found to depend on the frequency. Below 40 Hz and above 9 kHz, the dominant source is electrical noise from the amplifier circuit needed to buffer the electrical signal from the microphone diaphragm. Between approximately 40 Hz and 1 kHz, the dominant source is thermal noise originating in the acoustic flow resistance of the small hole pierced in the diaphragm to equalize barometric pressure. Between approximately 1 kHz and 9 kHz, the noise originates in the acoustic flow resistances of sound entering the microphone and propagating to the diaphragm. To further reduce the microphone internal noise in the audio band requires attacking these sources. A prototype microphone having reduced acoustical noise is measured and discussed.     

Detailed large-signal dynamic modelling of DFB laser structures and comparison with experiment

This paper describes the first general large-signal dynamic multiple-mode laser model that incorporates all the main mechanisms known to influence the dynamic behaviour of DFB laser structures with the exception of thermal effects: longitudinal mode spatial hole burning, carrier transport effects, nonlinear gain, and laser and submount parasitics. The time evolution of the output power and wavelength of all modes is predicted, and full spectra can be plotted as a function of time. The model has been extended to include an approximation to the effects of propagation down dispersive fibre, thereby allowing the simulation of filtered received eye diagrams. Detailed comparison of the model with the experimental performance of 2×/8 DFB lasers has shown good agreement, allowing the performance to be optimized, particularly with respect to longitudinal hole burning and carrier transport. The model is also applied to gain-switched operation of 2×/8 DFB structures, fast pulsing of three-section /4 DFB lasers, and the dynamic behaviour of complex coupling coefficient DFB laser structures.     

Strong reaction channels at barrier energies in the system 6Li + 208Pb

Large cross-section reaction channels were measured in the systems ⁶Li( ⁷Li) + ²⁰⁸Pb with high statistical accuracy at 5(3) energies around the Coulomb barrier from 29 to 39 MeV. These channels were assigned (mainly) to the breakup of ⁶Li, very loosely bound, into α + d and to the breakup of ⁵Li, produced by n-transfer to the target, into α + p and to similar processes with ⁷Li beam. The cross-sections with ⁶Li, S _α = 1.475 MeV, are systematically larger than the ⁷Li ones. This reflects, most likely, the higher binding energy of ⁷Li, S _α = 2.468 MeV. Theoretical predictions for the ⁶Li + ²⁰⁸Pb system which include for ⁶Li breakup to continuum states within a continuum discretized coupled-channels approach (CDCC) and resonant breakup plus n-transfer with DWBA reproduce the angular distribution shapes but still underestimate the cross-sections by a factor ∼ 3. Received: 15 January 2001 / Accepted: 3 March 2001     

Quantitative measurements of Ge surface segregation during SiGe alloy growth

Ge segregation during the growth of Si_{1 − x}Ge_x alloys (x = 5, 10, 20, and 40%) was studied using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The alloys were grown in thicknesses up to 20.0 nm at 500°C to measure quantitatively the amount of segregated surface Ge. The length of alloy needed to reach steady-state growth edge was found to decrease with increasing alloy concentration (4.8, 2.8, 2.4, and 2.0 nm, respectively). It was found that each alloy had a complete monolayer of Ge on the surface and an increasing amount of segregated Ge in the second layer (20, 55, 80, and 95%, respectively) during steady-state growth. An increase in the temperature of alloy growth (400–750°C) resulted in an increase in the leading edge of alloy growth but did not change the amount of segregated Ge during steady-state growth. We propose that film stress is responsible for the amount of Ge segregation.     

Effects of applied DC/AC fields in electrical fixing process with SBN:60

We present experimental investigations of electrical fixing techniques in Ce:SBN:60. The effect of crystal fatigue on the diffraction efficiency of electrically fixed photorefractive gratings is studied. We observed that applying an ac field to the crystal eliminated crystal fatigue and improved diffraction efficiency. A controllable diffraction efficiency of a photorefractive grating is presented. A reproducible diffraction efficiency of up to 75% is obtained using a write-reveal grating technique with high-voltage pulses of opposite polarity. We also show that the diffraction efficiency can be controlled by varying the intensity of the writing beams incident to the crystal during the recording process. A method of determining the hysteresis loop using the domain-fixing technique is proposed. The dependence of the diffraction efficiency on the direction of the applied electric field while writing the hologram is studied. Our experiments show that, during writing, when the electric field is applied opposite to the c axis the grating can be successfully revealed with both positive and negative dc voltages. However, when the grating is written with a field parallel to the c axis, the grating can be revealed only with a field applied in the opposite direction. Received: 28 October 2002 / Revised version: 28 February 2003 / Published online: 14 May 2003 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +1-812/872-6167, E-mail: azad.siahmakoun@rose-hulman.edu     

Broadband sound propagation in shallow water and geoacoustic inversion

Part of an experiment to test a measurement package in a shallow water region in the Gulf of Mexico was designed to gather broadband acoustic data suitable for inversion to estimate seabed geoacoustic parameters. Continuous wave tow acoustic signals at multiple frequencies and broadband impulsive source signals were recorded on a horizontal line array in a high-noise environment. Simulated annealing with a normal mode forward propagation model is utilized to invert for a geoacoustic representation of the seabed. Several inversions are made from different data samples of two light bulb implosions, the measured sound speed profiles at the HLA and at the positions of the light bulb deployments, and for two different cost functions. The different cost functions, measured sound speed profiles, and measured time series result in different inverted geoacoustic profiles from which transmission loss is generated for comparison with measurements. On the basis of physical consistency and from the comparison of the transmission loss and time series, a best estimate geoacoustic profile is selected and compared to those obtained from previously reported inversions. Uncertainties in the sound speed profile are shown to affect the uncertainties of the estimated seabed parameters.     

Analytical comparison between the surface current integral equation and the second-order small-slope approximation

This paper is the third in a series discussing a new approximate bistatic model for electromagnetic scattering from perfectly conducting rough surfaces. Our previous approach supplemented the Kirchhoff model through the addition of new terms involving linear orders in slope and surface elevation differences that arise naturally from a second iteration of the surface current integral equation. This completion of the Kirchhoff was shown to provide the correct first-order small perturbation method (SPM-1) in the general bistatic context. The agreement with SPM-1 was achieved because differences of surface heights are no longer expanded in powers of surface slope. While consistent with SPM, our previous formulation fails to reconverge toward the Kirchhoff model, at some incidence and scattered angles, when the illuminated surface satisfies the high frequency roughness condition. This weakness is also shared with the first-order small slope approximation (SSA-1) which is structurally equivalent to our previous formulation where the polarization is independent of surface roughness. The second-order small slope approximation (SSA-2), which satisfies the SPM-1 and second-order small perturbation method (SPM-2) limits by construction, was shown by Voronovich to converge toward the tangent plane approximation of the Kirchhoff model under high frequency conditions. In the present paper, we show that, in addition to the linear orders in our previous model, one must now include cross-terms between slope and surface elevation to ensure convergence toward both high frequency and small perturbation limits. With the inclusion of these terms, our new formulation becomes comparable to the SSA-2 (second-order kernel) without the need to evaluate all the quadratic order slope and elevations terms. SSA-2 is more complete, however, in the sense that it guarantees convergence toward the second-order Bragg limit (SPM-2) in the fully dielectric case in addition to both SPM-1 and Kirchhoff. Our new generalization is shown to explain correctly extra depolarization in specular conditions to be caused by surface curvature and surface autocorrelation for incoherent and coherent scattering, respectively. This result will have large repercussions on the interpretation of bistatically reflected signals such as those from GPS.     

Effects of ion motion in intense beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerators

Recent proposals for using plasma wakefield accelerators (PWFA) as a component of a linear collider have included intense electron beams with densities many times in excess of the plasma density. The beam's electric fields expel the plasma electrons from the beam path to many beam radii in this regime. We analyze here the motion of plasma ions under the beam fields, and find for a proposed PWFA collider scenario that the ions completely collapse inside of the beam. Simulations of ion collapse are presented. Implications of ion motion on the feasibility of the PWFA-based colliders are discussed.     

Anion adsorption induced reversal of coherency strain

Experimental results are presented for stress evolution, in vacuum and electrolyte, for the first monolayer of Cu on Au(111). In electrolyte the monolayer is pseudomorphic and the stress-thickness change is -0.60 N/m, while conventional epitaxy theory predicts a value of +7.76 N/m. In vacuum, the monolayer is incoherent with the underlying gold. Using a combination of first-principles based calculations and molecular dynamic simulations we analyzed these results and demonstrate that in electrolyte, overlayer coherency is maintained owing to anion adsorption.