Room temperature self-assembly of mixed nanoparticles into complex material systems and devices

The ability to manufacture nanomaterials with complex and structured composition using otherwise incompatible materials increasingly underpins the next generation of technologies. This is translating into growing efforts integrating a wider range of materials onto key technology platforms1 - in photonics, one such platform is silica, a passive, low loss and robust medium crucial for efficient optical transport2. Active functionalisation, either through added gain or nonlinearity, is mostly possible through the integration of active materials3, 4. The high temperatures used in manufacturing of silica waveguides, unfortunately, make it impossible to presently integrate many organic and inorganic species critical to achieving this extended functionality. Here, we demonstrate the fabrication of novel waveguides and devices made up of complex silica based materials using the self-assembly of nanoparticles. In particular, the room temperature fabrication of silica microwires integrated with organic dyes (Rhodamine B) and single photon emitting nanodiamonds is presented.Comment: Key words: nanotechnology, nanoparticles, self-assembly, quantum science, singel photon emitters, telecommunications, sensing, new materials, integration of incompatible materials, silica, glass, breakthrough scienc

Thin-film GaAs photovoltaic solar energy cells Final report

Thin film gallium arsenide photovoltaic solar cell

Thin film GaAs photovoltaic solar energy cells

Fabrication process for thin film gallium arsenide photovoltaic solar energy cell

Genetic computation of geodesics on three-dimensional curved surfaces

Most classical approaches to the determination of geodesics (such as the calculus of variations) are difficult to apply except for simple surfaces. Genetic algorithms are therefore used to provide a general methodology for the computation of geodesics.published_or_final_versio

Progress in thin film GaAs solar cells

Solar cells using polycrystalline films of gallium arsenid

Text readability and intuitive simplification: A comparison of readability formulas

Texts are routinely simplified for language learners with authors relying on a variety of approaches and materials to assist them in making the texts more comprehensible. Readability measures are one such tool that authors can use when evaluating text comprehensibility. This study compares the Coh-Metrix Second Language (L2) Reading Index, a readability formula based on psycholinguistic and cognitive models of reading, to traditional readability formulas on a large corpus of texts intuitively simplified for language learners. The goal of this study is to determine which formula best classifies text level (advanced, intermediate, beginner) with the prediction that text classification relates to the formulas’ capacity to measure text comprehensibility. The results demonstrate that the Coh-Metrix L2 Reading Index performs significantly better than traditional readability formulas, suggesting that the variables used in this index are more closely aligned to the intuitive text processing employed by authors when simplifying texts