Quenching of surface traps in Mn doped ZnO thin films for enhanced optical transparency

The structural and photoluminescence analyses were performed on un-doped and Mn doped ZnO thin films grown on Si (1 0 0) substrate by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and annealed at different post-deposition temperatures (500-800 °C). X-ray diffraction (XRD), employed to study the structural properties, showed an improved crystallinity at elevated temperatures with a consistent decrease in the lattice parameter ‘c’. The peak broadening in XRD spectra and the presence of Mn 2p3/2 peak at ∼640 eV in X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopic (XPS) spectra of the doped thin films confirmed the successful incorporation of Mn in ZnO host matrix. Extended near band edge emission (NBE) spectra indicated the reduction in the concentration of the intrinsic surface traps in comparison to the doped ones resulting in improved optical transparency. Reduced deep level emission (DLE) spectra in doped thin films with declined PL ratio validated the quenching of the intrinsic surface traps thereby improving the optical transparency and the band gap, essential for optoelectronic and spintronic applications. Furthermore, the formation and uniform distribution of nano-sized grains with improved surface features of Mn-doped ZnO thin films were observed in Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) images.     

TVC effects on flow separation on slender cylinders

Occurrence of flow separation within the boundary-layer is primarily attributed to the growth of adverse pres-sure gradient within the boundary-layer. Such a separating boundary-layer can, however, be made to stay attached to the bounding surface due to various remedies where the surface transverse curvature (TVC) is one of them while the body contour is another. Assistive role of the surface transverse curvature is utilized in delaying the boundary-layer separation in a retarded flow past the slender bodies by assuming different body configurations. Axially-symmetric bodies of revolution of different shapes having a varying cross section in x, following the power-law form, have been considered in this study. It is shown that the point of separation is strongly dependent upon the surface curvature parameter k and the body-shape index n, which in fact control the flow separation. This fact ensures that an increase in the surface curvature parameter k and the body-shape index n leads to an increase in the wall shear stress which consequently delays the flow separation. Significant delay in flow separation is observed on cylinders having sufficiently large transverse curvature. Percent increase in the separation length corresponding to various values of the curvature parameter and the body-shape index has been calculated and reported in the form of Tables.     

Reliable iris localization using integral projection function and 2D-shape properties

Iris recognition technology recognizes a human based on his/her iris pattern.However,the accuracy of the iris recognition technology depends on accurate iris localization.Localizing a pupil region in the presence of other low-intensity regions,such as hairs,eyebrows,and eyelashes,is a challenging task.This study proposes an iris localization technique that includes a localizing pupillary boundary in a sub-image by using an integral projection function and two-dimensional shape properties(e.g.,area,geometry,and circularity).The limbic boundary is localized using gradients and an error distance transform,and the boundary is regularized with active contours.Experimental results obtained from public databases show the superiority of the proposed technique over contemporary methods.     

Remotely pumped hybrid double-pass L-band optical amplifier utilizing chirped fiber Bragg

This paper reported an investigation of remotely pumped double pass L-band amplifier with dispersion compensation technique. The proposed design used chirped fiber Bragg grating (CFBG) to reflect the amplified signal back into the active medium, compensate the effect of fiber dispersion and block the recycled forward amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) and the residual 1480 nm pump power. The characterization of the design was done experimentally. The gain is 37.5 dB and noise figure is 4 dB with best BER of 10⁻⁵² is achieved when the EDF is placed 150 km away from the transmitter and 48 km before the receiver terminal.     

Investigation of induced parallel magnetic anisotropy at low deposition temperature in Ba-hexaferrites thin films

In this paper we present the effect of low substrate temperature on structural, morphological, magnetic and optical properties of Ba-hexaferrite thin films. Films were deposited on single crystal Silicon (1 0 0) substrate employing the Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) technique. The structural, morphological, magnetic and optical properties are found to be strongly dependent on substrate temperature. The low substrate temperatures (room temperature to 200 °C) restrict the formation of larger grains. For the higher substrate temperature i.e., 400 °C, the grain size of the deposited thin film are much larger. The film grown at low substrate temperature do not show any anisotropy. As the substrate temperature is increased, the easy axis of the films alinged itself in the direction parallel to the film plane whereas the hard axis remained in the perpendicular direction. The higher substrate temperature caused the uniaxial magnetic anisotropy, which is very important in magnetic recording devices. The saturation magnetization and optical band gap energy values of 62 emu/cc and 1.75 eV, respectively, were achieved for the film of thickness 500 nm deposited at 400 °C. Higher values of coercivity, squareness and films thickness are associated with the growth of larger grains at higher substrate temperature.     

Natural convection of CuO–water nanofluid filled in a partially heated corrugated cavity:KKL model approach

In this article, flow and heat transfer inside a corrugated cavity is analyzed for natural convection with a heated inner obstacle. Thermal performance is analyzed for Cu O–water inside a partially heated domain by defining the constraint along the boundaries. For nanofluid analysis, the Koo and Kleinstreuer Li(KKL) model is implemented to deal with the effective thermal conductivity and viscosity. A heated thin rod is placed inside the corrugated cavity and the bottom portion of the corrugated cavity is partially heated. The dimensionless form of nonlinear partial differential equations are obtained through the compatible transformation along with the boundary constraint. The finite element method is executed to acquire the numerical solution of the obtained dimensional system. Streamlines, isotherms and heat transfers are analyzed for the flow field and temperature distribution. The Nusselt number is calculated at the surface of the partially heated domain for various numerical values of emerging parameters by considering the inner obstacle at cold, adiabatic and heated conditions. The computational simulation was performed by introducing various numerical values of emerging parameters. Important and significant results have been attained for temperature and velocities(in both x-and y-directions) at the vertically and horizontally mean positions of the corrugated duct.     

Iris segmentation for visible wavelength and near infrared eye images

State-of-the-art iris segmentation algorithms exhibit poor performance for non-ideal data, which is mainly because of the noise such as low contrast, non-uniform illumination, reflections, and among others. To address this issue, a robust iris segmentation scheme is proposed that includes the following: First, a set of the Seed-pixels in a preprocessed eye image is marked adaptively. Next, a two-fold scheme based on a Circu-differential accumulator (CDA) and gray statistics is adopted to localize coarse iris region robustly. Notably, the proposed CDA has close resemblance with the Hough transform; however, it consumes relatively less memory and is free from thresholding as well. Similarly, pupillary boundary is localized, which is verified through an intensity test as well. Next, a refine estimate for the limbic boundary is extracted. After that, iris boundaries are regularized using the Fourier series. Finally, the eyelids are localized using a Para-differential accumulator (PDA), and eyelashes and reflections are also localized adaptively in the polar form of iris. Experimental results on the near infrared (NIR) and visible wavelength (VW) iris databases show that the proposed technique outperforms contemporary approaches.     

Triterpenoidal constituents of the leaves of Carissa carandas

Studies undertaken on the fresh leaves of Carissa carandas have led to the isolation of four pentacyclic triterpenoids (1-4) including one new constituent carissin (1) and two hitherto unreported compounds 2 and 3. The structure of the new triterpenoid has been elucidated as 3beta-hydroxy-27-E-feruloyloxyurs-12-en-28-oic acid. Compelete assignment of the protons of 2 has also been made based on 2D NMR studies.     

Preparation of ribonucleoside 3′-O-phosphoramidites and their application to the automated solid phase synthesis of oligonucleotides

Oligoribonucleotides, six to fifteen units long, were synthesized on a controlled pore glass support using ribonucleoside 3′-O-phosphoramidite reagents. Average coupling yields of up to 98% were obtained with diisopropylaminophosphoramidite derivatives. fa]Some preliminary results of this work have been communicated by N. Usman & K.K. Ogilvie at the CIC-AIC Conference June 1984, Montreal, Canada.     

Effective Removal of Methylene Blue from Simulated Wastewater Using ZnO-Chitosan Nanocomposites: Optimization,Kinetics, and Isotherm Studies

Successful synthesis of ZnO-chitosan nanocomposites was conducted for the removal of methylene blue from an aqueous medium. Remarkable performance of the nanocomposites was demonstrated for the effective uptake of the dye, thereby achieving 83.77, 93.78 and 97.93 mg g⁻¹ for the chitosan, 5 wt.% ZnO-Chitosan and 10 wt.% ZnO-Chitosan, respectively. The corresponding adsorption efficiency was 88.77, 93.78 and 97.95 for the chitosan, 5 wt.% ZnO-Chitosan and 10 wt.% ZnO-Chitosan, respectively. Upon regeneration, good reusability of the nanocomposites was manifested for the continuous removal of the dye up to six consecutive cycles. The adsorption process was kinetically described by a pseudo-first order model, while the isotherms were best fitted by the Langmuir model.