Multi-mode photonic crystal fibers for VCSEL based data transmission

Quasi error-free 10 Gbit/s data transmission is demonstrated over a novel type of 50 micron core diameter photonic crystal fiber with as much as 100 m length. Combined with 850$ nm VCSEL sources, this fiber is an attractive alternative to graded-index multi-mode fibers for datacom applications. A comparison to numerical simulations suggests that the high bit-rate may be partly explained by inter-modal diffusion.Comment: Accepted for Optics Expres

Voltage-Controlled Superconducting Quantum Bus

We demonstrate the ability of an epitaxial semiconductor-superconductor nanowire to serve as a field-effect switch to tune a superconducting cavity. Two superconducting gatemon qubits are coupled to the cavity, which acts as a quantum bus. Using a gate voltage to control the superconducting switch yields up to a factor of 8 change in qubit-qubit coupling between the on and off states without detrimental effect on qubit coherence. High-bandwidth operation of the coupling switch on nanosecond timescales degrades qubit coherence

An embedded boundary method for the wave equation with discontinuous coefficients

Abstract A second order accurate embedded boundary method for the two-dimensional wave equation with discontinuous wave propagation speed is described. The wave equation is discretized on a Cartesian grid with constant grid size and the interface (across which the wave speed is discontinuous) is allowed to intersect the mesh in an arbitrary fashion. By using ghost points on either side of the interface, previous embedded boundary techniques for the Neumann and Dirichlet problems are generalized to satisfy the jump conditions across the interface to second order accuracy. The resulting discretization of the jump conditions has the desirable property that each ghost point can be updated independently of all other ghost points, resulting in a fully explicit time-integration method. Numerical examples are given where the method is used to study electro-magnetic scattering of a plane wave by a dielectric cylinder. The numerical solutions are evaluated against the analytical solution due to Mie, and point-wise second order accuracy is confirmed

A stable finite difference method for the elastic wave equation on complex geometries with free surfaces

The isotropic elastic wave equation governs the propagation of seismic waves caused by earthquakes and other seismic events. It also governs the propagation of waves in solid material structures and devices, such as gas pipes, wave guides, railroad rails and disc brakes. In the vast majority of wave propagation problems arising in seismology and solid mechanics there are free surfaces. These free surfaces have, in general, complicated shapes and are rarely flat. Another feature, characterizing problems arising in these areas, is the strong heterogeneity of the media, in which the problems are posed. For example, on the characteristic length scales of seismological problems, the geological structures of the earth can be considered piecewise constant, leading to models where the values of the elastic properties are also piecewise constant. Large spatial contrasts are also found in solid mechanics devices composed of different materials welded together. The presence of curved free surfaces, together with the typical strong material heterogeneity, makes the design of stable, efficient and accurate numerical methods for the elastic wave equation challenging. Today, many different classes of numerical methods are used for the simulation of elastic waves. Early on, most of the methods were based on finite difference approximations of space and time derivatives of the equations in second order differential form (displacement formulation), see for example [1, 2]. The main problem with these early discretizations were their inability to approximate free surface boundary conditions in a stable and fully explicit manner, see e.g. [10, 11, 18, 20]. The instabilities of these early methods were especially bad for problems with materials with high ratios between the P-wave (C{sub p}) and S-wave (C{sub s}) velocities. For rectangular domains, a stable and explicit discretization of the free surface boundary conditions is presented in the paper [17] by Nilsson et al. In summary, they introduce a discretization, that use boundary-modified difference operators for the mixed derivatives in the governing equations. Nilsson et al. show that the method is second order accurate for problems with smoothly varying material properties and stable under standard CFL constraints, for arbitrarily varying material properties. In this paper we generalize the results of Nilsson et al. to curvilinear coordinate systems, allowing for simulations on non-rectangular domains. Using summation by parts techniques, we show that there exists a corresponding stable discretization of the free surface boundary condition on curvilinear grids. We also prove that the discretization is stable and energy conserving both in semi-discrete and fully discrete form. As for the Cartesian method in, [17], the stability and conservation results holds for arbitrarily varying material properties. By numerical experiments it is established that the method is second order accurate

A Cartesian embedded boundary method for hyperbolic conservation laws

The authors develop an embedded boundary finite difference technique for solving the compressible two- or three-dimensional Euler equations in complex geometries on a Cartesian grid. The method is second order accurate with an explicit time step determined by the grid size away from the boundary. Slope limiters are used on the embedded boundary to avoid non-physical oscillations near shock waves. They show computed examples of supersonic flow past a cylinder and compare with results computed on a body fitted grid. Furthermore, they discuss the implementation of the method for thin geometries, and show computed examples of transonic flow past an airfoil

Bias spectroscopy and simultaneous SET charge state detection of Si:P double dots

We report a detailed study of low-temperature (mK) transport properties of a silicon double-dot system fabricated by phosphorous ion implantation. The device under study consists of two phosphorous nanoscale islands doped to above the metal-insulator transition, separated from each other and the source and drain reservoirs by nominally undoped (intrinsic) silicon tunnel barriers. Metallic control gates, together with an Al-AlOx single-electron transistor, were positioned on the substrate surface, capacitively coupled to the buried dots. The individual double-dot charge states were probed using source-drain bias spectroscopy combined with non-invasive SET charge sensing. The system was measured in linear (VSD = 0) and non-linear (VSD 0) regimes allowing calculations of the relevant capacitances. Simultaneous detection using both SET sensing and source-drain current measurements was demonstrated, providing a valuable combination for the analysis of the system. Evolution of the triple points with applied bias was observed using both charge and current sensing. Coulomb diamonds, showing the interplay between the Coulomb charging effects of the two dots, were measured using simultaneous detection and compared with numerical simulations.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

An embedded boundary method for the wave equation with discontinuous coefficients

A second order accurate embedded boundary method for the two-dimensional wave equation with discontinuous wave propagation speed is described. The wave equation is discretized on a Cartesian grid with constant grid size and the interface (across which the wave speed is discontinuous) is allowed to intersect the mesh in an arbitrary fashion. By using ghost points on either side of the interface, previous embedded boundary techniques for the Neumann and Dirichlet problems are generalized to satisfy the jump conditions across the interface to second order accuracy. The resulting discretization of the jump conditions has the desirable property that each ghost point can be updated independently of all other ghost points, resulting in a fully explicit time-integration method. Numerical examples are given where the method is used to study electro-magnetic scattering of a plane wave by a dielectric cylinder. The numerical solutions are evaluated against the analytical solution due to Mie, and point-wise second order accuracy is confirmed

A second order accurate embedded boundary method for the wave equation with Dirichlet data

The accuracy of Cartesian embedded boundary methods for the second order wave equation in general two-dimensional domains subject to Dirichlet boundary conditions is analyzed. Based on the analysis, we develop a numerical method where both the solution and its gradient are second order accurate. We avoid the small-cell stiffness problem without sacrificing the second order accuracy by adding a small artificial term to the Dirichlet boundary condition. Long-time stability of the method is obtained by adding a small fourth order dissipative term. Several numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the accuracy and stability of the method. The method is also used to solve the two-dimensional TM{sub z} problem for Maxwell's equations posed as a second order wave equation for the electric field coupled to ordinary differential equations for the magnetic field

Improved large-mode area endlessly single-mode photonic crystal fibers

We numerically study the possibilities for improved large-mode area endlessly single mode photonic crystal fibers for use in high-power delivery applications. By carefully choosing the optimal hole diameter we find that a triangular core formed by three missing neighboring air holes considerably improves the mode area and loss properties compared to the case with a core formed by one missing air hole. In a realized fiber we demonstrate an enhancement of the mode area by ~30 % without a corresponding increase in the attenuation.Comment: 3 pages including 3 eps-figures. Accepted for Optics Letter