Diode laser frequency stabilisation for water-vapour differential absorption sensing

We describe a low-power continuous-wave laser system for water-vapour sensing applications in the 935-nm region. The system is based on extended-cavity diode lasers and distributed-feedback lasers and delivers four single-mode frequency-stabilised optical signals. Three lasers are locked to three water-vapour absorption lines of different strengths, whereas the fourth lies outside any absorption line. On-line stabilisation is performed by wavelength-modulation spectroscopy using compact water-vapour reference cells. An offset-locking technique implemented around an electrical filter is applied for the stabilisation of the off-line slave laser to an on-line master laser at a frequency detuning of 18.8 GHz. Stabilities in the order of 15 MHz over one day were observed for the strongest lines, at the detection limit of the measurement instrumentation. The developed techniques and schemes can be applied to other wavelength ranges and molecular species. Differential absorption lidar instrumentation can in particular benefit from such a system when the stabilised lasers serve as injection seeders to pulsed power oscillators. PACS 42.62.Fi; 42.72.-g; 42.68.Wt     

Nonperturbative light cone quantum field theory beyond the tree level

We demonstrate the appearance of spontaneous symmetry breaking induced by nonperturbative quantum corrections for scalar light cone quantum field theory in 1+1 dimensions. We define a light cone effective potential and obtain a second order phase transition.     

Near-IR photoluminescence from Si/Ge nanowire-grown silicon wafers: effect of HF treatment

We present the room-temperature near-infrared (NIR) photoluminescence (PL) properties of Si/Ge nanowire (NW)-grown silicon wafers which were treated by vapor of HF:HNO₃ chemical mixture. This treatment activates or enhances the PL intensity in the NIR region ranging from 1000 nm to 1800 nm. The PL consists of a silicon band-edge emission and a broad composite band which is centered at around 1400–1600 nm. The treatment modifies the wafer surface particularly at defect sites especially pits around NWs and NW surfaces by etching and oxidation of Si and Ge. This process can induce spatial confinement of carriers where band-to-band (BB) emission is the dominant property in Si-capped strained Si/Ge NW-grown wafers. Strong signals were observed at sub-band-gap energies in Ge-capped Si/Ge NW-grown wafers. It was found that NIR PL is a competitive property between the Si BB transition and deep-level emission, which is mainly attributable to Si-related defects, Ge dots and strained Ge layers. The enhancement in BB and deep-level PL is discussed in terms of strain, oxygen-related defects, dot formation and carrier-confinement effects. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of this method in enhancing and tuning NIR PL properties for possible applications.     

MEI, SOI and mid-range correlations in the onset of El Niño–Southern Oscillation

Entropy analysis and wavelet transforms are used to study the Southern Oscillation index (SOI) and multivariate ENSO index (MEI) indexes for the El Niño–Southern Oscillation. Trends to large decreasing symbolic chains responsible for La Niña and interrupted increasing chains for El Niño are found in the MEI persistence series. These are all located in regions where the wavelet transforms of both indexes reveal the existence of mid-range correlations. The SOI and MEI indexes are mutually correlated in a non-trivial manner in the time.     

On the role of entanglement in Schrödinger’s cat paradox

In this paper we re-investigate the core of Schrödinger’s “cat paradox”. We argue that one has to distinguish clearly between superpositions of macroscopic cat states |?〉 + |?〉 and superpositions of entangled states |?, ↑〉 + |?, ↓〉 which comprise both the state of the cat (?=alive, ?=dead) and the radioactive substance (↑=not decayed, ↓=decayed). It is shown, that in the case of the cat experiment recourse to decoherence or other mechanisms is not necessary in order to explain the absence of macroscopic superpositions. Additionally, we present modified versions of two quantum optical experiments as experimenta crucis. Applied rigorously, quantum mechanical formalism reduces the problem to a mere pseudo-paradox.     

Lidar calibration experiments

A series of atmospheric aerosol diffusion experiments combined with lidar detection was conducted to evaluate and calibrate an existing retrieval algorithm for aerosol backscatter lidar systems. The calibration experiments made use of two (almost) identical mini-lidar systems for aerosol cloud detection to test the reproducibility and uncertainty of lidars. Lidar data were obtained from both single-ended and double-ended lidar configurations. A backstop was introduced in one of the experiments and a new method was developed where information obtained from the backstop can be used in the inversion algorithm. Independent in-situ aerosol plume concentrations were obtained from a simultaneous tracer gas experiment with SF, and comparisons with the two lidars were made. The study shows that the reproducibility of the lidars is within 15%, including measurements from both sides of a plume. The correspondence with in-situ measurements is excellent. Finally, the new backstop method is able to reveal information which can close the lidar equation by obtaining the relation between backscatter and extinction in an aerosol cloud. Received: 21 December 1995 / Revised version: 25 July 1996