Surface grating formation and erasing on a-Se films

Surface relief formation at holographic recording on amorphous selenium films was demonstrated and investigated. The presence of this optical phase modulation component is essential for ensuring significant, stable and erasable optical recording in a-Se films at 290–320 K temperatures, where conventional photodarkening was known as insignificant and unstable. Photocrystallization can only be observed in super-exposed a-Se films at the given experimental conditions of hologram recording. Erasing behavior of surface relief gratings under heat treatment was also investigated in order to reveal further details of the mechanism. Photoinduced structural transformations within the amorphous phase, connected to local ordering under the condition of light-induced fluidity, are proposed as an explanation for the relief formation and erasing. The observed reversible optical recording process may be useful for the various optoelectronic applications of photoconductive a-Se layers. Received: 12 June 2000 / Accepted: 6 June 2001 / Published online: 30 August 2001     

Recursive partition and amalgamation with the exponential family: Theory and applications

The theory of tree-growing (RECPAM approach) is developed for outcome variables which are distributed as the canonical exponential family. The general RECPAM approach (consisting of three steps: recursive partition, pruning and amalgamation), is reviewed. This is seen as constructing a partition with maximal information content about a parameter to be predicted, followed by simplification by the elimination of ‘negligible’ information. The measure of information is defined for an exponential family outcome as a deviance difference, and appropriate modifications of pruning and amalgamation rules are discussed. It is further shown how the proposed approach makes it possible to develop tree-growing for situations usually treated by generalized linear models (GLIM). In particular, Poisson and logistic regression can be tree-structured. Moreover, censored survival data can be treated, as in GLIM, by observing a formal equivalence of the likelihood under random censoring and an appropriate Poisson model. Three examples are given of application to Poisson, binary and censored survival data.     

Optimization of the surface texture for silicon carbide sliding in water

Surface texturing has been recognized as an effective means to improve the tribological performances of sliding surfaces. Usually, generation additional hydrodynamic pressure to increase the load carrying capacity is regarded as the most significant effect of surface texture. In the case of silicon carbide sliding against identical material in water, the experimental results indicate that surface texture is also helpful to improve the running-in progress to smooth the contact surfaces, showing another reason to result in low friction. Based on the consideration of enhancing the generation of hydrodynamic pressure and improving running-in progress, a surface texture pattern, which was combined with large (circle, 350 μm in diameter) and small (rectangular, 40 μm in length) dimples, was designed to maximize the texture effect on the load carrying capacity of SiC surfaces sliding in water. The friction coefficient of such textured surface was evaluated and compared with that of untextured and those only with large or small dimples only. The friction reduction mechanisms of the patterns with different dimples in size are discussed.     

Dielectric and optical properties of polymer-liquid crystal composite

Dielectric properties of polymer-liquid crystal mixture, having constituent polymer, poly-butyl methacrylate (PBMA) and liquid crystal, cholesteryl nonanoate, are reported as a function of frequency and temperature. The measurement has been done in a temperature range of 300-375 K and frequency range of 100 Hz-10 MHz. The dielectric permittivity and dielectric loss shows significant changes with the addition of polymer molecules in liquid crystal. The significant feature of composite formation is that the pure liquid crystal and polymer do not show dielectric relaxation in the frequency range covered, while the composite shows relaxation peak at a particular frequency. The optical transmittance of pure liquid crystal and composite has also been measured and compared.     

Isotopic families of contact manifolds for elliptic PDE

A test for a function to be a solution of an elliptic PDE is given in terms of extensions, as solutions, from the boundaries inside the domains belonging to an isotopic family. It generalizes a result of Ehrenpreis for spheres moved along a straight line.

     

Study of asymmetric charge writing on Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 thin films by Kelvin probe force microscopy

Polycrystalline Pb(Zr_0.55Ti_0.45)O₃ thin film was deposited on Pt/Ti/SiO₂/Si(1 0 0) by radio-frequency-magnetron sputtering method, and the writing of charge bits on the surface of PZT thin film was studied by Kelvin probe force microscopy. It is found that the surface potential of the negative charge bits are higher than those of the corresponding positive ones. When ferroelectric polarization switching occurs, the potential difference becomes even more remarkable. A qualitative model was proposed to explain the origin of the asymmetric charge writing. It is demonstrated that the internal field in the interface layer, which is near the ferroelectric/electrode interface in ferroelectric film, is likely to be the cause for the occurrence of this phenomenon.     

EXISTENCE OF PERIODIC SOLUTIONS OF SYSTEM OF DIFFERENCE EQUATIONS

This paper studies the nonautonomous nonlinear system of difference equationsΔx(n)=A(n)x(n)+f(n,x(n)),n∈Z,(*) where x(n)∈R~N,A(n)=(a_(ij)(n))N×N is an N×N matrix,with a-(ij)∈C(R,R) for i,j= 1,2,3,...,N,and f=(f_1,f_2,...,f_N)~T∈C(R×R~N,R~N),satisfying A(t+ω)=A(t),f(t+ω,z)=f(t,z) for any t∈R,(t,z)∈R×R~N andωis a positive integer.Sufficient conditions for the existence ofω-periodic solutions to equations (*) are obtained.     

Experimental intensity patterns obtained from a 2D shearing interferometer with adaptable sensitivity

The interferometric intensity patterns from a 2D shearing interferometer are shown and discussed. The intensity patterns can be obtained in two different approaches incorporating differential and extended wavefront controlled displacements. The reliable directional sensitivity of this interferometer allows the optimization of the measurement parameters to estimate the wavefront of the intensity patterns by regularization techniques.     

Diamagnetic susceptibility of hydrogenic donor impurity in low-dimensional semiconducting systems

The binding energies of a hydrogenic donor both in the parabolic and non-parabolic conduction band model within the effective mass approximation have been computed for the low-dimensional semiconducting systems (LDSS) like quantum well, quantum well wire and quantum dot taking GaAs/Al_xGa_1−xAs systems as an example. It is observed that the effect of non-parabolicity is not effective when the system goes to lower dimensionality. The diamagnetic susceptibility of a hydrogenic donor impurity has also been computed in these LDSS in the infinite barrier model. Since no theoretical or experimental works on the diamagnetic susceptibility of LDSS are available in the literature, as a realistic case the diamagnetic susceptibility has been computed in the finite barrier model (x=0.3) for a quantum well and the results are discussed in the light of semiconductor-metal transition.     

A new solution of reducing polymer optical fiber losses

Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) is one of the most commonly used optical materials. However, the application of it in the area of optical communication is strongly limited by the intrinsic absorption loss of carbon-hydrogen stretching vibration. In this paper, we present a method to solve the problem by adopting the hollow-core fibers with cobweb cladding structure. The fibers use a single dielectric material and may solve the problem of structural support. Thus the feasibility of the “OmniGuide” fibers is improved, while a series of advantages of the “OmniGuide” hollow-core fiber are retained. It is promising that a fiber with low transmission loss, high bandwidth, large-core, and low costs can be designed and fabricated using PMMA. At the same time, a very broad range of the wavelengths (from visible to near infrared region, for instance, wavelengths at 0.65-1.12 μm, and even 1.30 μm, 1.54 μm and their neighbors) may be adopted for signal wavelength.