2,308 research outputs found
Reinforcement of wood with natural fibers
This paper describes an experimental programme which examines the reinforcement in flexure of timber beams with composite materials based on natural fibers in the form of fabrics made from hemp, flax, basalt and bamboo fibers. The industrial use of natural fibers has been continuously increasing since 1990s due to their advantages in terms of production costs, pollution emissions and energy consumption for production and disposal. The technique allows the reinforcement of the intrados of beams, avoiding the dismantling of the overlying part of the structure with significant savings in terms of costs and work time. The test program consists of three phases incorporating 45 beams. The bending tests on the wooden elements made it possible to measure the increase in capacity and stiffness resulting from the composite reinforcement. This was applied to beams, creating different arrangements and using different quantities (number of layers). Despite the diversity of the various tests carried out, the results obtained in some cases showed significant increases in terms of load-carrying capacity and in deflection ductility
Polarization-resolved extinction and scattering cross-section of individual gold nanoparticles measured by wide-field microscopy on a large ensemble
We report a simple, rapid, and quantitative wide-field technique to measure
the optical extinction and scattering
cross-section of single nanoparticles using wide-field microscopy enabling
simultaneous acquisition of hundreds of nanoparticles for statistical analysis.
As a proof of principle, we measured nominally spherical gold nanoparticles of
40\,nm and 100\,nm diameter and found mean values and standard deviations of
and consistent with previous literature.
Switching from unpolarized to linearly polarized excitation, we measured
as a function of the polarization direction, and used it to
characterize the asphericity of the nanoparticles. The method can be
implemented cost-effectively on any conventional wide-field microscope and is
applicable to any nanoparticles
Cellular-Automata model for dense-snow avalanches
This paper introduces a three-dimensional model for simulating dense-snow avalanches, based on the numerical method of cellular automata. This method allows one to study the complex behavior of the avalanche by dividing it into small elements, whose interaction is described by simple laws, obtaining a reduction of the computational power needed to perform a three-dimensional simulation. Similar models by several authors have been used to model rock avalanches, mud and lava flows, and debris avalanches. A peculiar aspect of avalanche dynamics, i.e., the mechanisms of erosion of the snowpack and deposition of material from the avalanche is taken into account in the model. The capability of the proposed approach has been illustrated by modeling three documented avalanches that occurred in Susa Valley (Western Italian Alps). Despite the qualitative observations used for calibration, the proposed method is able to reproduce the correct three-dimensional avalanche path, using a digital terrain model, and the order of magnitude of the avalanche deposit volume
Excitonic Effects in Quantum Wires
We review the effects of Coulomb correlation on the linear and non-linear
optical properties of semiconductor quantum wires, with emphasis on recent
results for the bound excitonic states. Our theoretical approach is based on
generalized semiconductor Bloch equations, and allows full three-dimensional
multisubband description of electron-hole correlation for arbitrary confinement
profiles. In particular, we consider V- and T-shaped structures for which
significant experimental advances were obtained recently. Above band gap, a
very general result obtained by this approach is that electron-hole Coulomb
correlation removes the inverse-square-root single-particle singularity in the
optical spectra at band edge, in agreement with previous reports from purely
one-dimensional models. Strong correlation effects on transitions in the
continuum are found to persist also at high densities of photoexcited carriers.
Below bandgap, we find that the same potential- (Coulomb) to kinetic-energy
ratio holds for quite different wire cross sections and compositions. As a
consequence, we identify a shape- and barrier-independent parameter that
governs a universal scaling law for exciton binding energy with size. Previous
indications that the shape of the wire cross-section may have important effects
on exciton binding are discussed in the light of the present results.Comment: Proc. OECS-5 Conference, G\"ottingen, 1997 (To appear in Phys. Stat.
Sol. (b)
Massive creation of entangled exciton states in semiconductor quantum dots
An intense laser pulse propagating in a medium of inhomogeneously broadened
quantum dots massively creates entangled exciton states. After passage of the
pulse all single-exciton states remain unpopulated (self-induced transparency)
whereas biexciton coherence (exciton entanglement) is generated through
two-photon transitions. We propose several experimental techniques for the
observation of such unexpected behavior
Radiative corrections to the excitonic molecule state in GaAs microcavities
The optical properties of excitonic molecules (XXs) in GaAs-based quantum
well microcavities (MCs) are studied, both theoretically and experimentally. We
show that the radiative corrections to the XX state, the Lamb shift
and radiative width , are
large, about of the molecule binding energy , and
definitely cannot be neglected. The optics of excitonic molecules is dominated
by the in-plane resonant dissociation of the molecules into outgoing
1-mode and 0-mode cavity polaritons. The later decay channel,
``excitonic molecule 0-mode polariton + 0-mode
polariton'', deals with the short-wavelength MC polaritons invisible in
standard optical experiments, i.e., refers to ``hidden'' optics of
microcavities. By using transient four-wave mixing and pump-probe
spectroscopies, we infer that the radiative width, associated with excitonic
molecules of the binding energy meV, is
meV in the microcavities and
meV in a reference GaAs single quantum
well (QW). We show that for our high-quality quasi-two-dimensional
nanostructures the limit, relevant to the XX states, holds at
temperatures below 10 K, and that the bipolariton model of excitonic molecules
explains quantitatively and self-consistently the measured XX radiative widths.
We also find and characterize two critical points in the dependence of the
radiative corrections against the microcavity detuning, and propose to use the
critical points for high-precision measurements of the molecule bindingenergy
and microcavity Rabi splitting.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Indistinguishability of independent single photons
The indistinguishability of independent single photons is presented by
decomposing the single photon pulse into the mixed state of different transform
limited pulses. The entanglement between single photons and outer environment
or other photons induces the distribution of the center frequencies of those
transform limited pulses and makes photons distinguishable. Only the single
photons with the same transform limited form are indistinguishable. In details,
the indistinguishability of single photons from the solid-state quantum emitter
and spontaneous parametric down conversion is examined with two-photon
Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer. Moreover, experimental methods to enhance the
indistinguishability are discussed, where the usage of spectral filter is
highlighted.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
Tihonov theory and center manifolds for inhibitory mechanisms in enzyme kinetics
Abstract In this paper we study the chemical reaction of inhibition, determine the appropriate parameter ε for the application of Tihonov's Theorem, compute explicitly the equations of the center manifold of the system and find sufficient conditions to guarantee that in the phase space the curves which relate the behavior of the complexes to the substrates by means of the tQSSA are asymptotically equivalent to the center manifold of the system. Some numerical results are discussed
- …