Broad spectrum measurement of the birefringence of an isothiocyanate based liquid crystal.

Tunable materials with high anisotropy of refractive index and low loss are of particular interest in the microwave and terahertz range. Nematic liquid crystals are highly sensitive to electric and magnetic fields and may be designed to have particularly high birefringence. In this paper we investigate birefringence and absorption losses in an isothiocyanate based liquid crystal (designed for high anisotropy) in a broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum, namely 0.1-4 GHz, 30 GHz, 0.5-1.8 THz, and in the visible and near-infrared region (400 nm-1600 nm). We report high birefringence (Δn = 0.19-0.395) and low loss in this material. This is attractive for tunable microwave and terahertz device applications.

Continuous spectrum growth and modal instability in swirling duct flow

We present results on the stability of compressible inviscid swirling flows in an annular duct. Such flows are present in aeroengines, for example in the by-pass duct, and there are also similar flows in many aeroacoustic or aeronautical applications. The linearised Euler equations have a ('critical layer') singularity associated with pure convection of the unsteady disturbance by the mean flow, and we focus our attention on this region of the spectrum. By considering the critical layer singularity, we identify the continuous spectrum of the problem and describe how it contributes to the unsteady field. We find a very generic family of instability modes near to the continuous spectrum, whose eigenvalue wavenumbers form an infinite set and accumulate to a point in the complex plane. We study this accumulation process asymptotically, and find conditions on the flow to support such instabilities. It is also found that the continuous spectrum can cause a new type of instability, leading to algebraic growth with an exponent determined by the mean flow, given in the analysis. The exponent of algebraic growth can be arbitrarily large. Numerical demonstrations of the continuous spectrum instability, and also the modal instabilities are presented.

Raman Spectrum of silicon nanowires

We measure the effects of phonon confinement on the Raman spectra of silicon nanowires (SiNWs). We show how previous reports of phonon confinement in SiNWs and nanostructures are actually inconsistent with phonon confinement, but are due to the intense local heating caused by the laser power used for Raman measurements. This is peculiar to nanostructures, and would require orders of magnitude higher power in bulk Si. By varying the temperature, power and excitation energy, we identify the contributions of pure confinement, heating and carrier photo-excitation. After eliminating laser-related effects, the Raman spectra show confinement signatures typical of quantum wires. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.