Narrow Results

A new method has been developed to determine absorption curves which are needed to derive quantitative values in PIXE analysis. In this method two spectra obtained with absorbers of different thickness are divided by each other after background subtraction and the absorption curve can be obtained immediately. Absorption curves for a 50 and a 200 µm-thick Mylar films and that for a Cr foil of 2500 µg/cm² were determined experimentally. These curves are in good agreement with the absorption values derived from peak areas of characteristic x-rays. This method enables one to obtain absorption curves for any kind of absorber accurately and quickly.

X-ray absorbers specialized for some samples, which contain vast amounts of certain elements, have been designed and tried. By means of these absorbers, x-ray spectra in which some distinguished x-ray peaks exist become fairly gentle-sloping over a wide x-ray energy range, and consequently, both sensitivity and efficiency of measurements are fairly improved. Furthermore, these absorbers enable us to analyze all elements simultaneously, to save measuring time and also to improve accuracy of analysis. Transmission curves of these absorbers are determined using techniques developed by us, and the accuracy has been confirmed by analyzing a few standard samples.

It is a commonplace to note that in a world governed by special or general relativity, an observer has access only to data within her past lightcone (if that). The significance of this for prediction, and thus for confirmation, does not however seem to have been appreciated. In this paper we show that what we regard as our most well-confirmed relativistic theory, Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism, is not at all well-confirmed in the absence of an additional assumption, the assumption that all fields have sources in their past. We conclude that we have reason to believe that there is a lawlike time-asymmetry in the world.

The continuing LH2 R & D by the MuCool group, conducted by Illinois Consortium for Accelerator Research (ICAR) institutions (NIU, IIT and UIUC), the University of Mississippi, Oxford University and Fermilab, are summarized here, including results for the first hydrogen tests of an absorber prototype from Osaka University and KEK cooled by internal convection at the newly constructed FNAL MuCool Test Area (MTA). The program includes designs for the high-powered test of an absorber prototype (external heat exchange) at the MTA which are nearing completion to be installed by fall 2005, an alternative absorber design (internal heat exchange) being finalized for the approved cooling experiment (MICE) at Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, and a novel idea for gaseous hydrogen absorbers being developed at Fermilab for a high powered test at the MTA in 2006.

In this study, a novel metamaterial absorber (MA) is designed and numerically demonstrated for solar energy harvesting. The structure is composed of three layers with different thicknesses. The interactions of three layers bring about the plasmonic resonances. Although the main operation frequency of the structure is chosen between 430 and 770 THz, which is the visible light regime, the proposed structure is also investigated in the ultra-violet (UV) region. One can see from the results that the proposed structure carries nearly perfect absorption capacity that is more than 91% at the whole visible light spectrum. The proposed structure even has the absorption capacity of 99% between 556 and 657 THz. In addition, the designed MA is also investigated in terms of its polarization and angle independency. Results show that the proposed structure is independent from the polarization and incident angles. Lastly, the designed structure can be considered to be used in solar energy applications as a harvester since it has an ultra-broadband absorption characteristic in visible light regime.

We propose the design of a broadband planar metamaterial absorber (MA) at terahertz frequencies. The unit cell of the MA is composed of four dual-band sub-cells with different dimensions in a coplanar. The four dual-band sub-cell structures resonate at several neighboring frequencies. The absorber consists of two metallic layers separated by a dielectric spacer. Simulation results show that the metamaterial absorption at normal incidence is above 90% in the frequency of 6.56–8.10 THz. This design provides an effective way to construct broadband absorber. The multiple-reflection theory was used to explain the absorption mechanism of our investigated structures. The coupling of adjacent four dual-band sub-cells can introduce additional capacitance to affect the performance of absorber.

In this paper, a novel optical absorber that is flexible in size for fabrication and unique properties is studied numerically by aid of finite difference in time domain (FDTD) algorithm. The structure consists of three layers based on the metal–dielectric–metal design scheme. The middle layer is a dielectric in which the electronic and magnetic resonance energy dissipates. The bottom side is a metallic plane and the top layer is a hexagonal prism array. We also investigate the influence of the structure parameters on the absorbance and the absorption wavelength. The results show that a perfect absorber can be designed, and the number of the absorption peaks varies from two to three for the different radius of circumcircle of the hexagonal prism ranging from 280 nm to 400 nm. Meanwhile, position of the first absorption peak is nearly unchanged. This unique feature may be a significant advantage and possesses great potential applications such as biosensing and photovoltaic. Additionally, position and amplitude of the first absorption peak is constant for broad incident angles. The absorption is insensitive to the polarization of the incident beam due to the highly symmetric structure.

A multi-band perfect metamaterial absorber (MA) based on a cylindrical waveguide with polarization independency is numerically presented and investigated in detail. The proposed absorber has a very simple configuration, and it operates at flexible frequency ranges within the microwave frequency regime by simply tuning the dimensions of the structure. The maximum absorption values are obtained as 99.9%, 97.5%, 85.8%, 68.2% and 40.2% at the frequencies of 1.34 GHz, 2.15 GHz, 3.2 GHz, 4.31 GHz and 5.41 GHz, respectively. The numerical studies verify that the proposed model can provide multi-band perfect absorptions at wide polarization and incident angles due to its rotational symmetry feature. We have also realized sensor and parametric study applications in order to show additional features of the suggested model. The suggested MA enables myriad potential applications in medical technologies, sensors and in defense industry etc.

The design and characterization of perfect metamaterial absorbers (MAs) based on simple configurations including square- and triangle-shapes, which operate in X-band frequency region are numerically and experimentally investigated. The proposed MAs provide perfect absorption with the polarization angle independency. In X-band waveguide, the absorption rates are 99.69% and 99.97% at the resonance frequencies of 10.57 GHz and 10.93 GHz for the square- and triangle-shaped MAs, respectively. In addition, the same configurations are numerically tested under free space boundary conditions to compare and discuss the obtained results. The suggested MAs enable myriad potential application areas for security and stealth technologies in X-band including wireless communication.

We report a multiband absorber with dielectric–dielectric–metal structure in the infrared regime. The simulation results show that that near-perfect absorption is originated from the guide mode resonance and surface plasmonic polaritons (SPPs) excitation. Furthermore, the absorption peaks of this multiband absorber can be tuned by changing the incidence angle or scaling the microstructure dimensions. The results of this study have possible future potential applications in thermal emitter and sensor.

A perfect dual-band optical absorber is designed and measured. A low absorption peak (P1) and two high absorption peaks (P2 and P3) are obtained. The P1 peak is excited by the resonance of internal surface plasmon (ISP) mode. The P2 peak is resulted by the coupling of local surface plasma (LSP) modes and the resonance of ISP mode. The P3 peak is excited by the resonance of ISP mode. The damping constant of the gold film is optimization calculated in simulations. Measured results indicate that high absorption performed is obtained with different dielectric layers. The measured metamaterial absorber displays high absorption performed at TM and TE configurations. Moreover, the proposed metamaterial absorber is sensitivity on the change of the refractive index of the environmental media.

Perfect metamaterial absorber (MA)-based sensor applications are presented and investigated in the microwave frequency range. It is also experimentally analyzed and tested to verify the behavior of the MA. Suggested perfect MA-based sensor has a simple configuration which introduces flexibility to sense the dielectric properties of a material and the pressure of the medium. The investigated applications include pressure and density sensing. Besides, numerical simulations verify that the suggested sensor achieves good sensing capabilities for both applications. The proposed perfect MA-based sensor variations enable many potential applications in medical or food technologies.

A new negative-index metamaterial (NIM) structure is proposed by designing the metallic holes of traditional double-fishnet (DF) structures from uniform sizes to several different sizes. Numerical results demonstrate that the new metamaterial, as an improved variant of the DF structure, achieved a multi-band negative refractive index across a wide range of visible frequencies from 470 THz to 540 THz, which covers the red, orange, yellow, and green regions of the visible spectra. Meanwhile, a low-profile nanostrctured absorber was obtained when one side of the perforated metal layer of this multi-band NIM was substituted with a continuous metal film with the same thickness. The absorber showed the high absorption of more than 95% at multiple frequencies of 511, 520, 523, 525, and 527 THz. The behavior of multi-frequency response effectively broadened the working bandwidth. Finally, the physical mechanism of the multi-band operating characteristics of NIM and absorber was analyzed with the distributions of current intensity at different resonant frequencies.

A terahertz metasurface perfect absorber with multi-band performance is demonstrated. The absorber is composed of a ground plane and four split-ring resonators (SRRs) with different dimensions, separated by a dielectric spacer. The numerical simulation results illustrate that the proposed absorber has four distinct absorption peaks at resonance frequencies of 4.24, 5.66, 7.22, and 8.97 THz, with absorption rates of 96.8%, 99.3%, 97.3%, and 99.9%, respectively. Moreover, the corresponding full width at half-maximum (FWHM) values are about 0.27, 0.35, 0.32, and 0.42 THz, respectively, which are much broader than those of previously reported absorbers. Besides, the calculated magnetic field distributions allow us to understand the absorption mechanism in detail. The effects of incident angle and azimuthal angle on the absorber are also investigated. The results show that the proposed absorber is partially sensitive to the incident angle, which makes this design promising for practical applications in terahertz imagers and detectors.

Ultra-narrowband light absorption is desired for many applications. A near-infrared TM-polarization (magnetic field is parallel to grating grooves) ultra-narrowband absorber with dielectric metamaterials has been reported theoretically in this paper. The simulation results show that we can achieve an ultra-narrowband absorption at the incident wavelength of $1.0646\mu \mathrm{\text{m}}$ with the absorption bandwidth less than 0.9 nm and the absorption rate more than 0.99 for TM polarization. At the same time, we find that the high absorption rate can only remain up to $5^{\circ }$, which means our absorber has high directivity. In addition, the field distribution at the resonance wavelength shows that the ultra-narrowband absorption in our absorber has originated from magnetic resonance effect. Our near-infrared TM-polarization ultra-narrowband absorber is a good candidate for laser stealth.

A perfect absorber in the terahertz band with ultra-broadband and triple narrowband is achieved, using Vanadium Dioxide (VO₂) and patterned graphene hybrid metamaterials, which can be converted by adjusting the temperature. When only VO₂ is present in the structure, the absorption spectrum shows broadband absorption in metallic phases of VO₂. Adding graphene to metallic VO₂, the absorption bandwidth over 95% is expanded to 5.5THz, which is 1.9 times broader compared to the absence of graphene, and the absorption bandwidth over 99% increases to 1.72THz. Adding graphene to insulating VO₂, three narrowband absorptions appear with absorption rates approaching 100%. Polarization characteristics show that ultra-broadband is insensitive to polarization angle, while multi-frequency narrowband exhibits sensitivity. Therefore, the proposed tunable multifunctional absorber can greatly optimize the absorption capacity of ultra-broadband and multi-frequency narrow bands, demonstrating great potential in future practical applications.

Desiccant cooling mechanism is one of the alternate methods to control the humidity of air and temperature, compared to the conventional vapor compression method of air conditioning. Desiccant cooling doesn’t use harmful chemicals which effect the ozone layer and it saves lots of energy. Summer air condition system can use this technology since it removes the latent heat load from the room effectively and this process is economical. Selection of the appropriate liquid desiccant and packing material is very vital to obtain maximum dehumidification. This paper focuses on the different desiccants and packings used by different researchers to enhance the dehumidification. Simple and hybrid systems are also reviewed, and their comparison are presented based on the construction and dehumidification performance.

In this paper, we designed a metamaterial absorber performed in microwave frequency band. This absorber is composed of E-shaped dielectrics which are arranged along different directions. The E-shaped all-dielectric structure is made of microwave ceramics with high permittivity and low loss. Within about 1 GHz frequency band, more than 86% absorption efficiency was observed for this metamaterial absorber. This absorber is polarization insensitive and is stable for incident angles. It is figured out that the polarization insensitive absorption is caused by the nearly located varied resonant modes which are excited by the E-shaped all-dielectric resonators with the same size but in the different direction. The E-shaped dielectric absorber contains intensive resonant points. Our research work paves a way for designing all-dielectric absorber.