Dark soliton in one-dimensional Bose–Einstein condensate under a periodic perturbation of trap

The perturbation of a confining trap leads to the collective oscillation of a Bose--Einstein condensate, thereby the propagation of a dark soliton in the condensate is affected. In this study, periodic perturbation is employed to match the soliton oscillation. We find that the soliton dynamics depends sensitively on the coupling between the moving direction of the trap and that of the soliton. The soliton energy/depth evolves periodically, and a relevant shift in the soliton trajectory occurs as compared with the unperturbed case. Overall, the soliton oscillation frequency changes little even if the perturbation amplitude and frequency vary.     

Temperature or strain induced adjustable-chirp characteristics of uniform fibre grating with tapered metal coating

Temperature and strain characteristics of uniform fibre grating with tapered metal coatings have been analysed theoretically, by which adjustable chirp characteristics of such gratings are shown. Electroplating is adopted to fabricate such gratings, and the tapered metal coating is obtained by gradually drawing the fibre grating out of the solution during the process of electroplating. The gradually changing cross-sectional area of the metal coating is calculated by a newly suggested numerical method. By combining the theoretical and numerical simulation analyses, the gratings' characteristics are given at various temperatures and strains. The results obtained using such a method are also testified by experiments.     

Enhanced luminescence of GdTaO4:Eu thin-film phosphors by K doping

The effect of K⁺ ions on GdTaO₄:Eu³⁺ thin-film phosphors was investigated in order to improve their luminescent properties. The GdTaO₄:Eu_0.1, K_x thin films were synthesized by sol-gel process, and characterized through measuring their microstructure and luminescence. The results indicated that photoluminescence (PL) intensity of GdTaO₄:Eu³⁺ film was improved remarkably by K doping. There were two maxima in the curve of PL intensity against K⁺ dopant concentration, where one was improved up to 2.1 times at x = 0.001 and the other was enhanced up to 2.7 times at x = 0.05. The first maximum was regarded as the alteration of the local environment surrounding the Eu³⁺ activator by incorporation of K⁺ ions, and the second maximum was due to the flux effect. Additionally, the luminescence increased with the increase of firing temperature from 800 °C to 1200 °C.     

Corona-induced graft polymerization for surface modification of porous polyethersulfone membranes

Graft polymerization of acrylic acid (AA) onto porous polyethersulfone (PES) membrane surfaces was developed using corona discharge in atmospheric ambience as an activation process followed by polymerization of AA in aqueous solution. The effects of the corona parameters and graft polymerization conditions on grafting yield (GY) of AA were investigated. The grafting of AA on the PES membranes was confirmed by ATR-FTIR and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. Porosimetry measurements indicate the average pore diameters and porosities of the modified membranes decrease with the increase of the GY. The hydrophilicity and surface wetting properties of the original and modified membranes were evaluated by observing the dynamic changes of water contact angles. It is found that the grafting of AA occurs not only on the membrane surfaces, but also on the pore walls of the cells inside the membrane. The permeability experiments of protein solution reveal that the grafting of PAA endows the modified membranes with enhanced fluxes and anti-fouling properties. The optimized GY of AA is in the range of 150-200 μg/cm². In addition, the tensile experiments show the corona discharge treatment with the power lower than 150 W yields little damage to the mechanical strength of the membranes.     

Dissimilar autogenous full penetration welding of superalloy K418 and 42CrMo steel by a high power CW Nd:YAG laser

Experiments of autogenous laser full penetration welding between dissimilar cast Ni-based superalloy K418 and alloy steel 42CrMo flat plates with 3.5 mm thickness were conducted using a 3 kW continuous wave (CW) Nd:YAG laser. The influences of laser welding velocity, flow rate of side-blow shielding gas, defocusing distance were investigated. Microstructure of the welded seam was characterized by optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS). Mechanical properties of the welded seam were evaluated by microhardness and tensile strength testing. Results show that high quality full penetration laser-welded joint can be obtained by optimizing the welding velocity, flow rate of shielding gas and defocusing distance. The laser-welded seam have non-equilibrium solidified microstructures consisting of γ-FeCr_0.29Ni_0.16C_0.06 austenite solid solution dendrites as the dominant and very small amount of super-fine dispersed Ni₃Al γ′ phase and Laves particles as well as MC needle-like carbides distributed in the interdendritic regions. Although the microhardness of the laser-welded seam was lower than that of the base metal, the strength of the joint was equal to that of the base metal and the fracture mechanism showed fine ductility.     

Exchange bias dependence on interface spin alignment in a Ni80Fe20/(Ni,Fe)O thin film

A Ni80Fe20/(Ni,Fe)O thin film exhibits a positive exchange bias when cooled in a zero field and a negative exchange bias when field cooled. With transmission electron microscopy and electron energy loss spectrometry, the composition and magnetic structure has been ascertained and a distribution of magnetization easy axes about the interface extrapolated. The results indicate that the positive exchange bias is from antiferromagnetic interface moments perpendicular to their ferromagnetic counterparts. With field cooling the alignment is put into a parallel configuration resulting in a negative exchange bias.     

Photonic bandgap properties of 8-fold symmetric photonic quasicrystals

The bandgap properties of 2D 8-fold symmetric photonic quasicrystals (PQCs) composed of a set of rods are numerically investigated for various fill factors, dielectric constants and propagation angles using the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method. Some interesting properties are found besides the known results: (i) the central frequency of the bandgap shifts to low frequency as r/a increases; (ii) an optimum fill factor to obtain the largest gap width exists, which decreases with increasing dielectric constant; (iii) compared with the behavior for a given fill factor, the variation of bandgap width for the optimum fill factor increases much more significantly with the dielectric constant. Selection guidelines for 8-fold symmetric PQC designs are provided for optimum fill factors and variation of the relative bandgap width at different dielectric constants.     

Implementation of a Two-Atom √swap Gate in Cavity QED

We implement a two-atom √swap Bate via cavity QED. During the preparation, a cavity-assisted collision betweenatoms is required, and this does not need any auxiliary atom. The cavity is only virtually excited, thus our scheme is insensitive to the cavity field states and to the cavity decay. The scheme can be implemented by the present cavity QED techniques.