Generating Scale-free Networks with Adjustable Clustering Coefficient Via Random Walks

This paper presents an algorithm for generating scale-free networks with adjustable clustering coefficient. The algorithm is based on a random walk procedure combined with a triangle generation scheme which takes into account genetic factors; this way, preferential attachment and clustering control are implemented using only local information. Simulations are presented which support the validity of the scheme, characterizing its tuning capabilities.

Self-validating technique for the measurement of the linewidth enhancement factor in semiconductor lasers

A new method for measuring the linewidth enhancement factor (α-parameter) of semiconductor lasers is proposed and discussed. The method itself provides an estimation of the measurement error, thus self-validating the entire procedure. The α-parameter is obtained from the temporal profile and the instantaneous frequency (chirp) of the pulses generated by gain switching. The time resolved chirp is measured with a polarization based optical differentiator. The accuracy of the obtained values of the α-parameter is estimated from the comparison between the directly measured pulse spectrum and the spectrum reconstructed from the chirp and the temporal profile of the pulse. The method is applied to a VCSEL and to a DFB laser emitting around 1550 nm at different temperatures, obtaining a measurement error lower than ± 8%.

Application of Ultraintense Lasers to validate materials for laser fusion: production of ions and other relevant species

Justification of the need and demand of experimental facilities to test and validate materials for first wall in laser fusion reactors - Characteristics of the laser fusion products - Current ?possible? facilities for tests Ultraintense Lasers as ?complete? solution facility - Generation of ion pulses - Generation of X-ray pulses - Generation of other relevant particles (electrons, neutrons..)

Selective ablation with UV lasers of a-Si:H thin film solar cells in direct scribing configuration

Monolithical series connection of silicon thin-film solar cells modules performed by laser scribing plays a very important role in the entire production of these devices. In the current laser process interconnection the two last steps are developed for a configuration of modules where the glass is essential as transparent substrate. In addition, the change of wavelength in the employed laser sources is sometimes enforced due to the nature of the different materials of the multilayer structure which make up the device. The aim of this work is to characterize the laser patterning involved in the monolithic interconnection process in a different configurations of processing than the usually performed with visible laser sources. To carry out this study, we use nanosecond and picosecond laser sources working at 355nm of wavelength in order to achieve the selective ablation of the material from the film side. To assess this selective removal of material has been used EDX (energy dispersive using X-ray) analysis

A proposal for multi-tens of GW fully coherent femtosecond soft X-ray lasers

X-ray free-electron lasers1,2 delivering up to 131013 coherent photons in femtosecond pulses are bringing about a revolution in X-ray science3?5. However, some plasma-based soft X-ray lasers6 are attractive because they spontaneously emit an even higher number of photons (131015), but these are emitted in incoherent and long (hundreds of picoseconds) pulses7 as a consequence of the amplification of stochastic incoherent self-emission. Previous experimental attempts to seed such amplifiers with coherent femtosecond soft X-rays resulted in as yet unexplained weak amplification of the seed and strong amplification of incoherent spontaneous emission8. Using a time-dependent Maxwell?Bloch model describing the amplification of both coherent and incoherent soft X-rays in plasma, we explain the observed inefficiency and propose a new amplification scheme based on the seeding of stretched high harmonics using a transposition of chirped pulse amplification to soft X-rays. This scheme is able to deliver 531014 fully coherent soft X-ray photons in 200 fs pulses and with a peak power of 20 GW.

Refined second law of thermodynamics for fast random processes

We establish a refined version of the Second Law of Thermodynamics for Langevin stochastic processes describing mesoscopic systems driven by conservative or non-conservative forces and interacting with thermal noise. The refinement is based on the Monge-Kantorovich optimal mass transport and becomes relevant for processes far from quasi-stationary regime. General discussion is illustrated by numerical analysis of the optimal memory erasure protocol for a model for micron-size particle manipulated by optical tweezers.

Wireless Optical Communications for Intra-Spacecraft Networks Based on OCDMA with Random Optical Codes

In recent years, spacial agencies have shown a growing interest in optical wireless as an alternative to wired and radio-frequency communications. The use of these techniques for intra-spacecraft communications reduces the effect of take-off acceleration and vibrations on the systems by avoiding the need for rugged connectors and provides a significant mass reduction. Diffuse transmission also eases the design process as terminals can be placed almost anywhere without a tight planification to ensure the proper system behaviour. Previous studies have compared the performance of radio-frequency and infrared optical communications. In an intra-satellite environment optical techniques help reduce EMI related problems, and their main disadvantages - multipath dispersion and the need for line-of-sight - can be neglected due to the reduced cavity size. Channel studies demonstrate that the effect of the channel can be neglected in small environments if data bandwidth is lower than some hundreds of MHz.

Pulse shortening of gain switched single mode semiconductor lasers using a variable delay interferometer

We propose a pulse shaping and shortening technique for pulses generated from gain switched single mode semiconductor lasers, based on a Mach Zehnder interferometer with variable delay. The spectral and temporal characteristics of the pulses obtained with the proposed technique are investigated with numerical simulations. Experiments are performed with a Distributed Feedback laser and a Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser, emitting at 1.5 µm, obtaining pulse duration reduction of 25-30%. The main asset of the proposed technique is that it can be applied to different devices and pulses, taking advantage of the flexibility of the gain switching technique.

High Performance FPGA-oriented mersenne twister uniform random number generator

Mersenne Twister (MT) uniform random number generators are key cores for hardware acceleration of Monte Carlo simulations. In this work, two different architectures are studied: besides the classical table-based architecture, a different architecture based on a circular buffer and especially targeting FPGAs is proposed. A 30% performance improvement has been obtained when compared to the fastest previous work. The applicability of the proposed MT architectures has been proven in a high performance Gaussian RNG.

A fitting algorithm for random modeling the PLC channel

The characteristics of the power-line communication (PLC) channel are difficult to model due to the heterogeneity of the networks and the lack of common wiring practices. To obtain the full variability of the PLC channel, random channel generators are of great importance for the design and testing of communication algorithms. In this respect, we propose a random channel generator that is based on the top-down approach. Basically, we describe the multipath propagation and the coupling effects with an analytical model. We introduce the variability into a restricted set of parameters and, finally, we fit the model to a set of measured channels. The proposed model enables a closed-form description of both the mean path-loss profile and the statistical correlation function of the channel frequency response. As an example of application, we apply the procedure to a set of in-home measured channels in the band 2-100 MHz whose statistics are available in the literature. The measured channels are divided into nine classes according to their channel capacity. We provide the parameters for the random generation of channels for all nine classes, and we show that the results are consistent with the experimental ones. Finally, we merge the classes to capture the entire heterogeneity of in-home PLC channels. In detail, we introduce the class occurrence probability, and we present a random channel generator that targets the ensemble of all nine classes. The statistics of the composite set of channels are also studied, and they are compared to the results of experimental measurement campaigns in the literature.

Ultraintense lasers applied to laser fusion material testing: production of ions, X rays and neutrons

Due to the particular characteristics of the fusion products, i.e. very short pulses (less than a few μs long for ions when arriving to the walls; less than 1 ns long for X-rays), very high fluences ( 10 13 particles/cm 2 for both ions and X rays photons) and broad particle energy spectra (up to 10 MeV ions and 100 keV photons), the laser fusion community lacks of facilities to accurately test plasma facing materials under those conditions. In the present work, the ability of ultraintese lasers to create short pulses of energetic particles and high fluences is addressed as a solution to reproduce those ion and X-ray bursts. Based on those parameters, a comparison between fusion ion and laser driven ion beams is presented and discussed, describing a possible experimental set-up to generate with lasers the appropriate ion pulses. At the same time, the possibility of generating X-ray or neutron beams which simulate those of laser fusion environments is also indicated and assessed under current laser intensities. It is concluded that ultraintense lasers should play a relevant role in the validation of materials for laser fusion facilities.

Ultraintense Lasers Applied to Laser Fusion Material Testing: Production of Ions, X rays and Neutrons

The ability of ultraintese lasers to create short pulses of energetic particles and high fluences is addressed as a solution to reproduce ion and X-ray ICF bursts for the characterization and validation of plasma facing components. The possibility of using a laser neutron source for material testing will also be discussed.

Employment rate impacts of charging the Heavy Good Vehicle corridor (Madrid-Sevilla) across Spanish regions: a Random Utility Based Multiregional Input-Output approach

The implementation of a charging policy for heavy goods vehicles in European Union (EU) member countries has been imposed to reflect costs of construction and maintenance of infrastructure as well as externalities such as congestion, accidents and environmental impact. In this context, EU countries approved the Eurovignette directive (1999/62/EC) and its amending directive (2006 /38/EC) which established a legal framework to regulate the system of tolls. Even if that regulation seek s to increase the efficien cy of freight, it will trigger direct and indirect effects on Spain’s regional economies by increasing transport costs. This paper presents the development of a multiregional Input-Output methodology (MRIO) with elastic trade coefficients to predict in terregional trade, using transport attributes integrated in multinomial logit models. This method is highly useful to carry out an ex-ante evaluation of transport policies because it involves road freight transport cost sensitivity, and determine regional distributive and substitution economic effect s of countries like Spain, characterized by socio-demographic and economic attributes, differentiated region by region. It will thus be possible to determine cost-effective strategies, given different policy scenarios. MRIO mode l would then be used to determine the impact on the employment rate of imposing a charge in the Madrid-Sevilla corridor in Spain. This methodology is important for measuring the impact on the employment rate since it is one of the main macroeconomic indicators of Spain’s regional and national economic situation. A previous research developed (DESTINO) using a MRIO method estimated employment impacts of road pricing policy across Spanish regions considering a fuel tax charge (€/liter) in the entire shortest cost path network for freight transport. Actually, it found that the variation in employment is expected to be substantial for some regions, and negligible for others. For example, in this Spanish case study of regional employment has showed reductions between 16.1% (Rioja) and 1.4% (Madrid region). This variation range seems to be related to either the intensity of freight transport in each region or dependency of regions to transport intensive economic sect ors. In fact, regions with freight transport intensive sectors will lose more jobs while regions with a predominantly service economy undergo a fairly insignificant loss of employment. This paper is focused on evaluating a freight transport vehicle-kilometer charge (€/km) in a non-tolled motorway corridor (A-4) between Madrid-Sevilla (517 Km.). The consequences of the road pricing policy implementation show s that the employment reductions are not as high as the diminution stated in the previous research because this corridor does not affect the whole freight transport system of Spain.

Application of high-intensity short-pulse lasers to the mechanical and surface properties improvement of high reliability metallic components by shock processing

Outline: • Introduction • Process Experimental Setup • Experimental Procedure • Experimental Results for Al2024-T351 and Ti6Al4V - Residual stresses - Tensile Strength - Fatigue Life • Discussion and Outlook - Prospects for technological applications of LSP

Sound of lasers (SOL) - An audiovisual approach to semiconductor laser dynamics

We present an educational software addressed to the students of optical communication courses, for a simple visualization of the basic dynamic processes of semiconductor lasers. The graphic interface allows the user to choose the laser and the modulation parameters and it plots the laser power output and instantaneous frequency versus time. Additionally, the optical frequency variations are numerically shifted into the audible frequency range in order to produce a sound wave from the computer loudspeakers. Using the proposed software, the student can simultaneously see and hear how the laser intensity and frequency change, depending on the modulation and device parameters.