Advances in micro-perforated panel absorbers

Theoretical and experimental investigations on the performance of micro-perforated -panel absorbers are reviewed in this paper. By reviewing recent research work, this paper reveals a relationship between the maximum absorption coefficient and the limit of the absorption frequency bandwidth. It has been demonstrated that the absorption frequency bandwidth can be extended up to 3 or 4 octaves as the diameters of the micro-holes decrease. This has become possible with the development of the technologies for manufacturing micro-perforated panels, such as laser drilling, powder metallurgy, welded meshing and electro-etching to form micrometer order holes. In this paper, absorption characteristics of such absorbers in random fields and in high sound intensity are discussed both theoretically and experimentally. A new absorbing structure based on micro-perforated-panel absorbers demonstrate experimentally high sound absorption capability. This review shows that the micro-perforated-panel absorber has potentials to be one of ideal absorbing materials in the 21st century.     

Effects of sputter deposition parameters and post-deposition annealing on the electrical characteristics of LaAlO3 dielectric films on Si

The influence of processing parameters on the electrical characteristics of RuO₂/LaAlO₃/Si metal-oxide-semiconductor structures was investigated. In particular, the sputtering regime during deposition of LaAlO₃ on Si and the atmosphere used in the post-deposition annealing step were addressed by determining capacitance-voltage and gate current-voltage characteristics. These results were correlated with compositional information obtained by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry and nuclear reaction analysis. A post-deposition annealing step in oxygen at 600 °C resulted in better electrical characteristics of the final structure as compared to the same treatment performed in nitrogen. This result is explained by oxygen ability to heal oxygen vacancies in the LaAlO₃ film, especially at the dielectric/semiconductor interface region. A thermalized sputtering regime during deposition of LaAlO₃ on Si leads to capacitors with electrical characteristics superior to those deposited in ballistic regime. PACS 77.84.Dy; 81.15.Cd; 81.40.Gh; 73.40.Qv; 82.80.Yc     

EPR-detected photoinduced electron transfer in three structurally related molecular triads

A comparative electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) study has been performed on a series of structurally related molecular triads which undergo photoinduced electron transfer and differ one from the other in terms of the acceptor or donor moieties. The molecular triads, C-P-C₆₀, TTF-P-C₆₀ and C-P-P_F, share the same free-base, tetraarylporphyrin (P) as the primary electron donor, which after light excitation initiates the electron transfer process, but differ either in terms of the electron acceptor (fullerene derivative, C₆₀, versus fluorinated free-base porphyrin, P_F), or in terms of the final electron donor (carotenoid polyene, C, versus tetrathiafulvalene, TTF). All these molecular triads can be considered artificial photosynthetic reaction centers in their ability to mimic several key properties of the reaction center primary photochemistry. Photoinduced charge separation and recombination have been followed by time-resolved EPR in a glass of 2-methyltetrahydrofuran and in the nematic phase of the uniaxial liquid crystal E-7. All the triads undergo photoinduced electron transfer, with the generation of charge-separated states in both the low-dielectric environment of the 2-methyl-tetrahydrofuran glass and in anisotropic E-7 medium. Different photochemical pathways have been recognized depending on the specific donor and acceptor moieties constituting the molecular triads. In the presence of the tetrathiafulvalene electron donor singlet- and triplet-initiated electron transfer routes are concurrently active. Recombination to the low-lying carotenoid triplet state occurs in the carotene-based triads, while singlet recombination is the only active route for the TTF-P-C₆₀ triad, where a low-lying triplet state is lacking. Long-lived charge separation has been observed in the case of TTF-P-C₆₀: about 8 μs for the singlet-born radical pair in the glassy isotropic matrix and about 7 μs for the triplet-born radical pair in the nematic phase of E-7. For all the molecular triads, a weak exchange interaction (J?1 G) between the electrons in the final spin-correlated radical pair has been evaluated by simulation of the EPR spectra, providing evidence for superexchange electronic interactions mediated by the tetraarylporphyrin bridge.     

Some Estimates for the Derivative of a Quasiconformal Reflection Spiral-Shaped Domains

Some estimates of derivatives are sharpened for quasiconformal reflections of a special class of simply connected plane domains. Bibliography: 2 titles.     

Magnetic properties of oxygenated carbon nitride films from RF-discharge in an acetylene, nitrogen, and oxygen mixture environments

Properties of oxygenated carbon nitride films have attracted the attention of physics researchers due to their magnetic and physical properties, as well as for their usefulness in the industry. The free radicals were investigated using electron paramagnetic resonance applied in the study of spin concentration due to the different mechanism of preparation of carbon nitride films by RF-discharge with different kinds of plasma. Unpaired spin concentrations, in the order of 10²⁰ per cm³, were measured and their time recombination dependency was important in those films. The films were grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition using mixtures of hydrocarbons, N₂ and O₂ in different proportions.     

Three-dimensional radiative transfer in an anisotropically scattering, semi-infinite medium: generalized reflection function

Three-dimensional radiative transfer in an anisotropic scattering medium exposed to spatially varying, collimated radiation is studied. The generalized reflection function for a semi-infinite medium with a very general scattering phase function is the focus of this investigation. An integral transform is used to reduce the three-dimensional transport equation to a one-dimensional form, and a modified Ambarzumian's method is applied to formulate a nonlinear integral equation for the generalized reflection function. The integration is over both the polar and azimuthal angles; hence, the integral equation is said to be in the double-integral form. The double-integral, reflection function formulation can handle a variety of anisotropic phase functions and does not require an expansion of the phase function in a Legendre polynomial series. Complicated kernel transformations of previous single-integral studies are eliminated. Single and double scattering approximations are developed. Numerical results are presented for a Rayleigh phase function to illustrate the computational characteristics of the method and are compared to results obtained with the single-integral method. Agreement between the two approaches is excellent; however, as the transform variable increases beyond five the number of quadrature points required for the double-integral method to produce accurate solutions significantly increases. A new interpolation scheme produces accurate results when the transform variable is large.     

Comparisons between model equations for long waves

Summary Considered here are model equations for weakly nonlinear and dispersive long waves, which feature general forms of dispersion and pure power nonlinearity. Two variants of such equations are introduced, one of Korteweg-de Vries type and one of regularized long-wave type. It is proven that solutions of the pure initial-value problem for these two types of model equations are the same, to within the order of accuracy attributable to either, on the long time scale during which nonlinear and dispersive effects may accumulate to make an order-one relative difference to the wave profiles.This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation. A considerable portion of the project was completed while the first author was resident at the Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications, University of Minnesota.     

Truncated Newton method for sparse unconstrained optimization using automatic differentiation

When solving large complex optimization problems, the user is faced with three major problems. These are (i) the cost in human time in obtaining accurate expressions for the derivatives involved; (ii) the need to store second derivative information; and (iii), of lessening importance, the time taken to solve the problem on the computer. For many problems, a significant part of the latter can be attributed to solving Newton-like equations. In the algorithm described, the equations are solved using a conjugate direction method that only needs the Hessian at the current point when it is multiplied by a trial vector. In this paper, we present a method that finds this product using automatic differentiation while only requiring vector storage. The method takes advantage of any sparsity in the Hessian matrix and computes exact derivatives. It avoids the complexity of symbolic differentiation, the inaccuracy of numerical differentiation, the labor of finding analytic derivatives, and the need for matrix store. When far from a minimum, an accurate solution to the Newton equations is not justified, so an approximate solution is obtained by using a version of Dembo and Steihaug's truncated Newton algorithm (Ref. 1).This paper was presented at the SIAM National Meeting, Boston, Massachusetts, 1986.