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When operating a xenon short arc lamp, tungsten vapour that evaporates from the electrodes is transported by gas convection to blacken the inner bulb wall. Since this reduces the output light intensity and increases the risk of lamp breakage, it is crucial to thoroughly understand the factors that govern gas convection to optimally control it to reduce blackening. Gas convection is complex, especially in horizontal lamps, because it is strongly affected by buoyancy. This study used 3D numerical simulation to investigate buoyancy's influence on the gas convection of a horizontal xenon short arc lamp, which directly affects the blackening location. Gas convection, especially in the low flow velocity region, was strongly affected by the buoyancy, whose strength was mainly determined by the anode surface temperature. The gas convection in turn affected the bulb wall temperature and the W vapour transport and was reflected in the blackening location. This result indicates that the surface temperature of the anode, which was determined by the energy balance between the gas and anode, also affected the blackening location. Therefore, the emissivity of the anode surface was an important factor controlling the horizontal lamp's gas convection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tremendous research efforts have been invested in exploring and designing so-called shortcuts to adiabaticity. These are finite-time processes that produce the same final states that would result from infinitely slow driving. Most of these techniques rely on auxiliary fields and quantum control, which makes them rather costly to implement. In this Perspective we outline an alternative paradigm for optimal control that has proven powerful in a wide variety of situations ranging from heat engines over chemical reactions to quantum dynamics —thermodynamic control. Focusing on only a few, selected milestones we seek to provide a pedagogical entry point into this powerful and versatile framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A type of light absorber made of continuous layers of metal and dielectric films is studied. The metal films can have thicknesses close to their skin depths in the wavelength range concerned, which allows for both light transmission and reflection. Resonances induced by multiple reflections in the structure, when combined with the inherent lossy nature of metals, result in strong absorption spectral features. An eigen-mode analysis is carried out for the plasmonic multilayer nanostructures which provides a generic understanding of the absorption features. Experimentally, the calculation is verified by a reflection measurement with a representative structure. Such an absorber is simple to fabricate. The highly efficient absorption characteristics can be potentially deployed for optical filter designs, sensors, accurate photothermal temperature control in a micro-environment and even for backscattering reduction of small particles, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The irradiance-distance relation for light propagation in multimoded hollow waveguides is calculated from theory and compared with measurement for visible light. These are the first measurements of this relation for square waveguides and the first for round waveguides for visible light. The square waveguides had either silvered glass surfaces or uncoated PMMA surfaces. A geometric optics method based on image formation in a kaleidoscope is used for calculations. The measurements agreed with the predictions of theory in all cases. The loss is not described by a fixed value of an attenuation coefficient as the angular divergence of the light changes with distance. At larger distances the logarithm of the irradiance is linearly dependent on the logarithm of distance, regardless of material type, surface properties and waveguide cross section. The silvered square waveguide shows the lowest measured attenuation while PMMA square waveguides constructed without any special surface preparation performed almost as well as silvered round tubes sourced commercially. The surface roughness present in the silver coating of commercially sourced round tubes compromised their performance. An array of square PMMA waveguides was used to demonstrate an application for signal transport in megavoltage radiation fields for profiling a medical radiation beam and measuring the variation of dose rate with depth in water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tungsten vapour produced from the electrodes during short arc lamp operation is transported by gas convection and then deposited on the inner quartz bulb wall to form a tungsten thin film, causing the wall to blacken. We have been able to consider important phenomena for the first time by developing a unified numerical simulation model incorporating relevant sub-models. These include the absorption of the radiant energy due to blackening of the lamp and the temporal variation in the lamp parameters. The validity of the numerical simulation model is first evaluated by comparison with experimental results. The basic characteristics of the lamp obtained using the model is found to be in good agreement with the experimental results and other research results. The influence of the bulb wall blackening is then examined. The temperature of the bulb is shown strongly affected by convective heat transfer from the hot gas, and the temperature rise of the bulb after blackening is found to be primarily governed by the absorption of the radiant energy by the tungsten thin film. Through the increase in the bulb temperature, the gas temperature in the bulb is also increased. This raises the operating pressure, which increases the stress on the bulb wall. Consequently, it is demonstrated that the probability of breakage gradually increases with time due to the blackening by tungsten vapour deposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reduced activation ferritic/martensitic steels for in-vessel components of a fusion reactor have shown a decrease in plasticity and radiation hardening at low irradiation temperatures. The formation of dislocation loops and embryos of α′ phase is considered the main reason for these effects. In this work, Eurofer 97 steel was irradiated with 5.6 MeV Fe2+ ions up to 1020 m−2 at 250, 300 and 400 °C. Transmission electron microscopy study of ion irradiated samples revealed nucleation of dislocation loops. The pair-correlation analysis of atom probe tomography data detected an initial stage of solid solution decomposition. The hardening of ion-irradiated Eurofer 97 was calculated with the dispersed barrier hardening model, taking into account radiation-induced dislocation loops to compare it with the change of yield stress in neutron-irradiated Eurofer 97. According to the obtained results, it can be supposed that the formation of dislocation loops plays the main role in the low-temperature radiation hardening of Eurofer 97 at a dose level up to ~10 dpa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a novel structure for tunnel junction based on delta-doped AlGaAs/GaAs quantum wires. Higher spatial confinement of quantum wires alongside the increased effective doping concentration in the delta-doped regions extremely increase the peak tunneling current and enhance the performance of tunnel junction. The proposed structure can be used as tunnel junction in the multijunction solar cells under the highest possible thermodynamically limited solar concentration. The combination of the quantum wire with the delta-doped structure can be of benefit to the solar cells’ advantages including higher number of sub-bands and high degeneracy. Simulation results show a voltage drop of 40 mV due to the proposed tunnel junction used in a multijunction solar cell which presents an extremely low resistance to the achieved peak tunneling current. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A transparent sheet, flat to unaided vision but with a gentle surface relief, can concentrate light onto a screen with intensity reproducing any desired image: the sheet is a ‘magic window’. When the ray deflections are sufficiently small that there are no caustics between the window and the screen, the image intensity is the Laplacian function of the relief height function—a very simple approximation to general freeform optics. Therefore the desired relief is obtained by solving Poisson’s equation. Numerical simulations indicate that the Laplacian image approximation will apply to realistic situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of visible light communications (VLC) has gained significant interest over the last decade, in both fibre and free-space embodiments. In fibre systems, the availability of low cost polymer optical fibre (POF) that is compatible with visible data communications has been a key enabler. In free-space applications, the availability of hundreds of THz of the unregulated spectrum makes VLC attractive for wireless communications. This paper provides an overview of the recent developments in VLC systems based on gallium nitride (GaN) light-emitting diodes (LEDs), covering aspects from sources to systems. The state-of-the-art technology enabling bandwidth of GaN LEDs in the range of >400 MHz is explored. Furthermore, advances in key technologies, including advanced modulation, equalisation, and multiplexing that have enabled free-space VLC data rates beyond 10 Gb s−1 are also outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the concept of a solar thermo-photovoltaic (STPV) collection system based on a large-area, nanoimprint-patterned film of plasmonic structures acting as an integrated solar absorber/narrow-band thermal emitter (SANTE). The SANTE film concept is based on integrating broad-band solar radiation absorption with selective narrow-band thermal IR radiation which can be efficiently coupled to a photovoltaic (PV) cell for power generation. By employing a low reflectivity refractory metal (e.g., tungsten) as a plasmonic material, we demonstrate that the absorption spectrum of the SANTE film can be designed to be broad-band in the visible range and narrow-band in the infrared range. A detailed balance calculation demonstrates that the total STPV system efficiency exceeds the Shockley–Queisser limit for emitter temperatures above Te = 1200 K, and achieves an efficiency as high as 41% for Te = 2300 K. Emitter temperatures in this range are shown to be achievable under modest sun concentrations (less than 1000 suns) due to the thermal insulation provided by the SANTE film. An experimental demonstration of the wide-angle, frequency-selective absorptivity is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]