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A Capacitive-Gap Coupled Terahertz Planar-Goubau-Line Power Divider
Get PDFThe planar Goubau line is a single-conductor waveguide with a low attenuation constant at terahertz frequencies compared to other planar waveguides. However, its single-conductor nature complicates the design of circuit elements compared to multi-conductor waveguides, especially when impedance transformation is needed, like in the case of power dividers. In this paper, we present a power divider for a planar Goubau line based on capacitive-gap coupled lines, providing a matched input port. A 900-GHz equal power divider was fabricated on a suspended silicon membrane and was characterized with a Vector Network Analyzer and terahertz probes between 0.5 THz and 1.1 THz. Simulations and measurements are in good agreement, the measured input return loss is lower than 15dB at the design frequency, and the average coupler loss is estimated to be lower than 1 dB when de-embedding the feeding lines
Scattering of elastic waves by an anisotropic sphere with application to polycrystalline materials
Get PDFScattering of a plane wave by a single spherical obstacle is the archetype of many scattering problems in various branches of physics. Spherical objects can provide a good approximation for many real objects, and the analytic formulation for a single sphere can be used to investigate wave propagation in more complex structures like particulate composites or grainy materials, which may have applications in non-destructive testing, material characterization, medical ultrasound, etc. The main objective of this thesis is to investigate an analytical solution for scattering of elastic waves by an anisotropic sphere with various types of anisotropy. Throughout the thesis a systematic series expansion approach is used to express displacement and traction fields outside and inside the sphere. For the surrounding isotropic medium such an expansion is made in terms of the traditional vector spherical wave functions. However, describing the fields inside the anisotropic sphere is more complicated since the classical methods are not applicable. The first step is to describe the anisotropy in spherical coordinates, then the expansion inside the sphere is made in the vector spherical harmonics in the angular directions and power series in the radial direction. The governing equations inside the sphere provide recurrence relations among the unknown expansion coefficients. The remaining expansion coefficients outside and inside the sphere can be found using the boundary conditions on the sphere. Thus, this gives the scattered wave coefficients from which the transition T matrix can be found. This is convenient as the T matrix fully describes the scattering by the sphere and is independent of the incident wave. The expressions of the general T matrix elements are complicated, but in the low frequency limit it is possible to obtain explicit expressions.The T matrices may be used to solve more complex problems like the wave propagation in polycrystalline materials. The attenuation and wave velocity in a polycrystalline material with randomly oriented anisotropic grains are thus investigated. These quantities are calculated analytically using the simple theory of Foldy and show a very good correspondence for low frequencies with previously published results and numerical computations with FEM. This approach is then utilized for an inhomogeneous medium with local anisotropy, incorporating various statistical information regarding the geometrical and elastic properties of the inhomogeneities
Wafer-level processing of ultralow-loss Si3N4
Get PDFPhotonic integrated circuits (PICs) are devices fabricated on a planar wafer that allow light generation, processing, and detection. Photonic integration brings important advantages for scaling up the complexity and functionality of photonic systems and facilitates their mass deployment in areas where large volumes and compact solutions are needed, e.g., optical interconnects. Among the material platforms available, silicon nitride (Si3N4) displays excellent optical properties such as broadband transparency, moderately high refractive index, and relatively strong nonlinearities. Indeed, Si3N4 integrated waveguides display ultralow-loss (few decibels per meter), which enables efficient light processing and nonlinear optics. Moreover, Si3N4 is compatible with standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) processing techniques,which facilitates the manufacture scalability required by mass deployment of PICs. However, the selection of a single photonic platform sets limitations to the device functionalities due to the intrinsic properties of the material and the fundamental limitation of optical waveguiding. Multilayer integration of different platforms can overcome the limitations encountered in a singleplatform PIC.This thesis presents the development of advanced techniques for the waferlevel manufacturing of ultralow-loss Si3N4 devices and approaches to enable their interface with active components like modulators and chip-scale comb sources (microcombs). The investigation covers the tailoring of a waveguide to the functionality required, the wafer-scale manufacturing of Si3N4, and how to overcome the limitations of a single platform on a wafer. These studies enable high-yield fabrication of microcombs, the integration of two Si3N4 platforms on the same wafer, and a strategy to efficiently couple to an integrated LiNbO3 layer to expand the chip functionality and scale up the complexity of the PIC
Operational experiences of chemical-looping combustion with 18 manganese ores in a 300W unit
No full textChemical-looping combustion is a novel combustion technology with inherent CO2 capture. The process uses oxygen carriers in the form of metal oxide particles to transfer oxygen from air to fuel. The particles make up the bed material in two fluidized-bed reactors, the air reactor and the fuel reactor, and circulate between the two reactors. Natural minerals of low cost are attractive as oxygen carriers in chemical-looping combustion (CLC), in particular when used for combustion of solid fuels. The presence of ash can restrict the effective lifetime of the oxygen carrier either by loss of bed material associated with the ash removal or by direct reactions between ash and oxygen carrier that impair its reactivity. Independent of the presence of ash, the oxygen carrier lifetime can be limited by attrition leading to loss of fines. Ores considered and used in chemical-looping combustion include ilmenite, iron ore and manganese ore. Manganese ore is the least tested of these, although several studies suggest manganese ores often have higher reactivity as compared to the other two. The present study compares data from operation of 18 different manganese ores in a 300 W chemical-looping combustor, involving 329 h of operation with fuel. Results for 10 of these, involving 148 h of operation, have previously not been published. Some of these manganese ores have also been used in larger pilots, as well as in a 10 MW circulating fluidized-bed boiler. Operational results indicate significant differences between the ores with respect to performance, with syngas conversion ranging between 80 and 100% and methane conversion ranging between 17 and 59% and attrition rates ranging from very high to as low as 0.05%/h. For a few ores formation of fines led to operational failure after only a short period with fuel and for one of the ores agglomeration led to failure. The correlation between performance data and oxygen-carrier characteristics, including elementary analysis, was assessed. Gas conversion for both syngas and methane were correlated to gas conversion in lab testing. However, neither jet cup attrition data nor crushing strength was correlated to attrition in 300 W. This suggests that the mechanisms causing attrition are different at hot conditions and with reactions taking place, which emphasizes the need for pilot testing in the screening of manganese ore oxygen carriers. Fortunately, the correlation between gas conversion and attrition was weak. Thus, high reactivity is not necessarily associated with low attrition assistance and vice versa and several ores show high reactivity in combination with low or moderate attrition. Consequently, screening of manganese ores is well worth while, in order to find materials that can give both high conversion and long life-time. The best four ores were the Chinese Guizhou, South-African UMK, Elwaleed B, and Sibelco\ub4s Braunite having syngas conversion(%)/attrition rate(%/h) of 98.3/0.05, 100/0.33 100/0.5 and 96.7/0.12, respectively
Dust in the wind with resonant drag instabilities - I. The dynamics of dust-driven outflows in GMCs and H II regions
No full textRadiation-dust driven outflows, where radiation pressure on dust grains accelerates gas, occur in many astrophysical environments. Almost all previous numerical studies of these systems have assumed that the dust was perfectly coupled to the gas. However, it has recently been shown that the dust in these systems is unstable to a large class of \u27resonant drag instabilities\u27 (RDIs) which de-couple the dust and gas dynamics and could qualitatively change the non-linear outcome of these outflows. We present the first simulations of radiation-dust driven outflows in stratified, inhomogeneous media, including explicit grain dynamics and a realistic spectrum of grain sizes and charge, magnetic fields and Lorentz forces on grains (which dramatically enhance the RDIs), Coulomb and Epstein drag forces, and explicit radiation transport allowing for different grain absorption and scattering properties. In this paper, we consider conditions resembling giant molecular clouds (GMCs), H II regions, and distributed starbursts, where optical depths are modest (≲1), single-scattering effects dominate radiation-dust coupling, Lorentz forces dominate over drag on grains, and the fastest-growing RDIs are similar, such as magnetosonic and fast-gyro RDIs. These RDIs generically produce strong size-dependent dust clustering, growing non-linear on time-scales that are much shorter than the characteristic times of the outflow. The instabilities produce filamentary and plume-like or \u27horsehead\u27 nebular morphologies that are remarkably similar to observed dust structures in GMCs and H II regions. Additionally, in some cases they strongly alter the magnetic field structure and topology relative to filaments. Despite driving strong micro-scale dust clumping which leaves some gas \u27behind,\u27 an order-unity fraction of the gas is always efficiently entrained by dust
X-Ray Polarization Observations of BL Lacertae
No full textBlazars are a class of jet-dominated active galactic nuclei with a typical double-humped spectral energy distribution. It is of common consensus that the synchrotron emission is responsible for the low frequency peak, while the origin of the high frequency hump is still debated. The analysis of X-rays and their polarization can provide a valuable tool to understand the physical mechanisms responsible for the origin of high-energy emission of blazars. We report the first observations of BL Lacertae (BL Lac) performed with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, from which an upper limit to the polarization degree Π X < 12.6% was found in the 2-8 keV band. We contemporaneously measured the polarization in radio, infrared, and optical wavelengths. Our multiwavelength polarization analysis disfavors a significant contribution of proton-synchrotron radiation to the X-ray emission at these epochs. Instead, it supports a leptonic origin for the X-ray emission in BL Lac
Grasp Transfer based on Self-Aligning Implicit Representations of Local Surfaces
No full textObjects we interact with and manipulate often share similar parts, such as handles, that allow us to transfer our actions flexibly due to their shared functionality. This work addresses the problem of transferring a grasp experience or a demonstration to a novel object that shares shape similarities with objects the robot has previously encountered. Existing approaches for solving this problem are typically restricted to a specific object category or a parametric shape. Our approach, however, can transfer grasps associated with implicit models of local surfaces shared across object categories. Specifically, we employ a single expert grasp demonstration to learn an implicit local surface representation model from a small dataset of object meshes. At inference time, this model is used to transfer grasps to novel objects by identifying the most geometrically similar surfaces to the one on which the expert grasp is demonstrated. Our model is trained entirely in simulation and is evaluated on simulated and real-world objects that are not seen during training. Evaluations indicate that grasp transfer to unseen object categories using this approach can be successfully performed both in simulation and real-world experiments. The simulation results also show that the proposed approach leads to better spatial precision and grasp accuracy compared to a baseline approach
Enhancing Healthcare Outcomes and Modulating Apoptosis- and Antioxidant-Related Genes through the Nano-Phytosomal Delivery of Phenolics Extracted from Allium ampeloprasum
Get PDFThe application of nano drug delivery systems, particularly those utilizing natural bioactive compounds with anticancer properties, has gained significant attention. In this study, a novel nano-phytosome-loaded phenolic rich fraction (PRF) derived from Allium ampeloprasum L. was developed. The antitumor activity of the formulation was evaluated in BALB/c mice with TUBO colon carcinoma. The PRF-loaded nano-phytosome (PRF-NPs) exhibited a sphere-shaped structure (226 nm) and contained a diverse range of phenolic compounds. Animal trials conducted on TUBO tumor-bearing mice demonstrated that treatment with PRF-NPs at a dosage of 50 mg TPC/Kg/BW resulted in significant improvements in body weight and food intake, while reducing liver enzymes and lipid peroxidation. The expression of apoptosis-related genes, such as Bax and caspase-3, was upregulated, whereas Bcl2 was significantly downregulated (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the expression of GPx and SOD genes in the liver was notably increased compared to the control group. The findings suggest that the phytosomal encapsulation of the phenolic rich fraction derived from Allium ampeloprasum L. can enhance the bioavailability of natural phytochemicals and improve their antitumor properties. The development of PRF-NPs as a nano drug delivery system holds promise for effective breast cancer treatment
Review on state of charge estimation techniques of lithium-ion batteries: A control-oriented approach
No full textEnergy storage has become one of the most critical issues of modern technology. In this regard, lithium-ion batteries have proven effective as an energy storage option. To optimize its performance and extend its lifetime, it is essential to monitor the battery\u27s state of charge. Due to the distinct nonlinear behavior of batteries over their lifetime, the state of charge estimation is challenging. The challenge has been establishing a relationship between accuracy, robustness, and low implementation complexity. Over the last decade, numerous attempts have been made to effectively analyze and compare the state of charge estimation methods for commercial lithium-ion batteries. However, they seldom reflect on the state of charge estimation techniques based on a control-oriented viewpoint for a Li-ion battery system. To fill this gap, this paper reviews the most up-to-date battery state of charge estimation methods applied to lithium-ion battery systems. They are broadly classified as open-loop-based, closed-loop-based, and hybrid approaches. Finally, the paper concludes by providing an analysis of the positive and negative aspects of the reviewed techniques and some suggestions for future research
Label-free quantification of protein binding to lipid vesicles using transparent waveguide evanescent-field scattering microscopy with liquid control
Get PDFRecent innovations in microscopy techniques are paving the way for label-free studies of single nanoscopic biological entities such as viruses, lipid-nanoparticle drug carriers, and even proteins. One such technique is waveguide evanescent-field microscopy, which offers a relatively simple, yet sensitive, way of achieving label-free light scattering-based imaging of nanoparticles on surfaces. Herein, we extend the application of this technique by incorporating microfluidic liquid control and adapting the design for use with inverted microscopes by fabricating a waveguide on a transparent substrate. We furthermore formulate analytical models describing scattering and fluorescence intensities from single spherical and shell-like objects interacting with evanescent fields. The models are then applied to analyze scattering and fluorescence intensities from adsorbed polystyrene beads and to temporally resolve cholera-toxin B (CTB) binding to individual surface-immobilized glycosphingolipid GM1 containing vesicles. We also propose a self-consistent means to quantify the thickness of the CTB layer, revealing that protein-binding to individual vesicles can be characterized with sub-nm precision in a time-resolved manner