Polarization-Insensitive All-Optical Time-Division Demultiplexer Constructed with a Nonlinear Loop Interferometer

A polarization-insensitive 40-Gb/s time-division demultiplexer was demonstrated in a polarization-diversity loop configuration. The power penalty was measured to be 2.3 dB at a bit error rates of 10-9 for 10 Gb/s output signals.     

Photo-orientation at liquid crystal—polymer interfaces

It is suggested that liquid crystal—polymer interfaces are coupled systems, in which the components mutually influence the orientational state of each other. The photo-orientation process at liquid crystal-polymer interfaces provides a striking example of such a coupling. Experiments show that the anisotropic structure generated by polarised light at a polymer surface is strongly affected by the phase of the liquid crystal covering the polymer. Photo-orientation is significantly more efficient when the liquid crystal is in the isotropic phase than when it exhibits orientational order. The observations are interpreted by assuming that in the smectic and nematic phases the liquid crystal stabilises to a large extent polymer chain-segments aligned parallel to the director, while it blocks the photo-induced formation of chain-segments in the perpendicular direction. Other situations, in which the coupling between the liquid crystal and the polymer can be important, are also discussed briefly.     

Phonon scattering from the boundaries of small crystals embedded in a dielectric porous-glass matrix

The thermal conductivity of porous glass with randomly distributed connecting pores ～70 Å in size (glass porosity ～25%), as well as of a porous glass + NaCl composite, was measured in the temperature range 5–300 K. NaCl filled one fourth of the pores in the composite. The experimental results on the composite thermal conductivity can be accounted for only by assuming that phonons scatter from the boundaries of NaCl nanocrystals embedded in channels of the porous glass.     

Composition of the Cobalt Sulfide Coating after Its Electrochemical Reduction

X-ray photoelectrom spectroscopy was used to study the composition of the initial and electrochemically reduced cobalt coating formed by the adsorption procedure involving treatment of a carbon glass electrode in a solution of Co(II) ammine complexes, hydrolytic washing in water, and conversion to sulfide in Na₂S solution.     

Coulomb drag of conduction electrons in spatially separated two-dimensional layers: An effective-parameter approximation

The Coulomb drag of electrons in spatially separated two-dimensional layers is considered under conditions of electron heating when the nonequilibrium distribution of electrons in the first layer can be described by macroparameters, such as the effective temperature. The nonequilibrium response is calculated using a projection operator that is an obvious generalization of the Mori operator to the case of nonequilibrium systems.     

Back Reaction in Static Einstein Spaces—Change of Entropy

Using the thermodynamical approach and the method of York, the back-reaction of anti-de Sitter Schwarzschild black hole in thermal equilibrium with conformal spin-2 field is studied. It is found that both approaches give identical results.     

Dynamics of energy release in a low-voltage pulsed arc in air

The influence of the discharge conditions on the dynamics of energy release is considered for pulsed arcs in air at initial pressures from 10⁵ to 8×10⁵ Pa and a low-voltage capacitor voltage of up to 400 V. A novel method for determining the resistance of the discharge channel in the final stage of a spark discharge is proposed. The method is applied to estimating the discharge channel parameters.