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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 1,009 records · Page 56
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Coherence in Chemistry: Foundations and Frontiers

Coherence refers to correlations in waves. Because matter has a wave-particle nature, it is unsurprising that coherence has deep connections with the most contemporary issues in chemistry research (e.g., energy harvesting, femtosecond spectroscopy, molecular qubits and more). But what does the word "coherence" really mean in the context of molecules and other quantum systems? We provide a review of key concepts, definitions, and methodologies, surrounding coherence phenomena in chemistry, and we describe how the terms "coherence" and "quantum coherence" refer to many different phenomena in chemistry. Moreover, we show how these notions are related to the concept of an interference pattern. Coherence phenomena are indeed complex, and ambiguous definitions may spawn confusion. By describing the many definitions and contexts for coherence in the molecular sciences, we aim to enhance understanding and communication in this broad and active area of chemistry.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2023

Winding θ and destructive interference of instantons

While the θ dependence of field theories is 2π periodic, the ground-state wavefunctions at θ and θ + 2π often belong to different classes of symmetry-protected topological states. When this is the case, a continuous change of the θ parameter can introduce an interface that supports a nontrivial field theory localized on the wall. We consider the 2d CP N-1 sigma model as an example and construct a weak-coupling setup of this interface theory by considering the small S1 compactification with nonzero winding θ parameter and a suitable symmetry-twisted boundary condition. This system has N classical vacua connected by fractional instantons, but the anomaly constraint tells us that the fractional-instanton amplitudes should vanish completely to have N-fold degeneracy at the quantum level. We show how this happens in this purely bosonic system, uncovering that the integration over the zero modes annihilates the fractional instanton amplitudes, in sharp contrast to what happens when the θ angle is constant. Moreover, we provide another explanation of this selection rule by showing that the N perturbative vacua acquire different charges under the global symmetry with the activation of the winding θ angle. We also demonstrate a similar destructive interference between instanton effects in the CP N-1 quantum mechanics with the Berry phase.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Graphene as a high impedance surface for ultra-wideband electromagnetic waves

The metals are regularly used as reflectors of electromagnetic fields emitted by antennas ranging from microwaves up to THz. To enhance the reflection and thus the gain of the antenna, metallic high impedance surfaces (HIS) are used. HIS is a planar array of continuous metallic periodic cell surfaces able to suppress surface waves, which cause multipath interference and backward radiation in a narrow bandwidth near the cell resonance. Also, the image currents are reduced, and therefore the antenna can be placed near the HIS. We demonstrate that graphene is acting as a HIS surface in a very large bandwidth, from microwave to THz, suppressing the radiation leakages better than a metal.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

Tailoring the slow light behavior in terahertz metasurfaces

We experimentally study the effect of near field coupling on the transmission of light in terahertz metasurfaces. Our results show that tailoring the coupling between the resonators modulates the amplitude of resulting electromagnetically induced transmission, probed under different types of asymmetries in the coupled system. Observed change in the transmission amplitude is attributed to the change in the amount of destructive interference between the resonators in the vicinity of strong near field coupling. We employ a two-particle model to theoretically study the influence of the coupling between bright and quasi-dark modes on the transmission properties of the system and we find an excellent agreement with our observed results. Adding to the enhanced transmission characteristics, our results provide a deeper insight into the metamaterial analogues of atomic electromagnetically induced transparency and offer an approach to engineer slow light devices, broadband filters, and attenuators at terahertz frequencies.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2014

Vortex and structural dynamics of a flexible cylinder in cross-flow

A low-density, flexible cantilevered cylinder was permitted to vibrate freely under the influence of vortex shedding in the laminar flow regime. We find that the vortex-induced vibrations (VIV) of a flexible cantilever depart from those of a flexible cylinder that is fixed at both ends. In particular, we find discontinuous regions of VIV behavior – here called states – as a function of the reduced velocity U{sup *}. These states are demarcated by discrete changes in the dominant eigenmodes of the structural response as the cylinder vibrates in progressively higher structural modes with increasing U{sup *}. The contribution of structural modes can be identified readily by a modal projection of the cylinder oscillation onto known cantilever beam modes. Oscillation frequencies do not monotonically increase with U{sup *}. The wake response between different states is also found to have distinct characteristics; of particular note is the occurrence of a P+S wake over one of these regions, which is associated with a high-amplitude vibration of the cylinder that is due to the constructive interference of contributing eigenmodes.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2019

All optical sampling by slanted light interrogation for cross-correlated encoded recording (slicer)

Single-shot transient optical signals are recorded in a time regime of picoseconds to nanosecond. An auxiliary pump beam is crossed through the signal to sample a diagonal ‘slice’ of space-time, analogous to a rolling shutter. The slice is then imaged onto an ordinary camera, where the recorded spatial trace is a direct representation of the time content of the signal. The pump samples the signal by optically exciting carriers that modify the refractive index in a conventional semiconductor wafer. Through use of birefringent retarders surrounding the wafer, the integrating response of the rapidly excited but persistent carriers is differentiated by probing with two polarization-encoded time-staggered signal replicas that are recombined to interfere destructively.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Bragg grating inscription in photosensitive materials by an optical replication process

This paper examines the feasibility of producing multiplexed Bragg gratings for use as diffractive optical elements (DOEs) by coherent optical replication of a surface-relief phase grating into thick-film photosensitive materials. The use of such DOEs in light guide plates (LGPs) for optical imaging systems ensures energy-efficient light input into and output from LGPs and allows one to minimise their weight and size. We present simulation results for the interference structure fabrication process and recording of a series of multiplexed diffraction gratings in photosensitive materials. (paper)

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2011

Near-IR laser-based spectrophotometer for comparative analysis of isotope content of CO{sub 2} in exhale air samples

We present a laser spectrophotometer aimed at high-accuracy comparative analysis of content of {sup 12}CO{sub 2} and {sup 13}CO{sub 2} isotope modifications in the exhale air samples and based on a tunable near-IR diode laser (2.05 {mu}m). The two-channel optical scheme of the spectrophotometer and the special digital system for its control are described. An algorithm of spectral data processing aimed at determining the difference in the isotope composition of gas mixtures is proposed. A few spectral regions (near 4880 cm{sup -1}) are determined to be optimal for analysis of relative content of {sup 12}CO{sub 2} and {sup 13}CO{sub 2} in the exhale air. The use of the proposed spectrophotometer scheme and the developed algorithm makes the results of the analysis less susceptible to the influence of the interference in optical elements, to the absorption in the open atmosphere, to the slow drift of the laser pulse envelope, and to the offset of optical channels. The sensitivity of the comparative analysis of the isotope content of CO{sub 2} in exhale air samples, achieved using the proposed scheme, is estimated to be nearly 0.1 Per-Mille-Sign .

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2017

Formation of high quality interference fringes from both sides of a suitably designed hololens in the laser Doppler anemometer measurement volume

We report, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, the formation of high quality, evenly spaced, undistorted fringes in the measurement volume of a laser Doppler anemometer from both sides of a suitably designed hololens. Experiments are performed for the analysis of fringes formed at the measurement volume by real time monitoring and actual fringe field analysis techniques. The results indicate the qualitative as well as quantitative improvement of 66.58% in overall average normalised standard deviations of the width of the fringes formed by the proposed imaging configuration than that of the conventional imaging configuration. (laser applications and other topics in quantum electronics)

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2011

Ground-state phase diagram of spin-(1/2) bosons in a two-dimensional optical lattice

We study a two-species bosonic Hubbard model on a two-dimensional square lattice by means of quantum Monte Carlo simulations. In addition to the usual contact repulsive interactions between the particles, the Hamiltonian has an interconversion term which allows the transformation of two particles from one species to the other. The phases are characterized by their solid or superfluid properties and by their polarization, i.e., the difference in the populations. When interspecies interactions are smaller than the intraspecies ones, the system is unpolarized, whereas in the opposite case the system is unpolarized in even Mott insulator lobes and polarized in odd Mott lobes and also in the superfluid phase. We show that in the latter case the transition between the Mott insulator of total density 2 and the superfluid can be of either second or first order depending on the relative values of the interactions, whereas the transitions are continuous in all other cases.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Strange baryonic resonances and resonances coupling to strange hadrons at SIS energies

The role played by baryonic resonances in the production of final states containing strangeness for proton-proton reactions at 3.5 GeV measured by HADES is discussed by means of several very different measurements. First the associate production of Δ resonances accompanying final states with strange hadrons is presented, then the role of interferences among N{sup *} resonances, as measured by HADES for the first time, is summarised. Last but not least the role played by heavy resonances, with a mass larger than 2 GeV/c{sup 2} in the production of strange and non-strange hadrons is discussed. Experimental evidence for the presence of a Δ(2000){sup ++} are presented and hypotheses are discussed employing the contribution of similar objects to populate the excesses measured by HADES for the Ξ in A+A and p+A collisions and in the dilepton sector for A+A collisions. This extensive set of results helps to better understand the dynamic underlaying particle production in elementary reactions and sets a more solid basis for the understanding of heavy ion collisions at the same energies and even higher as planned at the FAIR facility.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2013

ATLAS search for new phenomena in dijet mass and angular distributions using pp collisions at $ \sqrt{s}=7 $ TeV

Mass and angular distributions of dijets produced in LHC proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy s√=7 TeV have been studied with the ATLAS detector using the full 2011 data set with an integrated luminosity of 4.8 fb-1. Dijet masses up to ~ 4.0 TeV have been probed. No resonance-like features have been observed in the dijet mass spectrum, and all angular distributions are consistent with the predictions of QCD. Exclusion limits on six hypotheses of new phenomena have been set at 95% CL in terms of mass or energy scale, as appropriate. These hypotheses include excited quarks below 2.83 TeV, colour octet scalars below 1.86 TeV, heavy W bosons below 1.68 TeV, string resonances below 3.61 TeV, quantum black holes with six extra space-time dimensions for quantum gravity scales below 4.11 TeV, and quark contact interactions below a compositeness scale of 7.6 TeV in a destructive interference scenario.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Probing the antisymmetric Fano interference assisted by a Majorana fermion

As the Fano effect is an interference phenomenon where tunneling paths compete for the electronic transport, it becomes a probe to catch fingerprints of Majorana fermions lying on condensed matter systems. In this work, we benefit of this mechanism by proposing as a route for that an Aharonov-Bohm-like interferometer composed by two quantum dots, being one of them coupled to a Majorana bound state, which is attached to one of the edges of a semi-infinite Kitaev wire within the topological phase. By changing the Fermi energy of the leads and the symmetric detuning of the levels for the dots, we show that opposing Fano regimes result in a transmittance characterized by distinct conducting and insulating regions, which are fingerprints of an isolated Majorana quasiparticle. Furthermore, we show that the maximum fluctuation of the transmittance as a function of the detuning is half for a semi-infinite wire, while it corresponds to the unity for a finite system. The setup proposed here constitutes an alternative experimental tool to detect Majorana excitations.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2015

Spatial filter based light-sheet laser interference technique for three-dimensional nanolithography

We propose a laser interference technique for the fabrication of 3D nano-structures. This is possible with the introduction of specialized spatial filter in a 2π cylindrical lens system (consists of two opposing cylindrical lens sharing a common geometrical focus). The spatial filter at the back-aperture of a cylindrical lens gives rise to multiple light-sheet patterns. Two such interfering counter-propagating light-sheet pattern result in periodic 3D nano-pillar structure. This technique overcomes the existing slow point-by-point scanning, and has the ability to pattern selectively over a large volume. The proposed technique allows large-scale fabrication of periodic structures. Computational study shows a field-of-view (patterning volume) of approximately 12.2 mm{sup 3} with the pillar-size of 80 nm and inter-pillar separation of 180 nm. Applications are in nano-waveguides, 3D nano-electronics, photonic crystals, and optical microscopy.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2018

Peculiarities of electromagnetic field distribution in a finite one-dimensional photonic crystal at oblique incidence of radiation

The effect of increasing an electric field E is investigated for oblique incidence of radiation on a finite one-dimensional photonic crystal. The peculiarities in the field distribution in the structure E(x) are found to be due to the interference of counterpropagating Bloch waves; therefore, the conditions for increasing the field to a maximum value |E|{sub max} coincide with those for achieving the maximum band gap E{sub g} of an infinite crystal. It is shown that a significant (several times for structures with 30 periods) growth of |E|{sub max} is observed with increasing angle of incidence θ for wavelengths λ, which correspond to transmission maxima T nearest to the band gap boundaries. The increased interference of the counterpropagating Bloch modes is caused by an enhancement of the x-component contrast (perpendicular to the planes of the layers) of the wave numbers k{sub 1x}/k{sub 2x} in the structure layers. Along with this, there also arise characteristic features in the distribution of E(x) associated with the vanishing of the forbidden band width. In this case, the field distribution in all periods is the same. Two types of such features are observed in the case of oblique incidence. The former takes place for p-polarisation at an angle of incidence θ, which is an analogue of the Brewster angle. The latter corresponds to the situation when the length of each structure layer is equal to an integer of half-waves. This occurs simultaneously for s- and p-polarisations and is observed in a limited range of layer widths only for the second and highest forbidden bands. (paper)

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Magnetic field sensor based on cascaded microfiber coupler with magnetic fluid

A kind of magnetic field sensor based on cascaded microfiber coupler with magnetic fluid is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The magnetic fluid is utilized as the cladding of the fused regions of the cascaded microfiber coupler. As the interference valley wavelength of the sensing structure is sensitive to the ambient variation, considering the magnetic-field-dependent refractive index of magnetic fluid, the proposed structure is employed for magnetic field sensing. The effective coupling length for each coupling region of the as-fabricated cascaded microfiber coupler is 6031 μm. The achieved sensitivity is 125 pm/Oe, which is about three times larger than that of the previously similar structure based on the single microfiber coupler. Experimental results indicate that the sensing sensitivity can be easily improved by increasing the effective coupling length or cascading more microfiber couplers. The proposed magnetic field sensor is attractive due to its low cost, immunity to electromagnetic interference, as well as high sensitivity, which also has the potentials in other tunable all-fiber photonic devices, such as filter.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

Controlling the opto-mechanics of a cantilever in an interferometer via cavity loss

In a non-contact atomic force microscope, based on interferometric cantilever displacement detection, the optical return loss of the system is tunable via the distance between the fiber end and the cantilever. We utilize this for tuning the interferometer from a predominant Michelson to a predominant Fabry-Pérot characteristics and introduce the Fabry-Pérot enhancement factor as a quantitative measure for multibeam interference in the cavity. This experimentally easily accessible and adjustable parameter provides a control of the opto-mechanical interaction between the cavity light field and the cantilever. The quantitative assessment of the light pressure acting on the cantilever oscillating in the cavity via the frequency shift allows an in-situ measurement of the cantilever stiffness with remarkable precision.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

Ag doped silicon nitride nanocomposites for embedded plasmonics

The localized surface plasmon-polariton resonance (LSPR) of noble metal nanoparticles (NPs) is widely exploited for enhanced optical spectroscopies of molecules, nonlinear optics, photothermal therapy, photovoltaics, or more recently in plasmoelectronics and photocatalysis. The LSPR frequency depends not only of the noble metal NP material, shape, and size but also of its environment, i.e., of the embedding matrix. In this paper, Ag-NPs have been fabricated by low energy ion beam synthesis in silicon nitride (SiN{sub x}) matrices. By coupling the high refractive index of SiN{sub x} to the relevant choice of dielectric thickness in a SiN{sub x}/Si bilayer for an optimum antireflective effect, a very sharp plasmonic optical interference is obtained in mid-range of the visible spectrum (2.6 eV). The diffusion barrier property of the host SiN{sub x} matrix allows for the introduction of a high amount of Ag and the formation of a high density of Ag-NPs that nucleate during the implantation process. Under specific implantation conditions, in-plane self-organization effects are obtained in this matrix that could be the result of a metastable coarsening regime.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗