1,796 research outputs found
Novel Cascaded Ultra Bright Pulsed Source of Polarization Entangled Photons
A new ultra bright pulsed source of polarization entangled photons has been
realized using type-II phase matching in spontaneous parametric down conversion
process in two cascaded crystals. The optical axes of the crystals are aligned
in such a way that the extraordinarily (ordinarily) polarized cone from one
crystal overlaps with the ordinarily (extraordinarily) polarized cone from the
second crystal. This spatial overlapping removes the association between the
polarization and the output angle of the photons that exist in a single type-II
down conversion process. Hence, entanglement of photons originating from any
point on the output cones is possible if a suitable optical delay line is used.
This delay line is particularly simple and easy to implement.Comment: 8 pages 8 figure
Purine analog substitution of the HIV-1 polypurine tract primer defines regions controlling initiation of plus-strand DNA synthesis
Despite extensive study, the mechanism by which retroviral reverse transciptases (RTs) specifically utilize polypurine tract (PPT) RNA for initiation of plus-strand DNA synthesis remains unclear. Three sequence motifs within or adjacent to the purine-rich elements are highly conserved, namely, a rU:dA tract region immediately 5′ to the PPT, an rA:dT-rich sequence constituting the upstream portion of the PPT and a downstream rG:dC tract. Using an in vitro HIV-1 model system, we determined that the former two elements define the 5′ terminus of the (+)-strand primer, whereas the rG:dC tract serves as the primary determinant of initiation specificity. Subsequent analysis demonstrated that G→A or A→G substitution at PPT positions −2, −4 and +1 (relative to the scissile phosphate) substantially reduces (+)-strand priming. We explored this observation further using PPT substrates substituted with a variety of nucleoside analogs [inosine (I), purine riboside (PR), 2-aminopurine (2-AP), 2,6-diaminopurine (2,6-DAP), isoguanine (iG)], or one of the naturally occurring bases at these positions. Our results demonstrate that for PPT positions −2 or +1, substituting position 2 of the purine was an important determinant of cleavage specificity. In addition, cleavage specificity was greatly affected by substituting −4G with an analog containing a 6-NH2 moiety
Bright source of spectrally uncorrelated polarization-entangled photons with nearly single-mode emission
We present results of a bright polarization-entangled photon source operating
at 1552 nm via type-II collinear degenerate spontaneous parametric
down-conversion in a periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate crystal. We
report a conservative inferred pair generation rate of 123,000 pairs/s/mW into
collection modes. Minimization of spectral and spatial entanglement was
achieved by group velocity matching the pump, signal and idler modes and
through properly focusing the pump beam. By utilizing a pair of calcite beam
displacers, we are able to overlap photons from adjacent down-conversion
processes to obtain polarization-entanglement visibility of 94.7 +/- 1.1% with
accidentals subtracted.Comment: 4 pages, 7 color figures. Revised manuscript includes the following
changes: corrected pair generation rate from 44,000/s/mW pump to 123,000/s/mW
pump; replaced Fig. 1b to enhance clarity; minor alterations to the title,
abstract and introduction; grammatical correction
Reliability of the beamsplitter based Bell-state measurement
A linear 50/50 beamsplitter, together with a coincidence measurement, has
been widely used in quantum optical experiments, such as teleportation, dense
coding, etc., for interferometrically distinguishing, measuring, or projecting
onto one of the four two-photon polarization Bell-states . In
this paper, we demonstrate that the coincidence measurement at the output of a
beamsplitter cannot be used as an absolute identifier of the input state
nor as an indication that the input photons have projected to
the state.Comment: 4 pages, two-colum
Nonclassical 2-photon interference with separate intrinsically narrowband fibre sources
In this paper, we demonstrate a source of photon pairs based on
four-wave-mixing in photonic crystal fibres. Careful engineering of the phase
matching conditions in the fibres enables us to create photon pairs at 597 nm
and 860 nm in an intrinsically factorable state showing no spectral
correlations. This allows for heralding one photon in a pure state and hence
renders narrow band filtering obsolete. The source is narrow band, bright and
achieves an overall detection efficiency of up to 21% per photon. For the first
time, a Hong-Ou-Mandel interference with unfiltered photons from separate fibre
sources is presented.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure
Violation of Bell's Inequality with Photons from Independent Sources
We report a violation of Bell's inequality using one photon from a parametric
down-conversion source and a second photon from an attenuated laser beam. The
two photons were entangled at a beam splitter using the post-selection
technique of Shih and Alley [Phys. Rev. Lett. 61, 2921 (1988)]. A quantum
interference pattern with a visibility of 91% was obtained using the photons
from these independent sources, as compared with a visibility of 99.4% using
two photons from a central parametric down-conversion source.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures; minor change
Generating multimedia presentations: from plain text to screenplay
In many Natural Language Generation (NLG) applications, the output is limited to plain text – i.e., a string of words with punctuation and paragraph breaks, but no indications for layout, or pictures, or dialogue. In several projects, we have begun to explore NLG applications in which these extra media are brought into play. This paper gives an informal account of what we have learned. For coherence, we focus on the domain of patient information leaflets, and follow an example in which the same content is expressed first in plain text, then in formatted text, then in text with pictures, and finally in a dialogue script that can be performed by two animated agents. We show how the same meaning can be mapped to realisation patterns in different media, and how the expanded options for expressing meaning are related to the perceived style and tone of the presentation. Throughout, we stress that the extra media are not simple added to plain text, but integrated with it: thus the use of formatting, or pictures, or dialogue, may require radical rewording of the text itself
Investigating the timecourse of accessing conversational implicatures during incremental sentence interpretation
Many contextual inferences in utterance interpretation are explained as following from the nature of conversation and the assumption that participants are rational. Recent psycholinguistic research has focussed on certain of these ‘Gricean’ inferences and have revealed that comprehenders can access them in online interpretation. However there have been mixed results as to the time-course of access. Some results show that Gricean inferences can be accessed very rapidly, as rapidly as any other contextually specified information (Sedivy, 2003; Grodner, Klein, Carbery, & Tanenhaus, 2010); while other studies looking at the same kind of inference suggest that access to Gricean inferences are delayed relative to other aspects of semantic interpretation (Huang & Snedeker, 2009; in press). While previous timecourse research has focussed on Gricean inferences that support the online assignment of reference to definite expressions, the study reported here examines the timecourse of access to scalar implicatures, which enrich the meaning of an utterance beyond the semantic interpretation. Even if access to Gricean inference in support of reference assignment may be rapid, it is still unknown whether genuinely enriching scalar implicatures are delayed. Our results indicate that scalar implicatures are accessed as rapidly as other contextual inferences. The implications of our results are discussed in reference to the architecture of language comprehension
n-i-p Nanocrystalline Hydrogenated Silicon Solar Cells with RF-Magnetron Sputtered Absorbers
Nanocrystalline hydrogenated silicon (nc-Si:H) substrate configuration n-i-p solar cells have been fabricated on soda lime glass substrates with active absorber layers prepared by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and radio frequency magnetron sputtering. The cells with nanocrystalline PECVD absorbers and an untextured back reflector serve as a baseline for comparison and have power conversion efficiency near 6%. By comparison, cells with sputtered absorbers achieved efficiencies of about 1%. Simulations of external quantum efficiency (EQE) are compared to experimental EQE to determine a carrier collection probability gradient with depth for the device with the sputtered i-layer absorber. This incomplete collection of carriers generated in the absorber is most pronounced in material near the n/i interface and is attributed to breaking vacuum between deposition of layers for the sputtered absorbers, possible low electronic quality of the nc-Si:H sputtered absorber, and damage at the n/i interface by over-deposition of the sputtered i-layer during device fabrication
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