Picosecond photodiffraction in semiconductor multiquantum wells and microcavities

We study the transient gratings photogenerated in the picosecond regime in three families of structures, namely : - structures of thickness in the order of one micron, including quantum wells (GaAs/GaAlAs, CdTe/ CdZnTe). A transmission modulation due to the electric field has been observed. We show that, in accordance with our calculations, this modulation is screened faster than 10 ps at a fluence of a few µJ/cm2. - A structure including GalnAs/GalnAsP MQWS in a cavity. This structure shows a top diffraction efficiency of 2.5 × 10-² at 1.55 µm for an energy of excitation in the order of 100 µJ/cm2. The diffraction efficiency exhibits several oscillations due to Fabry-Pårot effects. By introducing cavity effects in our model, we show that the diffraction efficiency is amplified by more than a factor 2 with respect to the no-cavity case. Calculations show that the diffraction efficiency may reach 6 × 10-² around 1.625 µm, for a front mirror reflectivity of 90 %. - Structures including bulk GaAs microcavities. The risetime is lower or in the order of 1 ps while the diffraction efficiency attains 1 %, with an average power of 4 mW (i.e. an energy of 2 µJ/cm²/pulse), compatible with a commutation of packets at 80 MHz.     

Analysis of Interconnected Oscillators by Dissipativity Theory

This paper employs dissipativity theory for the global analysis of limit cycles in particular dynamical systems of possibly high dimension. Oscillators are regarded as open systems that satisfy a particular dissipation inequality. It is shown that this characterization has implications for the global stability analysis of limit cycle oscillations: i) in isolated oscillators, ii) in interconnections of oscillators, and iii) for the global synchrony analysis in interconnections of identical oscillators     

Stabilization of symmetric formations to motion around convex loops

We provide a cooperative control algorithm to stabilize symmetric formations to motion around closed curves suitable for mobile sensor networks. This work extends previous results for stabilization of symmetric circular formations. We study a planar particle model with decentralized steering control subject to limited communication. Because of their unique spectral properties, the Laplacian matrices of circulant graphs play a key role. We illustrate the result for a skewed superellipse, which is a type of curve that includes circles, ellipses, and rounded parallelograms.     

Building common ground in global teamwork through re-representation

We explore in this paper the relation between activities, communication channels and media, and common ground building in global teams. We define re-representation as a sequence of representations of the same concept using different communication channels and media. We identified the re-representation technique to build common ground that is used by team members during multimodal and multimedia communicative events in cross-disciplinary, geographically distributed settings. Our hypotheses are as follows: (1) Significant sources of information behind decisions and request for actions are embedded within the fabric of communicative events in which participants use both informal and formal media to express their ideas. Capturing these information sources can facilitate common ground building and accelerate the execution of action requests. (2) Re-representations of concepts, i.e., sequences of representations using diverse media and communication channels, mediate and accelerate common ground building. (3) The use of intra- or interdisciplinary re-representations correlates with high team performance, i.e., effective team process and high product quality. We used AEC Global Teamwork course offered in 2008–2009 as the testbed for our study to validate our hypothesis.     

Retrieval of microphysical and optical properties in aerosol plumes with hyperspectral imagery: L-APOM method

This paper presents the retrieval method L-APOM which aims at characterizing the microphysical and optical properties of aerosol plumes from hyperspectral images with high spatial resolution. The inversion process is divided into three steps: estimation of the ground reflectance below the plume, characterization of the standard atmosphere (gases and background aerosols) and estimation of the plume aerosols properties. As using spectral information only is not sufficient to insure uniqueness of solutions, original constraints are added by assuming slow spatial variations of particles properties within the plume. The whole inversion process is validated on a large set of simulated images and reveals to remain accurate even in the worst cases of noise: relative estimation errors of aerosol properties remain between 10% and 20% in most cases. L-APOM is applied on a real AVIRIS hyperspectral image of a biomass burning plume for which in situ measurements are available. Retrieved properties appear globally consistent with measurements.     

An internal model principle is necessary and sufficient for linear output synchronization

Output synchronization of a network of heterogeneous linear state–space models under time-varying and directed interconnection structures is investigated. It is shown that, assuming stabilizability and detectability of the individual systems and imposing very mild connectedness assumptions on the interconnection structure, an internal model requirement is necessary and sufficient for synchronizability of the network to polynomially bounded trajectories. The resulting dynamic feedback couplings can be interpreted as a generalization of existing methods for identical linear systems.     

A Coupled Model Between Robot Trajectories and Thermal History of the Workpiece During Thermal Spray Operation

Offline robot trajectory generation is now often used for thermal spray applications, especially for complex design parts, requiring enhanced trajectories. This technique allows decreasing the downtime of the thermal spray cell and insures the generation of optimized trajectories. Heat transfers caused by thermal spray increase the workpiece temperature during the coating application. This temperature acts directly on the resulting thermal stresses after cooling of the part down to the ambient temperature. In this study, a coupling was developed between the robot trajectory and computation of the thermal history of the workpiece during the spray operation. The method is based on the storage of the real robot trajectory (i.e., accurate in time) in a text file, and reading of this file with a C programming performed with ANSYS/FLUENT commercial code which allows computing the displacement of the thermal sources according to the trajectory and solving the transient heat conservation equation during the torch displacement. The contributions of the impinging plasma jet and the molten particle jet are taken into account in the model.     

Barrier effect of flame retardant systems in poly(methyl methacrylate): Study of the efficiency of the surface treatment by octylsilane of silica nanoparticles in combination with phosphorous fire retardant additives

In this work, flame retardant systems comprising ammonium polyphosphate (AP423) and hydrophilic (A200) or hydrophobic (R805) nanometric silica were incorporated into PMMA. The following techniques were performed to detail the fire behaviour of the composites: mass loss cone calorimetry, pyrolysis‐combustion flow calorimetry, pyrolysis‐gas chromatography–mass spectrometry, thermogravimetric analysis, X‐ray diffraction analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and microscopic observations. The best fire behaviour was obtained with the surface‐treated silica in the presence of AP423. The formation of a new crystalline phase from the interactions between AP423 and R805 silica and a strong barrier effect due to a layered residue were the main modes of action of this system. Moreover, we have shown that the difference between the AP423 + R805 and AP423 + A200 systems was due to poor dispersion of the silica into the PMMA matrix in the latter formulation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reactivity studies of 2,3,5,6-Tetra(2-pyridyl) pyrazine (tppz) with first-row transition metal ions

Reactions of 2,3,5,6-tetra(2-pyridyl) pyrazine (tppz) with [ML₆][X]₂ (L = CH₃CN, H₂O;X = [BF₄]⁻, [ClO₄]⁻, [NO₃]⁻ [BArF]⁻(BArF - B[3,5-C₆H₃(CF₃)₂]₄) lead to the high-yield formation of mononuclear [M(tppz)₂]²⁺, (M = Mn^II, Fe^II, Co^II, and Ni^II) and dinuclear [Ni₂(tppz)(CH₃CN)₆]⁴⁺ species. The new compounds were fully characterized by X-ray crystallographic, spectroscopic, and magnetic susceptibility measurements. Surprisingly, the 2:1 M:tppz reactions did not lead to isolation of the dinuclear species except in the case of Ni(II). It was further noted that even in the case of the Ni reactions, the nuclearity of the product depends on the choice of anions and the reaction conditions. Magnetic measurements of the mononuclear species [Co(tppz)₂]²⁺ revealed thermally induced spin-crossover behavior from a high-spin S = 3/2 at higher temperatures to a low-spin S = 1/2 complex at lower temperatures. The dinuclear compound [Ni₂(tppz)(CH₃CN)₆]⁴⁺ exhibits a weak anti-ferromagnetic interaction through the bridging tppz ligand.