Thermal material with low curie temperature in a thermally actuated superconducting flux pump system

A thermally actuated flux pump is an efficient method to magnetize the high-temperature superconductor (HTS) bulk without applying a strong magnetic field. A thermal material is employed as a magnetic switch, which decides the efficiency of the system. To measure the Curie temperatures of those samples without destroying them, the nondestructive Curie temperature (NDT) measurement was developed. The Curie temperature of gadolinium (Gd) was measured by the NDT method and compared to the results from superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). Because the SQUID tests require the sample to be cut into small piece, a constant shape of the testing sample could not be guaranteed. The demagnetizing effect was considered to remove the shape effect. The intrinsic permeability was modified from the apparent susceptibility by considering demagnetization. A thermal material with low Curie temperature, Mg 0.15Cu0.15Zn0.7Ti0.04Fe 1.96O4, was synthesized and its performance was tested and compared with previous thermal materials. Comparisons of three thermal materials, including the Curie temperature and the permeability, will be detailed in the paper. © 2002-2011 IEEE.

Low-cost PCB-integrated 10-Gb/s optical transceiver built with a novel integration method

A novel integration method for the production of cost-effective optoelectronic printed circuit boards (OE PCBs) is presented. The proposed integration method allows fabrication of OE PCBs with manufacturing processes common to the electronics industry while enabling direct attachment of electronic components onto the board with solder reflow processes as well as board assembly with automated pick-and-place tools. The OE PCB design is based on the use of polymer multimode waveguides, end-fired optical coupling schemes, and simple electro-optic connectors, eliminating the need for additional optical components in the optical layer, such as micro-mirrors and micro-lenses. A proof-of-concept low-cost optical transceiver produced with the proposed integration method is presented. This transceiver is fabricated on a low-cost FR4 substrate, comprises a polymer Y-splitter together with the electronic circuitry of the transmitter and receiver modules and achieves error-free 10-Gb/s bidirectional data transmission. Theoretical studies on the optical coupling efficiencies and alignment tolerances achieved with the employed end-fired coupling schemes are presented while experimental results on the optical transmission characteristics, frequency response, and data transmission performance of the integrated optical links are reported. The demonstrated optoelectronic unit can be used as a front-end optical network unit in short-reach datacommunication links. © 2011-2012 IEEE.

Low-rank optimization with trace norm penalty

The paper addresses the problem of low-rank trace norm minimization. We propose an algorithm that alternates between fixed-rank optimization and rank-one updates. The fixed-rank optimization is characterized by an efficient factorization that makes the trace norm differentiable in the search space and the computation of duality gap numerically tractable. The search space is nonlinear but is equipped with a Riemannian structure that leads to efficient computations. We present a second-order trust-region algorithm with a guaranteed quadratic rate of convergence. Overall, the proposed optimization scheme converges superlinearly to the global solution while maintaining complexity that is linear in the number of rows and columns of the matrix. To compute a set of solutions efficiently for a grid of regularization parameters we propose a predictor-corrector approach that outperforms the naive warm-restart approach on the fixed-rank quotient manifold. The performance of the proposed algorithm is illustrated on problems of low-rank matrix completion and multivariate linear regression. © 2013 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

Demonstration of a self aligned hybrid silicon-plasmonic waveguide with low loss and nanoscale confinement

We demonstrate self-aligned approach for fabricating hybrid silicon plasmonic waveguide. The demonstrated structure provides nanoscale confinement together with propagation length of 100 microns on chip. Near-field measurements of propagation and coupling loss are presented. © 2011 Optical Society of America.

Demonstration of a self aligned hybrid silicon-plasmonic waveguide with low loss and nanoscale confinement

We demonstrate self-aligned approach for fabricating hybrid silicon plasmonic waveguide. The demonstrated structure provides nanoscale confinement together with propagation length of 100 microns on chip. Near-field measurements of propagation and coupling loss are presented. ©2011 Optical Society of America.

The low velocity impact response of sandwich beams with a corrugated core or a Y-frame core

The low speed impact responses of simply-supported and clamped sandwich beams with corrugated and Y-frame cores have been measured in a drop-weight apparatus at 5 m s-1. The AISI 304 stainless steel sandwich beams comprised two identical face sheets and represented 1:20 scale versions of ship hull designs. No significant rate effects were observed at impact speeds representative of ship collisions: the drop-weight responses were comparable to the ones measured quasi-statically. Moreover, the corrugated and Y-frame core beams had similar performances. Three-dimensional finite element (FE) models simulated the experiments and were in good agreement with the measurements. The simulations demonstrated correctly that the sandwich beams collapsed by core indentation under both quasi-static loading and in the drop-weight experiments. These FE models were then used to investigate the sensitivity of impact response to (i) velocity, over a wider range of velocities than achievable with the drop-weight apparatus, and (ii) the presence of the back face sheet. The dynamic responses of sandwich beams with both front and back face sheets were found to be within 20% of the quasi-static responses for speeds less than approximately 5 m s-1. This suggests that quasi-static considerations are adequate to model the collision of a sandwich ship hull. By contrast, beams without a back face collapsed by Brazier buckling under quasi-static loading conditions, and by core indentation at a loading velocity of 5 m s-1. Thus, dynamic considerations are needed in ship hull designs that do not employ a back face. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A low latency optical top of rack switch for data centre networks with minimized processor energy load

We propose a low latency optical data center top of rack switch using recirculation buffering and a hybrid MZ/SOA switch architecture to reduce the network power dissipated on future optically connected server chips by 53%. © OSA 2014.

Growth of Chlorella vulgaris in cultures with low concentration dimethoate as source of phosphorus

The growth response of Chlorella vulgaris to low concentration of dimethoate, an organophosphorus pesticide, was studied. Results show that cell density, protein content, chlorophyll pigment and alkaline phosphatase activity were all increased, which indicates that low concentration dimethoate can accelerate growth of Chlorella vulgaris. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.

Fabrication of a Low-Loss SSC Using High-Dose Electron Beam Lithography Exposure With Negative PMMA Resist

A silicon-on-insulator optical fiber-to-waveguide spot-size converter (SSC) using Poly-MethylMethAcrylate (PMMA) is presented for integrated optical circuits. Unlike the conventional use of PMMA as a positive resist, it has been successfully used as a negative resist with high-dose electron exposure for the fabrication of ultrafine silicon wire waveguides. Additionally, this process is able to reduce the side-wall roughness, and substantially depresses the unwanted propagation loss. Exploiting this technology, the authors demonstrated that the SSC can improve coupling efficiency by as much as over 2.5 dB per coupling facet, compared with that of SSC fabricated with PMMA as a positive resist with the same dimension.

Sub-nanosecond silicon-on-insulator optical micro-ring switch with low crosstalk

We demonstrate a sub-nanosecond electro-optical switch with low crosstalk in a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) dual-coupled micro-ring embedded with p-i-n diodes. A crosstalk of -23 dB is obtained in the 20-mu m-radius micro-ring with the well-designing asymmetric dual-coupling structure. By optimizations of the doping profiles and the fabrication processes, the sub-nanosecond switch-on/off time of < 400 ps is finally realized under an electrical pre-emphasized driving signal. This compact and fast-response micro-ring switch, which can be fabricated by complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) compatible technologies, have enormous potential in optical interconnects of multicore networks-on-chip.

Low threshold lasing of GaN-based vertical cavity surface emitting lasers with an asymmetric coupled quantum well active region

We have fabricated and characterized GaN-based vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) with a unique active region structure, in which three sets of InGaN asymmetric coupled quantum wells are placed in a half-wavelength (0.5 lambda) length. Lasing action was achieved under optical pumping at room temperature with a threshold pumping energy density of about 6.5 mJ/cm(2). The laser emitted a blue light at 449.5 nm with a narrow linewidth below 0.1 nm and had a high spontaneous emission factor of about 3.0x10(-2). The results indicate that this active region structure is useful in reducing the process difficulties and improving the threshold characteristics of GaN-based VCSELs.