Semiconductor Lasers Containing Quantum Wells in Junctions

In a recent improvement upon In(x)Ga(1-x)As/InP semiconductor lasers of the bipolar cascade type, quantum wells are added to Esaki tunnel junctions, which are standard parts of such lasers. The energy depths and the geometric locations and thicknesses of the wells are tailored to exploit quantum tunneling such that, as described below, electrical resistances of junctions and concentrations of dopants can be reduced while laser performances can be improved. In(x)Ga(1-x)As/InP bipolar cascade lasers have been investigated as sources of near-infrared radiation (specifically, at wavelengths of about 980 and 1,550 nm) for photonic communication systems. The Esaki tunnel junctions in these lasers have been used to connect adjacent cascade stages and to enable transport of charge carriers between them. Typically, large concentrations of both n (electron-donor) and p (electron-acceptor) dopants have been necessary to impart low electrical resistances to Esaki tunnel junctions. Unfortunately, high doping contributes free-carrier absorption, thereby contributing to optical loss and thereby, further, degrading laser performance. In accordance with the present innovation, quantum wells are incorporated into the Esaki tunnel junctions so that the effective heights of barriers to quantum tunneling are reduced (see figure)

Interband cascade detectors

A device for detecting radiation, typically in the infrared. Photons are absorbed in an active region of a semiconductor device such that the absorption induces an interband electronic transition and generates photo-excited charge carriers. The charge carriers are coupled into a carrier transport region having multiple quantum wells and characterized by intersubband relaxation that provides rapid charge carrier collection. The photo-excited carriers are collected from the carrier transport region at a conducting contact region. Another carrier transport region characterized by interband tunneling for multiple stages draws charge carriers from another conducting contact and replenishes the charge carriers to the active region for photo-excitation. A photocurrent is generated between the conducting contacts through the active region of the device

Exploiting Multi-Category Characteristics and Unified Framework to Extract Web Content

Abstract Extracting web content is to obtain the required data embedded in web pages, usually including structured records, such as product information, and text content, such as news. Web pages use a large number of HTML tags to organize and to present various information. Both knowing little about the structures of web pages and mixing kinds of information in web pages are making the extraction process very challenging to guarantee extraction performance and extraction adaptability. This study proposes a unified web content extraction framework that can be applied in various web environments to extract both structured records and text content. First, we construct a characteristic container to hold kinds of characteristics related with extraction objectives, including visual text information, content semantics(instead of HTML tag semantics), web page structures, etc. Second, the above characteristics are integrated into an extraction framework for extraction decisions on different web sites. Especially, we put forward different strategies, path aggregation for extracting text content and HMM model for structured records, to locate the extraction area by exploiting both those extraction characteristics. Comparative experiments on multiple web sites with popular extraction methods, including CETR, CETD and CNBE, show that our proposed extraction method can provide better extraction precision and extraction adaptability

High-Speed Operation of Interband Cascade Lasers

Optical sources operating in the atmospheric window of 3-5 microns are of particular interest for the development of free-space optical communication link. It is more advantageous to operate the free-space optical communication link in 3-5-microns atmospheric transmission window than at the telecom wavelength of 1.5 m due to lower optical scattering, scintillation, and background radiation. However, the realization of optical communications at the longer wavelength has encountered significant difficulties due to lack of adequate optical sources and detectors operating in the desirable wavelength regions. Interband Cascade (IC) lasers are novel semiconductor lasers that have a great potential for the realization of high-power, room-temperature optical sources in the 3-5-microns wavelength region, yet no experimental work, until this one, was done on high-speed direct modulation of IC lasers. Here, highspeed interband cascade laser, operating at wavelength 3.0 m, has been developed and the first direct measurement of the laser modulation bandwidth has been performed using a unique, highspeed quantum well infrared photodetector (QWIP). The developed laser has modulation bandwidth exceeding 3 GHz. This constitutes a significant increase of the IC laser modulation bandwidth over currently existing devices. This result has demonstrated suitability of IC lasers as a mid-IR light source for multi-GHz free-space optical communications link

Suppression of lung cancer in murine model: treated by combination of recombinant human endostsatin adenovirus with low-dose cisplatin

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The sustained growth of tumors necessitates neovascularization. As one of the potent endogenous vascular inhibitors, endostatin has been widely used in antiangiogenesis therapy for tumor. Cisplatin is normally administered in chemotherapy for lung cancer but accompanied with serious side effects. In the current study, we investigated a novel chemo-antiangiogenesis therapeutic strategy to both improve toxic effects on lung cancer cells and reduce damages to normal cells in the anti-tumor therapy.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In vitro, we transduced LLC cells with Ad-hEndo and collected supernatants. Western blotting analysis of the supernatants revealed expression of endostatin. In vivo, to fully investigate the suppression effect on murine lung cancer of the combination therapy, we injected recombinant human endostatin adenovirus intratumorally plus a low dose of cisplatin intraperitoneally routinely. The tumor volume and survival time were observed. Angiogenesis was apparently inhibited within the tumor tissues and on the alginate beads. Assessment of apoptotic cells by the TUNEL assay was conducted in the tumor tissues.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The combination treatment significantly suppressed the tumor growth and prolonged survival time of the murine LLC tumor model. This anti-tumor activity was associated with decreased microvessel density and increased apoptotic index of tumor cells.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>According to the results in this study, recombinant human endostatin adenovirus in combination with a low dose of cisplatin demonstrated apparent synergistic anti-tumor activity without marked toxicity. Thus, these observations may provide a rational alternative for lung cancer treatment.</p

Influence of Photospheric Magnetic Conditions on the Catastrophic Behaviors of Flux Ropes in Solar Active Regions

Since only the magnetic conditions at the photosphere can be routinely observed in current observations, it is of great significance to determine the influences of photospheric magnetic conditions on solar eruptive activities. Previous studies about catastrophe indicated that the magnetic system consisting of a flux rope in a partially open bipolar field is subject to catastrophe, but not if the bipolar field is completely closed under the same specified photospheric conditions. In order to investigate the influence of the photospheric magnetic conditions on the catastrophic behavior of this system, we expand upon the 2.5-dimensional ideal magnetohydrodynamic model in Cartesian coordinates to simulate the evolution of the equilibrium states of the system under different photospheric flux distributions. Our simulation results reveal that a catastrophe occurs only when the photospheric flux is not concentrated too much toward the polarity inversion line and the source regions of the bipolar field are not too weak; otherwise no catastrophe occurs. As a result, under certain photospheric conditions, a catastrophe could take place in a completely closed configuration, whereas it ceases to exist in a partially open configuration. This indicates that whether the background field is completely closed or partially open is not the only necessary condition for the existence of catastrophe, and that the photospheric conditions also play a crucial role in the catastrophic behavior of the flux rope system

W Boson Inclusive Decays to Quarkonium at the LHC

In this paper, the production rates of quarkonia eta_c, J/psi, eta_b, Upsilon, B_c and B_c^* through W boson decay at the LHC are calculated, at the leading order in both the QCD coupling constant and in v, the typical velocity of the heavy quark inside of mesons. It shows that a sizable number of quarkonia from W boson decay will be produced at the LHC. Comparison with the predictions by using quark fragmentation mechanism is also discussed. Results show that, for the charmonium production through W decay, the difference between predictions by the fragmentation mechanism and complete leading order calculation is around 3%, and it is insensitive to the uncertainties of theoretical parameters; however, for the bottomonium and B_c^(*) productions, the difference cannot be ignored as the fragmentation mechanism is less applicable here due to the relatively large ratio mb/mw.Comment: Updated to match the published version in EPJ

Strong Pseudospin-Lattice Coupling in Sr3Ir2O7: Coherent Phonon Anomaly and Negative Thermal Expansion

The similarities to cuprates make iridates an interesting potential platform for investigating superconductivity. Equally attractive are their puzzling complex intrinsic interactions. Here, we report an ultrafast optical spectroscopy investigation of a coherent phonon mode in Sr3Ir2O7, a bilayer Ruddlesden-Popper perovskite iridate. An anomaly in the A1g optical phonon ({\nu} = 4.4 THz) is unambiguously observed below the N\'eel temperature (TN), which we attribute to pseudospin-lattice coupling (PLC). Significantly, we find that PLC is the dominant interaction at low temperature, and we directly measure the PLC coefficient to be {\lambda} = 150 +/- 20 cm-1, which is two orders of magnitude higher than that in manganites (< 2.4 cm-1) and comparable to that in CuO (50 cm-1, the strongest PLC or spin-lattice coupling (SLC) previously known). Moreover, we find that the strong PLC induces an anisotropic negative thermal expansion. Our findings highlight the key role of PLC in iridates and uncovers another intriguing similarity to cuprates