Polydimethylsiloxane based microfluidic diode

In this paper, we present a novel elastomer-based microfluidic device for rectifying flow. The device is analogous to an electronic diode in function since it allows flow in one direction and stops flow in the opposing direction. The device is planar, in-line and can be replica molded via standard soft lithography techniques. The fabrication process is outlined in detail and follows a simple procedure that requires only photolithography and one replica molding step. Several geometries of devices are presented along with their flow versus pressure characteristics. A brief discussion of the device behavior is presented along with possible uses for the device

Formation of Low Threshold Voltage Microlasers

Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) with threshold voltages of 1.7V have been fabricated. The resistance-area product in these new vertical cavity lasers is comparable to that of edge-emitting lasers, and threshold currents as low as 3 mA have been measured. Molecular beam epitaxy was used to grow n-type mirrors, a quantum well active region, and a heavily Be-doped p-contact. After contact definition and alloying, passive high-reflectivity mirrors were deposited by reactive sputter deposition of SiO2/Si3N4 to complete the laser cavity

Probing new physics in electroweak penguins through B_d and B_s decays

An enhanced electroweak penguin amplitude due to the presence of unknown new physics can explain the discrepancies found between theory and experiment in the B -> pi K decays, in particular in A_CP(B^- -> pi^0 K^-) - A_CP(\bar{B}^0 -> pi^+ K^-), but the current precision of the theoretical and experimental results does not allow to draw a firm conclusion. We argue that the \bar{B}_s -> phi rho^0 and \bar{B}_s -> phi pi^0 decays offer an additional tool to investigate this possibility. These purely isospin-violating decays are dominated by electroweak penguins and we show that in presence of a new physics contribution their branching ratio can be enhanced by about an order of magnitude, without violating any constraints from other hadronic B decays. This makes them very interesting modes for LHCb and future B factories. In arXiv:1011.6319 we have performed both a model-independent analysis and a study within realistic New Physics models such as a modified-Z^0-penguin scenario, a model with an additional Z' boson and the MSSM. In this article we summarise the most important results of our study.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, LaTeX. Talk given at Discrete2010, Rome, 6-11 December 2010; References adde

Antiferromagnetic behavior in CeCo9_{9}Ge4_{4}

We investigate the novel intermetallic ternary compounds \emph{R}Co$_{9}$Ge$_{4}$ with \emph{R} = La and Ce by means of $X$-ray diffraction, susceptibility and specific heat measurements. CeCo$_{9}$Ge$_{4}$ crystallizes in the space group ${I}$ 4/ ${mcm}$ and is characterized by the coexistence of two different magnetic sublattices. The Ce-based sublattice, with an effective moment close to the expected value for a Ce$^{3+}$-ion, exhibits a magnetically ordered ground state with $T_{\mathrm{N}}=12.5$ K. The Co-based sublattice, however, exhibits magnetic moments due to itinerant 3$d$ electrons. The magnetic specific heat contribution of the Ce-sublattice is discussed in terms of a resonance-level model implying the interplay between an antiferromagnetic phase transition and the Kondo-effect and an underlying Schottky-anomaly indicating a crystal field level scheme splitting into three twofold degenerated micro states ($\Delta_1 = 69$ K, $\Delta_2 = 133$ K).Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, conference SCES0