On thermoelastic fields of a multi-phase inhomogeneity system with perfectly/imperfectly bonded interfaces

The stress fields of cylindrical and spherical multi-phase inhomogeneity systems with perfect or imperfect interfaces under uniform thermal and far-field mechanical loading conditions are investigated by use of the Boussinesq displacement potentials. The radius of the core inhomogeneity and the thickness of its surrounding coatings are arbitrary. The discontinuities in the tangential and normal components of the displacement at the imperfect interfaces are assumed to be proportional to the associated tractions. In this work, for the problems where the phases of the inhomogeneity system are homogeneous, the exact closed-form thermo-elastic solutions are presented. These solutions along with a systematic numerical methodology are utilized to solve various problems of physical importance, where the constituent phases of the inhomogeneity system may be made of a number of different functionally graded (FG) and homogeneous materials, and each interface may have a perfect or imperfect boundary condition, as desired. Also, the effect of the interfacial sliding and debonding on the stress field and elastic energy of an FG-coated inhomogeneity is examined.     

Refractive index profiling across a candle flame using speckle techniques

Speckle techniques for refractive index measurements are analyzed theoretically. It is demonstrated that the resulting speckle pattern is equivalent to the ordinary pattern convolved with a function representing the effect of light deflection, while the obtained interference pattern is modulated by a background representing the autocorrelation function of the diffuser. The technique is applied to the region above a candle flame. An improved quality of the interference fringes is achieved with a multiple-exposure technique.     

Plastic deformation modes in perforated sheets and their relation to yield and limit surfaces

Construction of mechanism-based plasticity theories for the homogenized response of heterogeneous materials requires identification of plastic deformation modes as a function of loading direction relative to the microstructural details. Herein, we employ an efficient homogenization theory to identify for the first time such deformation modes in plates under plane stress with hexagonal arrays of circular holes at small and intermmediate pore volume fractions, and establish their relation to the branches of initial and subsequent yield and limit surfaces. Newly introduced maps of the intrinsic geometric features of point-wise yield surfaces provide full-field picture of the investigated microstructures’ propensity for plastic strain initiation and localization. The identified characteristic plastic modes provide a rational explanation for the evolving geometric features of subsequent yield and limit surfaces whose branches represent different plastic flow mechanisms, as well as a basis for the construction of a mechanism-based homogenized plasticity theory for use in structural analysis algorithms. The results suggest the need for composite yield surfaces comprised of multiple branches in the construction of mechanism-based homogenized plasticity theory for the investigated class of porous materials.     

A multi‐MHz single‐shot data acquisition scheme with high dynamic range: pump–probe X‐ray experiments at synchrotrons

The technical implementation of a multi‐MHz data acquisition scheme for laser–X‐ray pump–probe experiments with pulse limited temporal resolution (100 ps) is presented. Such techniques are very attractive to benefit from the high‐repetition rates of X‐ray pulses delivered from advanced synchrotron radiation sources. Exploiting a synchronized 3.9 MHz laser excitation source, experiments in 60‐bunch mode (7.8 MHz) at beamline P01 of the PETRA III storage ring are performed. Hereby molecular systems in liquid solutions are excited by the pulsed laser source and the total X‐ray fluorescence yield (TFY) from the sample is recorded using silicon avalanche photodiode detectors (APDs). The subsequent digitizer card samples the APD signal traces in 0.5 ns steps with 12‐bit resolution. These traces are then processed to deliver an integrated value for each recorded single X‐ray pulse intensity and sorted into bins according to whether the laser excited the sample or not. For each subgroup the recorded single‐shot values are averaged over ～10⁷ pulses to deliver a mean TFY value with its standard error for each data point, e.g. at a given X‐ray probe energy. The sensitivity reaches down to the shot‐noise limit, and signal‐to‐noise ratios approaching 1000 are achievable in only a few seconds collection time per data point. The dynamic range covers 100 photons pulse^?1 and is only technically limited by the utilized APD.     

Using molecular dynamic simulation data of calcite in a wide pressure range to calculate some of its thermodynamic properties via some universal equations of state

Molecular dynamics, MD, simulation of calcite (CaCO₃) is selected to compare the p-v-T behaviour of some universal equations of state, UEOS, for the temperature range 100 K ≤ T ≤ 800 K, and pressures up to 3000 kbar. The isothermal sets of p-v-T data generated by simulation were each fitted onto some three- and two-parameter EOSs including Parsafar and Mason (PM), Linear Isotherm Regularity (LIR), Birch-Murnaghan (BM), Shanker, Vinet, Baonza and Modified generalized Lennard–Jones (MGLJ) EOSs. It is found that the MD data satisfactorily fit these UEOS with reasonable precision. Some features for a good UEOS criteria such as temperature dependencies of coefficients, pressure deviation, isothermal bulk modulus and its derivative at the zero pressure limit, isobaric thermal expansion, pressure spinodal values and divergence of pseudo critical exponent either near to or far from the spinodal condition, and some regularities for calcite are investigated.     

Radiation damage in triglycine sulphate due to fast neutron irradiation

Abstract

The change in electrical properties of TGS crystals due to induced defects created by fast neutron irradiation of two different energies (2 and 14 MeV) and different integrated neutron fluxes have been studied in the vicinity of phase transition. It is observed that the electrical conductivity increases with increase of neutron fluence up to 1.7 × 10¹⁰ n · cm^?2 and the values of the relative change of electrical conductivity in case of 2 MeV are higher than that of 14 MeV neutrons at the same neutron fluence (φ)     

Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy Via the Spatially Resolved Technique Using Non-Gated Detector

We present a simple setup for laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy using the spatially resolved technique (SRLIBS). We show that, without any need for time-gated ICCD and pulse generator, the signal-to-background ratio is enhanced. We develop a homemade spectrograph with a movable slit located at its entrance to detect different parts of the plasma emission. For optimizing the position of the slit, we use the shadowgraphy technique to study the plasma expansion. In this low cost setup, with nanosecond laser pulses, we perform SRLIBS experiments on the plasma induced in air and iron. Our results show that the signal-to-background ratio for iron and air is enhanced up to 15 and 8 times, respectively.     

All optical 2-bit analog to digital converter using photonic crystal based cavities

A novel design for realizing all optical analog to digital converter will be proposed in this paper. The proposed structure consists of two main parts; a nonlinear 3-channel demultiplexer, followed by an optical coder. The nonlinear demultiplexer will be used to quantize the input analog signal according to its optical intensity and the coder will convert the quantized levels into 2-bit binary codes. The nonlinear demultiplexer will be realized using three nonlinear resonant cavities. At appropriate values of input signal optical intensity one of the cavities can drop the optical beam to its corresponding output port. The proposed structure is capable of supporting maximum sampling rate up to 52 GS/s and total footprint of the structure is about 924 µm².     

Decoration of copper oxide nanoplatelets with gold nanoparticles by laser ablation in methanol for photodetection applications

In this work, CuO/n-Si and AuNPs-decorated CuO/n-Si heterojunction photodetectors were fabricated by deposition of CuO nanoplatelets and Au nanoparticles NPs decorated CuO nanoplatelets on silicon substrates by laser ablation in methanol. Atomic force microscope AFM, scanning electron microscope SEM and transmission electron microscope TEM were used to study the structural and surface morphology of CuO and AuNPs–CuO. The electrical properties showed that the CuO/Si and AuNPs decorated-CuO/Si showed rectifying behavior. The maximum values of quantum efficiency were about 41 and 78% at 700 nm for CuO/Si and AuNPs–CuO/Si photodetectors, respectively. The I–V characteristics of the photodetectors were measured under UV light.     

Proposal for a 4-channel all optical demultiplexer using 12-fold photonic quasicrystal

In this work, 12-fold photonic quasicrystal (PQC) with cross section equals to 138 μm² has been used to design a 4-channel optical demultiplexer. The size of structure promises its applications in optical integrated circuits (OICs) and also, wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) communication devices. Finite difference time domain (FDTD) method has been employed in order to investigate the structure's band gap and output waveforms of each channel. Four channels, with spacing less than 1 nm and cross-talk level better than ? 2.8 dB have been separated by introducing defects in L-shaped and line defect waveguides (LDWs) in the crystal's structure. It has been shown that, L-shaped waveguides (LWs) are quite more frequency selective than line defect waveguides. Also, it has been found that the exact tuning of the central wavelength of each channel is possible by making use of defects with different radiuses and sites in the waveguides.