Single crystal beta-Ga2O3: Cr grown by floating zone technique and its optical properties

beta-Ga2O3: Cr single crystals were grown by floating zone technique. Absorption spectra and fluorescence spectra were measured at room temperature. The values of field splitting parameter Dq and Racah parameter B were obtained by the peak values of absorption spectra. The value 10Dq/B=23.14 manifests that in beta-Ga2O3 crystals Cr3+ ions are influenced by low energy crystal field. After high temperature annealing in air, the Cr3+ intrinsic emission was enhanced and the green luminescence disappeared. The strong and broad 691 nm emission was obtained at 420 nm excitation due to the electron transition occurred from T-4(2) to (4)A(2). The studies manifest that the beta-Ga2O3 crystals have the potential application for tunable laser.

Edge-defined, film-fed growth (EFG) technique for the preparation of alpha-Al2O3 : C crystal with highly sensitive thermoluminescence response

In this work, alpha-Al2O3:C, a highly sensitive thermoluminescence dosimetry crystal, was grown by the EFG method in which a graphite heating unit and shield acted as the carbon source during the growth process. The optical, luminescent properties and dosimetric characteristics of the crystal were investigated. The as-grown crystal shows a single glow peak at 536 K, which is associated with Cr3+ ions. After annealing in H-2 at 1673 K for 80 h, the crystal shows a single glow peak at 460 K and a blue emission band at 415 nm. The thermoluminescent response of the annealed crystal shows linear-sublinear-saturation characteristics in the dose range from 5 x 10(-6) to 100 Gy.

Growth of highly sensitive thermoluminescent crystal alpha-Al2O3 : C by the temperature gradient technique

In this work, an alpha-Al2O3:C crystal with highly sensitive thermoluminescence was directly grown by the temperature gradient technique (TGT) using Al2O3 and graphite powders as raw materials. The optical and luminescent properties and the dosimetric characteristics of the crystal were investigated. An as-grown alpha-Al2O3:C crystal shows a single glow peak at 462 K and a blue emission peak at 415 nm. The thermoluminescence (TL) response of the crystal shows a linear-sublinear-saturation characteristic. In the dose range from 5 x 10(-6) to 10Gy, the alpha-Al2O3:C crystal shows excellent linearity, and saturation was observed at about 30Gy. The sensitivity of the crystal decreases as the heating rate increases. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Characterization of Sarcocystis species in domestic animals using a PCR-RFLP analysis of variation in the 18S rRNA gene: a cost-effective and simple technique for routine species identification

Thirteen restriction endonucleases were used to investigate nucleotide sequence variation in the 18S rRNA DNA of 88 individuals from ten Sarcocystis taxa collected as cysts from their intermediate hosts, swine, cattle and water buffalo. A DNA sequence of

The successful double cryopreservation of rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) semen in large volume using the directional freezing technique with reduced concentration of cryoprotectant

Using directional freezing, Our objective was to cryopreserve rabbit semen and achieve fertility that was equal or higher than that achieved with conventional freezing. The working hypothesis was that controlling the ice-front propagation would allow redu

Inhibition of no tail (ntl) gene expression in zebrafish by external guide sequence (EGS) technique

External guide sequence (EGS) technique, a branch of ribozyme strategy, can be enticed to cleave the target mRNA by forming a tRNA-like structure. In the present study, no tail gene (ntl), a key gene participating in the formation of normal tail, was used as a target for ribonuclease (RNase) P-mediated gene disruption in zebrafish in vivo. Transient expression of pH1-m3/4 ntl-EGS or pH1-3/4 ntl-EGS produced the full no tail phenotype at long-pec stage in proportion as 24 or 35%, respectively. As is expected that the full-length ntl mRNA of embryos at 50% epiboly stage decreased relative to control when injected the embryos with 3/4 EGS or m3/4 EGS RNA. Interestingly, ntl RNA transcripts, including the cleaved by EGS and the untouched, increased. Taken together, these results indicate that EGS strategy can work in zebrafish in vivo and becomes a potential tool for degradation of targeted mRNAs.

High efficiency and broad bandwidth grating coupler between nanophotonic waveguide and fibre

A high efficiency and broad bandwidth grating coupler between a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) nanophotonic waveguide and fibre is designed and fabricated. Coupling efficiencies of 46% and 25% at a wavelength of 1.55 mu m are achieved by simulation and experiment, respectively. An optical 3 dB bandwidth of 45 nm from 1530 nm to 1575 nm is also obtained in experiment. Numerical calculation shows that a tolerance to fabrication error of 10 nm in etch depth is achievable. The measurement results indicate that the alignment error of +/-2 mu m results in less than 1 dB additional coupling loss.

Investigation of mode radiation loss for microdisk resonators with pedestals by FDTD technique

Mode radiation loss for microdisk resonators with pedestals is investigated by three-dimensional (3D) finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) technique. For the microdisk with a radius of 1 mu m, a thickness of 0.2 mu m, and a refractive index of 3.4, on a pedestal with a refractive index of 3.17, the mode quality (Q) factor of the whispering-gallery mode (WGM) quasi-TE7,1 first increases with the increase of the radius of the pedestal, and then quickly decreases as the radius is larger than 0.75 mu m. The mode radiation loss is mainly the vertical radiation loss induced by the mode coupling between the WGM and vertical radiation mode in the pedestal, instead of the scattering loss around the perimeter of the round pedestal. The WG M can keep the high Q factor when the mode coupling is forbidden.

Realization of MMI power splitter by UV-light imprinting technique using hybrid sol-gel SiO2 materials

An efficient fabrication scheme of buried ridge waveguide devices is demonstrated by UV-light imprinting technique using organic-in organic hybrid sol-gel Zr-doped SiO2 materials. The refractive indices of a guiding layer and a cladding layer for the buried ridge waveguide structure are 1.537 and 1.492 measured at 1550 nm, respectively. The tested results show more circular mode profiles clue to existence of the cladding layer. A buried ridge single-mode waveguide operating at 1550 nm has a low propagation loss (0.088 dB/cm) and the 1 x 2 MMI power splitter exhibits uniform outputs, with a very low splitting loss of 0.029 dB at 1549 nm.

Design of a compact polarization beam splitter based on a deformed photonic crystal directional coupler

In this paper a compact polarization beam splitter based on a deformed photonic crystal directional coupler is designed and simulated. The transverse-electric (TE) guided mode and transverse-magnetic (TM) guided mode are split due to different guiding mechanisms. The effect of the shape deformation of the air holes on the coupler is studied. It discovered that the coupling strength of the coupled waveguides is strongly enhanced by introducing elliptical airholes, which reduce the device length to less than 18.5 mu m. A finite-difference time-domain simulation is performed to evaluate the performance of the device, and the extinction ratios for both TE and TM polarized light are higher than 20 dB.

A photonic wire-based directional coupler based on SOI

A photonic wire-based directional coupler based on SOI was fabricated by e-beam lithography (EBL) and the inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching method. The size of the sub-micron waveguide is 0.34 mu m x 0.34 mu m, and the length in the coupling region and the separation between the two parallel waveguides are 410 and 0.8 mu m, respectively. The measurement results are in good agreement with the results simulated by 3D finite-difference time-domain method. The transmission power from two output ports changed reciprocally with about 23 nm wavelength spacing between the coupled and direct ports. The extinction ratio of the device was between 5 and 10 dB, and the insertion loss of the device in the wavelength range 1520-1610 nm was between 22 and 24 dB, which included an about 18.4 +/- 0.4 dB coupling loss between the taper fibers and the polished sides of the device. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Paired interference 3-dB coupler based on SOI rib waveguides with anisotropic chemical wet etching

A 3-dB paired interference (PI) optical coupler in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) based on rib waveguides with trapezoidal cross section was designed with simulation by a modified finite-difference beam propagation method (FD-BPM) and fabricated by potassium hydroxide (KOH) anisotropic chemical wet etching. Theoretically, tolerances of width, length, and port distance are more than 1, 100, and 1 mu m, respectively. Smooth interface was obtained with the propagation loss of 1.1 dB/cm at the wavelength of 1.55 mu m. The coupler has a good uniformity of 0.2 dB and low excess loss of less than 2 dB.

High efficiency passively Q-switched mode-locking Nd:GdVO4 laser with LT-In0.25Ga0.75As saturable absorber

The generation of passively Q-switched mode-locking operation with 100% modulation depth has been observed from a diode-pumped Nd GdVO4 laser with a low temperature In0.25Ga0.75As saturable absorber, which was grown by the metal-organic chemical-vapor deposition technique and acted as saturable absorber as well as output coupler. The repetition rate and pulse duration of the mode-locked pulses concentrated in the Q-switch envelop were 455 MHz and 12 ps, respectively. The average output power was 1.8 W and the slope efficiency was 36%. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Novel triplexing-filter design using silica-based direction coupler and an arrayed waveguide grating

A new triplexing filter based on a silica direction coupler and an arrayed waveguide grating is presented. Using a combination of a direction coupler and an arrayed waveguide grating, a 1310-nm channel is multiplexed and 1490- and 1550-nm channels are demultiplexed for fiber-to-the-home. The direction coupler is used to coarsely separate the 1310-nm channel from the 1490- and 1550-nm channels. Subsequently, an arrayed waveguide grating is used to demultiplex the 1490- from 1550-nm channel. The simulated spectra show the 1-dB bandwidth of 110 nm for the 1310-nm channel and 20 and 20.5 nm for the 1490- and 1550-nm channels. The insertion loss is only 0.15 dB for 1310 nm and 5 dB for 1490 and 1550 nm. The crosstalk between the 1490- and 1550-nm channels was less than -35 dB. (C) 2009 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. [DOI 10.1117/1.3065508]