Coupled AlxGa1-xAs-AlAs distributed Bragg reflectors for high brightness AlGaInP light emitting diodes

A novel coupled distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) with double thickness periods was theoretically analyzed based on the spontaneous radiation properties of high brightness AlGaInP light emitting diodes(LED). Several important factors were considered including spontaneous radiation angle distribution, absorption and FTR of DBR. Calculation results showed that the optimum optical thickness of single layer of the DBR deviates from 1/4 lambda. AIGaInP high brightness light emitting diodes both with Al0.5Ga0.5As/AlAs coupled DBR and with conventional DBR were fabricated by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition(MOCVD). X-ray double crystal diffraction and reflection spectrum were employed to determine the thickness and reflectivity of the DBR. It was found that reflectivity of coupled DBR is less sensitive to incident angle than conventional DBR, higher external quantum efficiency of light emitting diodes with coupled DBR was obtained than that with conventional DBR.

High brightness AlGaInP orange light emitting diodes

Orange AlGaInP high brightness light emitting diodes (LEDs) were fabricated by low pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition(LP-MOCVD) technology. AlGaInP double heterojunction structure was used as active layer. 15 pairs of Al0.5Ga0.5As/AlAs distributed Bragg reflector and 7 mu m Al0.8Ga0.2As current spreading layer were employed to reduce the absorption of GaAs substrate and upper anode respectively. At 20mA the LEDs emitting wavelength was between 600-610nm with 18.3nm FWHM, 0.45mW radiation power and 1.7% external quantum efficiency. Brightness of the LED chips and LED lamps with 15 degrees viewing angle(2 theta(1/2)) reached 30mcd and 1000mcd respectively.

Design of high brightness cubic-GaN LEDs grown on GaAs substrate

The Principle of optical thin film was used to calculate the feasibility of improving the light extraction efficiency of GaN/GaAs optical devices by wafer-bonding technique. The calculated results show that the light extraction efficiency of bonded samples can be improved by 2.66 times than the as-grown GaN/GaAs samples when a thin Ni layer was used as adhesive layer and Ag layer as reflective layer. Full reflectance spectrum comparison shows that reflectivity for the incident light of 459.2 nm of the bonded samples was improved by 2.4 times than the as-grown samples, which is consistent with the calculated results.

Boundary, Brightness, and Depth Interactions During Preattentive Representation and Attentive Recognition of Figure and Ground

This article applies a recent theory of 3-D biological vision, called FACADE Theory, to explain several percepts which Kanizsa pioneered. These include 3-D pop-out of an occluding form in front of an occluded form, leading to completion and recognition of the occluded form; 3-D transparent and opaque percepts of Kanizsa squares, with and without Varin wedges; and interactions between percepts of illusory contours, brightness, and depth in response to 2-D Kanizsa images. These explanations clarify how a partially occluded object representation can be completed for purposes of object recognition, without the completed part of the representation necessarily being seen. The theory traces these percepts to neural mechanisms that compensate for measurement uncertainty and complementarity at individual cortical processing stages by using parallel and hierarchical interactions among several cortical processing stages. These interactions are modelled by a Boundary Contour System (BCS) that generates emergent boundary segmentations and a complementary Feature Contour System (FCS) that fills-in surface representations of brightness, color, and depth. The BCS and FCS interact reciprocally with an Object Recognition System (ORS) that binds BCS boundary and FCS surface representations into attentive object representations. The BCS models the parvocellular LGN→Interblob→Interstripe→V4 cortical processing stream, the FCS models the parvocellular LGN→Blob→Thin Stripe→V4 cortical processing stream, and the ORS models inferotemporal cortex.

Brightness Perception, Illusory Contours and Corticogeniculate Feedback

A neural network model of early visual processing offers an explanation of brightness effects often associated with illusory contours. Top-down feedback from the model's analog of visual cortical complex cells to model lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) cells are used to enhance contrast at line ends and other areas of boundary discontinuity. The result is an increase in perceived brightness outside a dark line end, akin to what Kennedy (1979) termed "brightness buttons" in his analysis of visual illusions. When several lines form a suitable configuration, as in an Ehrenstein pattern, the perceptual effect of enhanced brightness can be quite strong. Model simulations show the generation of brightness buttons. With the LGN model circuitry embedded in a larger model of preattentive vision, simulations using complex inputs show the interaction of the brightness buttons with real and illusory contours.

3D Curvature Contrast - a geometric or brightness illusion?

Simultaneous contrast effects have been found across a wide range of visual dimensions. We describe a simultaneous contrast effect - three-dimensional curvature contrast - in which the apparent curvature of a surface defined by shading and texture information is influenced by the curvature of a surrounding surface. The effect is strong and easily measurable. We asked whether the effect depends upon the presence of contrast at the level of the internal representation of surface curvature or whether it could be better explained in terms of local changes in the apparent brightness of regions within the test patches induced by luminance transition at the borders. The experimental results suggest that, whicle these luminance-contrast-induced effects do contribute to the observed changes in perceived curvature, there are additional influences. In particular changes in perceived curvature induced by a pattern of curved patches were eliminated or considerably weakened when the inducing pattern was transformed into a photographic negative, a procedure which disrupts the apparent three-dimensional structure of the surface patches without changing their brightness contrast. This suggests a component of the illusion involves comparisons at the level of representation of surface curvature. The observation that three-dimensional curvature contrast presists when the inducing surfaces are spatially separate from the test surface suggests that shape perception involves global, as well as local, operations.

High brightness keV harmonics from relativistically oscillating plasma surfaces

X-ray harmonic radiation extending to 3.3 angstrom, 3.8 keV from Petawatt class laser-solid interactions is presented. The harmonic spectra display a relativistic limit scaling up to similar to 3000th order, above which an intensity dependent scaling roll-over is observed. Highly directional beamed emission for harmonic photon energy h nu > 1 keV is found to be into a cone angle

On the brightness distribution of type ia supernovae from violent white dwarf mergers

We investigate the brightness distribution expected for thermonuclear explosions that might result from the ignition of a detonation during the violent merger of white dwarf (WD) binaries. Violent WD mergers are a subclass of the canonical double degenerate scenario where two carbon-oxygen (CO) WDs merge when the larger WD fills its Roche lobe. Determining their brightness distribution is critical for evaluating whether such an explosion model could be responsible for a significant fraction of the observed population of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). We argue that the brightness of an explosion realized via the violent merger model is mainly determined by the mass of Ni produced in the detonation of the primary COWD. To quantify this link, we use a set of sub-Chandrasekhar mass WD detonation models to derive a relationship between primary WD mass (m) and expected peak bolometric brightness (M). We use this m-M relationship to convert the masses of merging primary WDs from binary population models to a predicted distribution of explosion brightness. We also investigate the sensitivity of our results to assumptions about the conditions required to realize a detonation during violent mergers ofWDs. We find a striking similarity between the shape of our theoretical peak-magnitude distribution and that observed for SNe Ia: our model produces a M distribution that roughly covers the range and matches the shape of the one observed for SNe Ia. However, this agreement hinges on a particular phase of mass accretion during binary evolution: the primary WD gains ~0.15-0.35M? from a slightly evolved helium star companion. In our standard binary evolution model, such an accretion phase is predicted to occur for about 43 per cent of all binary systems that ultimately give rise to binary CO WD mergers. We also find that with high probability, violent WD mergers involving the most massive primaries (?1.3M?, which should produce bright SNe) have delay times ?500 Myr. © 2012 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Modelling the brightness increase signature due to asteroid collisions

We have developed a model to predict the post-collision brightness increase of sub-catastrophic collisions between asteroids and to evaluate the likelihood of a survey detecting these events. It is based on the cratering scaling laws of Holsapple and Housen (2007) and models the ejecta expansion following an impact as occurring in discrete shells each with their own velocity. We estimate the magnitude change between a series of target/impactor pairs, as- suming it is given by the increase in reflecting surface area within a photometric aperture due to the resulting ejecta. As expected the photometric signal increases with impactor size, but we find also that the photometric signature decreases rapidly as the target aster- oid diameter increases, due to gravitational fallback. We have used the model results to make an estimate of the impactor diameter for the (596) Scheila collision of D = 49 − 65m depending on the impactor taxonomy, which is broadly consistent with previous estimates. We varied both the strength regime (highly porous and sand/cohesive soil) and the tax- onomic type (S-, C- and D-type) to examine the effect on the magnitude change, finding that it is significant at early stages but has only a small effect on the overall lifetime of the photometric signal. Combining the results of this model with the collision frequency estimates of Bottke et al. (2005), we find that low-cadence surveys of ∼one visit per luna- tion will be insensitive to impacts on asteroids with D < 20km if relying on photometric detections.

Brightness variation distributions among main belt asteroids from sparse light curve sampling with Pan-STARRS 1

The rotational state of asteroids is controlled by various physical mechanisms including collisions, internal damping and the Yarkovsky-O'Keefe-Radzievskii-Paddack (YORP) effect. We have analysed the changes in magnitude between consecutive detections of ∼ 60,000 asteroids measured by the PanSTARRS 1 survey during its first 18 months of operations. We have attempted to explain the derived brightness changes physically and through the application of a simple model. We have found a tendency toward smaller magnitude variations with decreasing diameter for objects of 1 < D < 8 km. Assuming the shape distribution of objects in this size range to be independent of size and composition our model suggests a population with average axial ratios 1: 0.85 ± 0.13: 0.71 ± 0.13, with larger objects more likely to have spin axes perpendicular to the orbital plane.