Planar Resonators for Metamaterials

This paper presents the results of an investigation into a combination of electric and magnetic planar resonators in order to design the building element of a volumetric metamaterial showing simultaneously negative electric and magnetic polarizabilities under irradiation by an electromagnetic wave. Two combinations of particular planar resonators are taken into consideration. These planar resonators are an electric dipole, a split ring resonator and a double H-shaped resonator. The response of the single resonant particle composed of a resonator with an electric response and a resonator with a magnetic response is strongly anisotropic. Proper spatial arrangement of these particles can make the response isotropic. This is obtained by proper placement of six planar resonators on the surface of a cube that now represents a metamaterial unit cell. The cells are distributed in space with 3D periodicity

Universal Generator of Ultra-Wideband Pulses

An Ultra-Wideband (UWB) subnanosecond pulse generator is described in this paper. High amplitude Gaussian pulses are generated by a Step Recovery Diode (SRD) included in a novel pulse forming circuit. The pro-posed circuit solution utilizes the performance of the SRD effectively, without excessive requirements regarding the driver section of the generator. Monocycle pulses are then generated by an additional pulse forming network. A sim-ple transistor driver is also described, which transforms a TTL trigger signal to a driving pulse with the timing and amplitude parameters required by the SRD. Measurement results are presented, which show the proposed generator operating with stable output pulse parameters at arbitrary pulse repetition frequency up to 20 MHz. The generated monocycle pulses are 25 V in amplitude and approximately 500 ps in width

New Planar and Volume Versions of a Metamaterial

Some characteristics of materials with negative permittivity and permeability, i.e., with a negative refrative index, known as metamaterials, are presented in this paper. Dispersion characteristics of left-handed parallel strips calculated by different methods are compared with each other. The calculated and measured dispersion and transmission characteristics of a newly proposed left-handed coplanar waveguide and of a novel volume metmaterial are shown. Simple equivalent circuits of both structures are presented together with elements values. The structures exhibit a negative refractive index in a wide frequency band

Isotropic Single Negative Metamaterials

This paper presents the application of simple, and therefore cheap, planar resonators for building 3D isotropic metamaterials. These resonators are: a broadside-coupled split ring resonator with a magnetic response providing negative permeability; an electric dipole terminated by a loop inductor together with a double H-shaped resonator with an electric response providing negative permittivity. Two kinds of 3D isotropic single negative metamaterials are reported. The first material consists of unit cells in the form of a cube bearing on its faces six equal planar resonators with tetrahedral symmetry. In the second material, the planar resonators boxed into spherical plastic shells and randomly distributed in a hosting material compose a real 3D volumetric metamaterial with an isotropic response. In both cases the metamaterial shows negative permittivity or permeability, according to the type of resonators that are used. The experiments prove the isotropic behavior of the cells and of the metamaterial specimens

Compact Size UWB Monopole Antenna with Triple Band-Notches

This paper presents triple band notched ultra wide band (UWB) monopole antenna with overall size of 36 × 32 mm2 fed by microstrip transmission line. In order to achieve a good impedance matching from 2.7 GHz to 13.4 GHz, a tapered transition between the rectangular patch and the feeding line is utilized. The three notched frequency bands are accomplished by a defected microstrip structure (DMS) which is inserted in the microstrip feeding line and by an open loop slot etched in the radiating patch. The three band notches are 3.15-4 GHz, 5.7-6.3 GHz and 7.9-8.6 GHz. They prevent the receiving of the signals of IEEE 802.16 WiMAX band, WLAN band, and ITU applications respectively. The UWB antenna was designed and simulated then fabricated and tested in order to investigate its impedance and radiation characteristics. Good agreement between the simulated and measured data is achieved. The obtained results show that the proposed antenna is convenient for UWB applications

Geographical range in liverworts: does sex really matter?

AimWhy some species exhibit larger geographical ranges than others remains a fundamental, but largely unanswered, question in ecology and biogeography. In plants, a relationship between range size and mating system was proposed over a century ago and subsequently formalized in Baker's Law. Here, we take advantage of the extensive variation in sexual systems of liverworts to test the hypothesis that dioecious species compensate for limited fertilization by producing vegetative propagules more commonly than monoecious species. As spores are assumed to contribute to random long-distance dispersal, whereas vegetative propagules contribute to colony maintenance and frequent short-distance dispersal, we further test the hypothesis that monoecious species exhibit larger geographical ranges than dioecious ones.LocationWorldwide.MethodsWe used comparative phylogenetic methods to assess the correlation between range size and life history traits related to dispersal, including mating systems, spore size and production of specialized vegetative propagules.ResultsNo significant correlation was found between dioecy and production of vegetative propagules. However, production of vegetative propagules is correlated with the size of geographical ranges across the liverwort tree of life, whereas sexuality and spores size are not. Moreover, variation in sexual systems did not have an influence on the correlation between geographical range and production of asexual propagules.Main conclusionsOur results challenge the long-held notion that spores, and not vegetative propagules, are involved in long-distance dispersal. Asexual reproduction seems to play a major role in shaping the global distribution patterns of liverworts, so that monoecious species do not tend to display, on average, broader distribution ranges than dioecious ones. Our results call for further investigation on the spatial genetic structure of bryophyte populations at different geographical scales depending on their mating systems to assess the dispersal capacities of spores and asexual propagules and determine their contribution in shaping species distribution ranges

Flow of power-law fluids in self-affine fracture channels

The two-dimensional pressure driven flow of non-Newtonian power-law fluids in self-affine fracture channels at finite Reynolds number is calculated. The channels have constant mean aperture and two values $\zeta$=0.5 and 0.8 of the Hurst exponent are considered. The calculation is based on the lattice-Boltzmann method, using a novel method to obtain a power-law variation in viscosity, and the behavior of shear-thinning, Newtonian and shear-thickening liquids is compared. Local aspects of the flow fields, such as maximum velocity and pressure fluctuations, were studied, and the non-Newtonian fluids were compared to the (previously-studied) Newtonian case. The permeability results may be collapsed into a master curve of friction factor vs. Reynolds number using a scaling similar to that employed for porous media flow, and exhibits a transition from a linear regime to a more rapid variation at Re increases

A Hubble Space Telescope survey for novae in M87 – III. Are novae good standard candles 15 d after maximum brightness?

Ten weeks of daily imaging of the giant elliptical galaxy M87 with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has yielded 41 nova light curves of unprecedented quality for extragalactic cataclysmic variables. We have recently used these light curves to demonstrate that the observational scatter in the so-called maximum-magnitude rate of decline (MMRD) relation for classical novae is so large as to render the nova-MMRD useless as a standard candle. Here, we demonstrate that a modified Buscombe–de Vaucouleurs hypothesis, namely that novae with decline times t_2 > 10 d converge to nearly the same absolute magnitude about two weeks after maximum light in a giant elliptical galaxy, is supported by our M87 nova data. For 13 novae with daily sampled light curves, well determined times of maximum light in both the F606W and F814W filters, and decline times t_2 > 10 d we find that M87 novae display M_(606W,15) = −6.37 ± 0.46 and M_(814W,15) = −6.11 ± 0.43. If very fast novae with decline times t_2 < 10 d are excluded, the distances to novae in elliptical galaxies with stellar binary populations similar to those of M87 should be determinable with 1σ accuracies of ± 20 per cent with the above calibrations