Two building blocks of microwave photonics filters in the presence of group delay ripple: a comparative survey

We have developed an analytic approach to investigate the effect of group delay ripple of the dispersive devices on the performance of two major building blocks of microwave-photonic filters. Firstly, performance of PM-based block in the presence of an arbitrary group delay ripple (GDR) is analyzed and compared with the ripple-free case to reveal the destructive effects of added group delay ripple. In the next step, we repeat the proposed approach for the AM-based one; again, the performance is compared with the ripple-free case. Two distortion metrics are also introduced to quantify this distortion. Comparison of the performance of two building blocks in the presence of group delay ripple unveils some interesting characteristics of microwave-photonic filters which have not been mentioned so far. We also add a general survey of two analyzed building blocks to present their respective most significant advantages and shortcomings. The simulated Optisystem results conform to our proposed analytical approach and verify the theoretical model.     

Tetrabutylammonium phthalimide-N-oxyl: An efficient organocatalyst for trimethylsilylation of alcohols and phenols with hexamethyldisilazane

Tetrabutylammonium phthalimide-N-oxyl (TBAPINO) was found to be an effective organocatalyst for rapid, simple and chemoselective protection of the hydroxyl group of alcohols and phenols using hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS) under mild conditions. The low catalyst loading, high to quantitative yields and simple removal of the catalyst from the reaction mixture illustrate the other attractive features of this protocol.     

Nonuniversality and analytical continuation in moments of directed polymers on hierarchical lattices

We prove the moments of the directed polymer partition function GZ, using an exact position space renormalization group scheme on a hierarchical lattice. After sufficient iteration the characteristic functionf(n)=lnGZⁿ of the probability (Z) converges to a stable limitf ^*(n). For smalln the limiting behavior is independent of the initial distribution, while for largen,f ^*(n) is completely determined by it and is thus nonuniversal. There is a smooth crossover between the two regimes for small effective dimensions, and the nonlinear behavior of the small moments can be used to extract information on the universal scaling properties of the distribution. For large effective dimensions there is a sharp transition between the two regimes, and analytical continuation from integer moments ton0 is not possible. Replica arguments can account for most features of the observed results.     

A sunlight-induced method for rapid biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles using an <Emphasis Type="Italic">Andrachnea chordifolia</Emphasis> ethanol extract

In this study a sunlight-induced method for rapid synthesis of silver nanoparticles using an ethanol extract of Andrachnea chordifolia is described. The silver nitrate solutions (1 mM) containing the ethanol extract of Andrachnea chordifolia were irradiated by both sunlight radiation and by sunlight radiation passed through different colored filters (red, yellow or green). The smallest size of silver nanoparticles was obtained when a silver ion solution was irradiated for 5 minutes by direct sunlight radiation. Further examination of the shape and size and of the surface chemistry of these biogenic silver nanoparticles, which were prepared under sunlight radiation, was carried out using transmission electron microscopy and infrared spectroscopy, respectively. Transmission electron microscopy images show spherical particles with an average size of 3.4 nm. Hydroxyl residues were also detected on the surface of these biogenic silver nanoparticles fabricated using plant extract of Andrachnea chordifolia under sunlight radiation. Our study on the reduction of silver ions by this plant extract in darkness shows that the synthesis process can take place under dark conditions at much longer incubations (48 hours). Larger silver polydispersed nanoparticles ranging in size from 3 to 30 nm were obtained when the silver ions were treated with the ethanol extract of Andrachnea chordifolia under dark conditions for 48 hours.     

Spherical Kadomtsev-Petviashvili Solitons in a Suprathermal Complex Plasma

The nonlinear aspects of nonplanar dust acoustic (DA) solitary waves are investigated in an unmagnetized complex plasma comprising of cold dust grains, kappa-distributed ions as well as electrons. The nonplanar DA solitons are studied based on the reductive perturbation technique. It is shown that the evolution of DA solitons is governed by a spherical Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (sKP) equation and then the impact of suprathermality on the spatial structure as well as the nature of DA soliton is studied. It seems that the properties of DA solitons in nonplanar geometry are quite different from that of the planar solitons.     

Smoke triggered corona discharge sensor

This paper presents an ionic smoke sensor working without a radioactive ionization source. The presence of smoke particles reduces significantly the effective corona discharge threshold of air by a factor greater than 5. The smoke sensor consists of a wire under an intermediate continuous voltage which generates a current only in presence of smoke. The sensor electric consumption is therefore very low and can operate for a long time. Results of a prototype operating under 600 V with a 25-μm-diameter wire are shown.