Quantitative assessment of lateral resolution improvement in digital holography

Controllable experimental features such as wavelength, camera’s specifications and reconstruction distance, determine the theoretical limit for lateral resolution in digital holography; however, due to the speckle noise associated to any coherent imaging system it is not possible to reach this theoretical limit. In this paper, a quantitative study the lateral resolution for digital holography under the effect the speckle noise is carried out. It is shown that by reducing the contrast of the speckle noise the resolution capabilities of digital holography are improved; the signal-to-noise ratio of the reconstructed holograms is the metric use to quantitatively assess the reached resolution in the holographic experiments.     

Equilibrium and dynamics of Langmuir monolayers when the interface is a selective solvent: Polystyrene-b-poly(t-butyl acrylate) block copolymers

The surface pressure of monolayers of insoluble diblock copolymers has been measured. One of the blocks is made of poly(t-butyl acrylate) (PtBA), and the other one by polystyrene (PS). The interface is a good solvent for PtBA, while it is a poor solvent for PS. For the sake of comparison, monolayers of a PtBA homopolymer (good solvent conditions) and of poly(4-hydroxy styrene) (P4HS) (poor solvent conditions) have been also measured. It has been found that the relative length of the blocks plays an important role on the shape of the surface pressure Pi versus surface concentration Gamma curves and also on the shape of the equilibrium compressibility versus Gamma curves. However, it does not affect the maximum value of Pi reached at high Gamma's. Surprisingly, the ellipsometric thickness of the copolymer monolayers is almost independent of the relative length of the blocks. The dynamics of the monolayers has been studied by step compression and by surface-light scattering techniques. When M(w,PtBA) > M(w,PS) single exponential relaxations are observed. However, stretched exponentials are obtained for M(w,PS) > or = M(w,PtBA). The relaxation times decrease with increasing Gamma for all the copolymers studied. This is the behavior usually found for poor solvent conditions (P4HS) and opposite to that found for homopolymers under good solvent conditions [PtBA, poly(vinylacetate)]. This means that the solvent quality of the interface does not determine the pressure dependence of tau. The elasticity modulus of the monolayers in the kilohertz range takes values that are similar to those of the high-frequency limit of the relaxation experiments. This means that the relaxation processes have characteristic frequencies below 1 Hz.     

Interfacial rheology of polyelectrolytes and polymer monolayers at the air–water interface

In this review, we describe interfacial rheology studies of polymer monolayers at the air–water interface. Since polyelectrolytes are usually soluble in water, the formation of surface monolayers requires the presence of a surfactant of opposite charge. The first part of the review is dedicated to these mixed monolayers. The second part is related to neutral monolayers that can be either adsorbed or deposited at the interface. Interfacial rheology studies of these systems are still scarce, despite a considerable interest: insoluble polymer monolayers in two dimensions are suitable model systems for the tests of polymer theories in two dimensions, such as and glass transition. The rheology of soluble polymer monolayers has important connections with the dynamic properties of dispersions stabilized with these polymers.     

On the Initial Stages of Electrooxidation of Aqueous Maleic Acid on Bi‐Doped PbO2

Oxidation of maleic acid in aqueous solution on bismuth‐doped lead oxide has been studied. The effects of hydrodynamic conditions on the oxidation rate have been identified. The number of electrons transferred during the initial stages of oxidation as well as the apparent heterogeneous rate constant was obtained from the combined analysis of rotating ring‐disk currents and the decrease of concentration at constant potential, determined from UV‐vis measurements. The number of electrons involved during electrochemical oxidation was found to be 12, indicating full mineralization to CO₂, and the heterogeneous rate constant for oxidation at 1.6 V was 9.8×10⁵ cm s^?1.     

Recent progress in the development of type II interband cascade lasers

Type-II interband cascade lasers combine the advantage of an interband optical transition with interband tunneling to enable the cascading of type-II quantum well active regions as is done in type-I quantum cascade laser. The relatively high radiative efficiency resulting from interband optical transitions translates into very low-threshold current densities, and when combined with the high quantum efficiency of cascade lasers, this diode laser design has the potential to operate under cw conditions at room temperature with high output power. Experimental results have already demonstrated some of this potential including high differential external quantum efficiency (>600%), high peak output power (6 W/facet at 80 K), high cw power conversion efficiency (>17% at 80 K), and operation at 300 K under pulsed conditions. Recent work aimed at reducing device thermal resistance and increasing cw operating temperature is reviewed including the demonstration of significant reductions in thermal resistance (averaging 25 K/W or 40% for 1-mm-long devices), 80 K cw operation at 3.4 μm with high-power conversion efficiency (23%) and high differential external quantum efficiency (532%), and cw operation up to 214 K.     

Optical and structural properties of rare earth doped GaN quantum dots

We have studied the structural and optical properties of GaN quantum dots (QDs) doped with Tm and Eu. It has been found that the morphology of the dots was affected by the presence of the rare earth atoms. Differences in incorporation have also been pointed out, Eu being located inside the QDs while Tm is more likely to be found at the interface between GaN QDs and AlN matrix. Intense and sharp Eu- and Tm-related transition lines are observed in the photoluminescence and cathodoluminescence spectra of doped QDs, with no thermal quenching between 20 and 300 K. They exhibit a saturation effect with increasing excitation power, independently of the temperature. It is tentatively proposed that some transition lines in GaN:Tm QDs could be induced by the presence of the internal electric field.     

The periodic capacitated arc routing problem with irregular services

The aim of this paper is to introduce the periodic capacitated arc routing problem with irregular services. Some applications can be found in road maintenance operations and road network surveillance. The problem consists of determining a set of routes to cover a given network over a time horizon. The roads must be serviced a number of times in sub-periods over the time horizon, according to a hierarchy of arc classes. We present a mathematical model and a heuristic solution approach.     

PMD Characterization of a Dispersion Managed Link up to the Second-order with High Accuracy

We report an algorithm on the characterization up to second-order polarization mode dispersion (PMD). Our algorithm is able to characterize very short link with low PMD coefficient (less than 0.04 ps/ ). The link includes dispersion compensating fiber modules and loss compensating optical amplifiers. The estimation for first- and second-order PMD is successfully performed for dispersion-managed links of 85 and 265 km using the Jones matrix eigen-analysis (JME). The algorithm was developed to detect the evolution of the principal state of polarization (PSP) and subsequent calculation of second-order PMD components such as polarization-dependence, chromatic dispersion (PDCD) and depolarization.     

All-fiber incoherent frequency-to-time mapping method for microwave signal generation with baseband transmission and multicasting support

We present a proof-of-principle experiment for achieving simultaneous distribution of baseband radio-frequency data and up-conversion with broadcasting support over a passive optical network. The technique is based on an incoherent frequency-to-time mapping method for pulse shaping. Specifically, we synthesize the spectral density function of sliced ASE noise from an EDFA with a periodic Mach–Zehnder fiber interferometer optical filter. By using external intensity modulation combined with propagation in an optical fiber, after photodetection, the resultant averaged temporal pulse profile resembles the shape of the incoherent source. The photodetected signal contains both the baseband data and an up-frequency converted copy with central wavelength for the microwave carrier into the ultra-wideband range and tuning capability by selection of the fiber length.     

A-B site-bond correlated percolation for antiferromagnetic Ising model: The Bethe cluster approximation

We study the site-bond percolation problem for clusters of holes and particles with antiferromagnetic order by means of the Bethe cluster approximation. We find that the droplets (i.e.P _B =1?e ^?|K|/2) diverge at the antiferromagnetic critical pointH=0,T=T _c; however forH≠0 they diverge along a percolation line which is different from the Antiferromagnetic Phase Boundary except atT=0.