Determination of the deuterium abundance in water using a cw chemical DF laser

This paper describes a new method for the determination of the deuterium content in water samples. The absorption of the radiation of a cw deuterium fluoride laser by HDO in water vapor is measured by means of a nonresonant spectrophone (optoacoustic detector). This method enables one to evaluate the isotope ratio of hydrogen in a rather simple and straightforward way. Advantage is taken of the fact that HDO absorbs some of the DF laser lines whereas H₂O shows no absorption. Due to the small concentration in natural water deuterium is practically entirely present as HDO. Therefore a selective determination of the deuterium content is possible. In the course of the investigation the absorption coefficients of HDO for the different laser lines were determined. It was thereby established that there exists a strong coincidence of an HDO absorption line with the 2P2 DF laser line. The detection sensitivity of the method was then examined for some selected laser lines. The concentration of HDO in natural water samples could be determined with an accuracy of better than 10%. The experiments, however, show that with appropriate improvements it should be possible to achieve an accuracy of better than 1%. This makes the method very interesting as an analytical tool in hydrology.     

Measurement of frequency differences between visible laser lines up to 170GHz using metal-insulator-metal point contact diodes

Frequency differences of up to 170 GHz between a cw dye laser and a krypton laser at 568 nm were measured by mixing laser and microware radiation with a metalinsulator-metal point contact diode. Beat signals are well above noise and there is still great potential for improvement when better microwave oscillators are used. From the measurements reported it follows that the diode can be used for determining still higher frequency differences of visible laser radiation.     

Die Harmonischen der Rotationsenergie bei der Schubkurbel und verwandte Fourier-Reihen

Summary The rotational energy of a link in a mechanism is proportional to the square of its angular velocity. This square, in contrast to the angular velocity itself, can be expanded into a Fourier series, having finite values for its coefficients. The problem is solved by splitting it into partial fractions, leading to the harmonic analysis of the slotted lever mechanism. Further related series are given at the end.     

Full characterization of a three-photon Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state using quantum state tomography

We have performed the first experimental tomographic reconstruction of a three-photon polarization state. Quantum state tomography is a powerful tool for fully describing the density matrix of a quantum system. We measured 64 three-photon polarization correlations and used a "maximum-likelihood" reconstruction method to reconstruct the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state. The entanglement class has been characterized using an entanglement witness operator and the maximum predicted values for the Mermin inequality were extracted.     

Neutral-pion photoproduction off protons in the energy range 0.3 GeV<E(gamma)<3 GeV

Single pi(0) photoproduction has been studied with the CB-ELSA experiment at Bonn using tagged photon energies between 0.3 and 3.0 GeV. The experimental setup covers a very large solid angle of approximately 98% of 4pi. Differential cross sections dsigma/dOmega have been measured. Complicated structures in the angular distributions indicate a variety of different resonances being produced in the s channel intermediate state gammap-->N(*)(Delta(*))-->ppi(0). A combined analysis including the data presented in this letter along with other data sets reveals contributions from known resonances and evidence for a new resonance N(2070)D15.     

Sub-Doppler fluorescence on the atomic <Emphasis Type="Italic">D</Emphasis><Subscript>2</Subscript> line of a submicron rubidium-vapor layer

An extremely thin cell (ETC) with the thickness of a Rb atomic vapor layer in the range of 100–300 nm was fabricated. It is demonstrated that a simple laser-diode technique with a single resonant light beam is sufficient to observe separately all of the atomic hyperfine transitions of the D ₂ line of Rb (780 nm) and also allows us to measure the relative transition probabilities of the hyperfine transitions. The onset of collisional self-broadening of the hyperfine transitions as the number density of atoms increases was studied. The detrimental role of the atoms with slow longitudinal velocity in the sub-Doppler response of the Rb ETC is demonstrated by studies in which the cell is tilted from normal incidence of the laser beam. It is also shown that using an ETC allows us to resolve in a moderate external magnetic field the Zeeman splitting of the hyperfine transitions of the ⁸⁷Rb D ₁ transition F _g=1F _e=1,2. Received: 19 February 2003 / Revised version: 4 April 2003 / Published online: 2 June 2003 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +374/32-31172, E-mail: david@ipr.sci.am     

Al-free Zr-zeolite beta as a regioselective catalyst in the Meerwein-Ponndorf-Verley reaction

Al-free Zr-zeolite beta catalyzes the transfer reduction of ketones to the corresponding alcohols in high yield and with exceptional stereocontrol. Notably, the catalyst is very robust and gives good results even with 10% water content in the reaction mixture.     

A supramolecular cup-and-ball C60-porphyrin conjugate system

In addition to the ammonium-crown ether recognition, pi-stacking interactions between the C60 sphere and the porphyrin moiety have been evidenced in a supramolecular complex obtained from a porphyrin-crown ether conjugate and a fullerene derivative bearing an ammonium unit.     

OH sensor based on ultraviolet, continuous-wave absorption spectroscopy utilizing a frequency-quadrupled, fiber-amplified external-cavity diode laser

The development of an all-solid-state cw laser system for optical absorption measurements of the OH radical in the UV spectral range is described. The tunable output of a 1064-nm external-cavity diode laser is amplified by use of a Nd:doped, double-clad fiber amplifier. The amplified near-IR radiation is frequency doubled by a periodically poled lithium niobate crystal and then quadrupled in a beta-barium borate crystal. The design and operation of the system and measurements of OH absorption in the (2, 0) band of the A(2)?(+)- X(2)? electronic transition are discussed.     

Inhibition of decoherence due to decay in a continuum

We propose a scheme for slowing down decay into a continuum. We make use of a sequence of ultrashort 2pi pulses applied on an auxiliary transition of the system so that there is a destructive interference between the two transition amplitudes--one before the application of the pulse and the other after the application of the pulse. We give explicit results for a structured continuum. Our scheme can also inhibit unwanted transitions.