High Speed Peltier Calorimeter for the Calibration of High Bandwidth Power Measurement Equipment

Accurate power measurements of electronic components operating at high frequencies are vital in determining where power losses occur in a system such as a power converter. Such power measurements must be carried out with equipment that can accurately measure real power at high frequency. We present the design of a high speed calorimeter to address this requirement, capable of reaching a steady state in less than 10 minutes. The system uses Peltier thermoelectric coolers to remove heat generated in a load resistance, and was calibrated against known real power measurements using an artificial neural network. A dead zone controller was used to achieve stable power measurements. The calibration was validated and shown to have an absolute accuracy of +/-8 mW (95% confidence interval) for measurements of real power from 0.1 to 5 W

Optimisation of the parameters of an extended defect model applied to non-amorphizing implants

In this paper, we present the optimisation of the parameters of a physical model of the kinetics of extended defects and applied the model with the optimised parameters to non-amorphizing implants. The model describes the small clusters, the {113} defects and the dislocation loops. In the first part, we determine the formation energies of the small clusters, the fault energy of the {113} defects, their Burgers vector and the self-diffusivity of silicon using TEM measurements and extractions of the supersaturation from the spreading of boron marker layers in low-dose implanted silicon. The improvements of the simulations are presented for the fitted experiments and for other wafers annealed at intermediate temperatures. In the second part, we increase the dose and energy of the non-amorphizing implant, leading to the transformation of {113} defects into dislocation loops. The predictions obtained with the optimised model are shown to be in agreement with the measurements. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Entropic Inflation

One of the major pillars of modern cosmology theory is a period of accelerating expansion in the early universe. This accelerating expansion, or inflation, must be sustained for at least 30 e--foldings. One mechanism used to drive the acceleration is the addition of a new energy field, called the Inflaton; often this is a scalar field. We propose an alternative mechanism which, like our approach to explain the late-time accelerating universe, uses the entropy and temperature intrinsic to information holographically stored on a surface enclosing the observed space. The acceleration is due in both cases to an emergent entropic force, naturally arising from the information storage on the horizon.Comment: 12 pages; version to appear in IJMP

Heralding two- and four-photon path entanglement on chip

Generating quantum entanglement is not only an important scientific endeavor, but will be essential to realizing quantum-enhanced technologies, in particular, quantum-enhanced measurements with precision beyond classical limits. We investigate the heralded generation of multiphoton entanglement for quantum metrology using a reconfigurable integrated waveguide device in which projective measurement of auxiliary photons heralds the generation of path-entangled states. We use four and six-photon inputs, to analyze the heralding process of two- and four-photon NOON states-a superposition of N photons in two paths, capable of enabling phase supersensitive measurements at the Heisenberg limit. Realistic devices will include imperfections; as part of the heralded state preparation, we demonstrate phase superresolution within our chip with a state that is more robust to photon loss

Spinflation

We study the cosmological implications of including angular motion in the DBI brane inflation scenario. The non-canonical kinetic terms of the Dirac-Born-Infeld action give an interesting alternative to slow roll inflation, and cycling branes can drive periods of accelerated expansion in the Universe. We present explicit numerical solutions demonstrating brane inflation in the Klebanov-Strassler throat. We find that demanding sufficient inflation takes place in the throat is in conflict with keeping the brane's total energy low enough so that local gravitational backreaction on the Calabi-Yau manifold can be safely ignored. We deduce that spinflation (brane inflation with angular momentum) can ease this tension by providing extra e-foldings at the start of inflation. Cosmological expansion rapidly damps the angular momentum causing an exit to a more conventional brane inflation scenario. Finally, we set up a general framework for cosmological perturbation theory in this scenario, where we have multi-field non-standard kinetic term inflation.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures, minor changes, typos fixed, to appear in JCA

Circumventing the eta problem in building an inflationary model in string theory

The eta problem is one of the most significant obstacles to building a successful inflationary model in string theory. Planck mass suppressed corrections to the inflaton potential generally lead to inflaton masses of order the Hubble scale and generate contributions of order unity to the eta slow roll parameter rendering prolonged slow roll inflation impossible. We demonstrate the severity of this problem in the context of brane anti-brane inflation in a warped throat of a Calabi-Yau flux compactification with all phenomenologically dangerous moduli stabilized. Using exact numerical solutions we show that the eta problem can be avoided in scenarios where the inflaton is non-minimally coupled to gravity and has Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) kinetic term. We show that the resulting cosmic microwave background (CMB) observables such as measures of non-gaussianites can, in principle, serve as a probe of scalar-gravity couplings.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; title changed and reference added to match published version in PR

Renormalon disappearance in Borel sum of the 1/N expansion of the Gross-Neveu model mass gap

The exact mass gap of the O(N) Gross-Neveu model is known, for arbitrary $N$, from non-perturbative methods. However, a "naive" perturbative expansion of the pole mass exhibits an infinite set of infrared renormalons at order 1/N, formally similar to the QCD heavy quark pole mass renormalons, potentially leading to large ${\cal O}(\Lambda)$ perturbative ambiguities. We examine the precise vanishing mechanism of such infrared renormalons, which avoids this (only apparent)contradiction, and operates without need of (Borel) summation contour prescription, usually preventing unambiguous separation of perturbative contributions. As a consequence we stress the direct Borel summability of the (1/N) perturbative expansion of the mass gap. We briefly speculate on a possible similar behaviour of analogous non-perturbative QCD quantities.Comment: 16 pp., 1 figure. v2: a few paragraphs and one appendix added, title and abstract slightly changed, essential results unchange

Modular converter system for low-cost off-grid energy storage using second life Li-ion batteries

Lithium ion batteries are promising for small off- grid energy storage applications in developing countries because of their high energy density and long life. However, costs are prohibitive. Instead, we consider 'used' Li-ion batteries for this application, finding experimentally that many discarded laptop cells, for example, still have good capacity and cycle life. In order to make safe and optimal use of such cells, we present a modular power management system using a separate power converter for every cell. This novel approach allows individual batteries to be used to their full capacity. The power converters operate in voltage droop control mode to provide easy charge balancing and implement a battery management system to estimate the capacity of each cell, as we demonstrate experimentally.Comment: Presented at IEEE GHTC Oct 10-14, 2014, Silicon Valle

Continuous Flow Multi-Step Organic Synthesis

Using continuous flow techniques for multi-step synthesis enables multiple reaction steps to be combined into a single continuous operation. In this mini-review we discuss the current state of the art in this field and highlight recent progress and current challenges facing this emerging area