No description available.

Room temperature vertical cavity lasing at the wavelength of 433nm has been successfully realized in InxGa₁₋xN/InyGa₁₋yN multiple quantum well without Bragg mirrors under photo-excitation. At high excitation intensity, one of the modes of the Fabry-Perot cavity formed by the GaN/sapphire and the GaN/air interfaces, shows a strong superlinear increase in intensity with excitation intensity rise. The vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSELs) structure is grown by metal-organic chemical vapor phase deposition and the threshold is as low as 200kW/cm². The lasing in the sample probably results from the ultrahigh material gain due to the spontaneous formation of dense array of nanoscale InGaN quantum dots (QDs) having an exceptional high area density. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

This thesis presents the results of a series of experiments in which electrons are superelastically scattered from various laser excited states of sodium. The atoms, once in the optically prepared state, are forced to relax via the superelastic collision with an electron. The rate of detection of superelastically scattered electrons was measured as a function of the laser polarisation which enabled pseudo Stokes parameters to be determined. These pseudo Stokes parameters are functions of both optical pumping parameters and atomic collision parameters. The optical pumping parameters describe the laser-atom interaction and the atomic collision parameters describe the electron-atom collision process. Three different laser excitation mechanisms were used to optically pump the atoms into various excited states. The first of these used a single laser tuned to the 32S 112(F'=2 hyperfine state)-~32P312 transition. The excited atoms underwent a superelastic collision with an electron leaving the atom in the ground state and pseudo Stokes parameters were measured as a function of both scattering angle and incident electron energy. The second superelastic experiment, utilised a folded step excitation mechanism which employed two lasers tuned from the two hypethne states of the 32S112 ground state respectively to the 32P312 excited state. Power broadening effects in the single laser experiment cause the atoms to be optically pumped into the F= 1 hyperfine ground state. The laser powers used were not great enough to power broaden the hyperfine ground states and as such the F'= 1 sublevel effectively acted as a sink. The folded step excitation method enabled the excited state population to be increased so that data at larger scattering angles could be obtained. Stokes parameters from both of these experiments which had an incident energy range of 10eV to 30eV and an angular range of 5°-25° were compared to three current electron-atom scattering theories and previous experimental data. Overall, fair to good agreement was found between theory and experiments for the individual Stokes parameters. Losses of coherence was observed at small scattering angles (50.200) at 20eV and 25eV incident electron energies which were poorly modelled by the three different theories. The third superelastic experiment involved the use of two lasers of specified polarisation to stepwise excite the atoms to the 32D512 excited state. Superelastic collisions with incident electron energies of 20eV from the 32D512-*32P312~312 collision were studied at three different scattering angles and pseudo Stokes parameters for the case where the polarisations of the radiation from the lasers were parallel were measured. The single step and folded step laser-atom interactions for it excitation were modelled using a full quantum electrodynamical treatment so that the optical pumping parameters from the single and folded step experiments could be investigated. Equations of motion were derived in the Heisenberg picture and it is shown that for the single laser case 59 equations of motion are required to fully model the interaction and for the folded step ease 78 equations of motion are required. The results of calculations demonstrated that the optical pumping parameters were sensitive to laser intensity, laser detuning and the Doppler width of the atomic beam. The theoretical quantum electrodynamical calculation results were in good agreement with the experimental results.

Q-switched operation of a holmium-doped fluoride fiber laser at 1.2 mu m wavelength induced by a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) is reported. 650 ns pulses with 0.13 mu J pulse energy at a repetition rate of 260 kHz were obtained.

This thesis describes an experimental study of superelastic electron scattering from the 6^2P_3/2 state of caesium. The present status of electron-atom collision studies is initially reviewed and the motivation behind the current work is then presented. A description of the theoretical framework is subsequently provided in the context of the present experimental study, followed by an overview of the several theoretical approaches for describing electron-atom interactions which are currently available. The apparatus and experimental setup used throughout the project are also described in detail. Technical specifications and data are provided, including diagrams (where appropriate) for a laser frequency locking system, electron gun and spectrometer, atomic beam source and data acquisition system. The experimental procedures are explained and discussed, including a detailed analysis of the optical pumping process required to excite the atomic target. A substantial component of this project was to address several potential sources of systematic error and to reduce these wherever possible. All of the errors and uncertainties relevant to the experiment are discussed in chapter 5. In chapter 6 the results of the present superelastic electron scattering experiments are reported for incident electron energies of 5.5eV, 8.5eV and 13.5eV, corresponding to superelastic electron energies of 7eV, 10eV and 15eV. These results are presented as three reduced Stokes parameters, P1, P2, P3 and a coherence parameter, P+ . For comparison, predictions from a number of currently available theories are presented alongside the experimental results. Finally, conclusions are drawn on this work in the context of the current status of electron-atom scattering from alkali-metals.

Conventional contact ultrasonic methods suffer from large variability, which is known to originate from a number of sources such as coupling variability, and the surface roughness at the transducer/specimen interface. The inherently small higherharmonic signals can be significantly influenced by the changes in contact conditions, especially in nonlinear ultrasonic measurements. For this reason, the noncontact generation and detection techniques are very attractive. This research first focuses on the optical generation of tone-burst surface acoustic waves in a metallic specimen. Two methods that use laser light as an optical source are compared for generating surface acoustics waves in the 5 MHz range. Both the shadow mask and diffraction grating are used to convert a laser pulse to a tone-burst signal pattern on the specimen. The generated signals are detected by a wedge transducer at a fixed location and then the harmonic contents in the generated signals and the repeatability of the methods are evaluated. Finally, the developed method is used to characterize the material nonlinearity of aluminum (Al 6061) and steel (A36). The results showed repeatable measurements for ablative signal excitation on aluminum.

No description available.

La thèse est consacrée au problème fondamental de l'excitation et de la manipulation de systèmes quantiques à spectre d'énergie discret, via des champs lasers externes. Nous examinons le problème semi-classique à deux états quantiques, dépendant du temps, lorsque le champ électromagnétique externe est résonant ou quasi résonant pour deux des nombreux niveaux du système. La thèse est centrée sur la description analytique de l'évolution non adiabatique des systèmes quantiques soumis à une excitation par des configurations de champs avec croisements de niveaux. Dans la présente thèse, nous classifions l’ensemble complet des modèles quantiques à deux états semi-classiques dépendants du temps, qui peuvent être résolus en cinq fonctions de la classe de Heun.Les principaux résultats de la thèse sont :1. Au total, 61 classes infinies de modèles à deux états (i.e. les configurations de champ laser externe) solubles en termes de fonctions de Heun générale et confluentes sont dérivées.2. Dans ces classes infinies, trois sous-modèles originaux avec croisements de niveaux sont identifiés: l'un décrit les croisements infinis de résonance (périodiques), l'autre décrit les croisements de résonance asymétrique avec un temps de processus fini et le dernier décrit les processus de croisements infinis de résonance asymétrique. Le comportement du système quantique à deux états dans ces configurations de champ est analysé de manière exhaustive.3. Les solutions des équations de Heun en termes de fonctions bêta incomplètes, de fonctions hypergéométriques confluentes de Kummer et de fonctions Hermite d'ordre non entier sont construites.4. Des solutions analytiques du problème quantique à deux états sont projetées sur les équations d'onde relativistes et non relativistes : de nouveaux potentiels pour les équations de Schrödinger et de Klein-Gordon sont dérivés et résolus. / The thesis is devoted to the fundamental problem of excitation and manipulation of quantum systems, having discrete energy spectrum, via external laser fields. We examine the semiclassical time- dependent quantum two-state problem, when the external electromagnetic field is resonant or quasi-resonant for some two of many levels of the system. The focus of the thesis is on the analytic description of the non- adiabatic evolution of quantum systems subject to excitation by level-crossing field configurations. In the present thesis we classify the complete set of the semiclassical time-dependent quantum two-state models solvable in terms of the five function of the Heun class.Main results of the thesis are:1. In total 61 infinite classes of two-state models (i.e. external laser field configurations) solvable in terms of general and confluent Heun functions are derived.2. In these infinite classes three original level-crossing submodels are identified: one describes infinite (periodical) crossings of resonance, one describes asymmetric resonance crossing with a finite time of process and the last one describes infinite asymmetric resonance crossing process. The behavior of the two-state quantum system under these field configurations is comprehensively analyzed.3. Solutions of the Heun equations in terms of incomplete Beta functions, Kummer confluent hypergeometric functions and non-integer-order Hermite functions of a shifted and scaled argument are constructed.4. Analytic solutions of the quantum two-state problem are projected on the relativistic and non-relativistic wave-equations: new potentials for the Schrödinger and Klein-Gordon equations are derived and solved.

Mittels spontaner Raman-Streuung im Überschallstrahl wurden kleine Moleküle und Molekülaggregate untersucht. Es wird gezeigt wie Schwingungs- und Rotationstemperaturen im Jet mittels des Stokes/Anti-Stokes-Intensitätsverhältnisses bestimmt werden können. In Studien kleiner Wassercluster konnten Kopplungskonstanten der gebundenen OH-Oszillatoren verschiedener Ringcluster von Trimeren bis Pentameren bestimmt werden, die auch zum Verständnis der Dynamik in kondensierten Phasen relevant sind. Außerdem wird die experimentelle Ermittlung von Enthalpiedifferenzen verschiedener Monomerkonformere zweier isomerisierungsdynamisch sehr unterschiedlicher Systeme vorgestellt. Des Weiteren wurde die Weiterentwicklung der bestehenden Raman-Technik durch Kopplung mit einer IR-Laseranregung realisiert und erste Tests des neuen Aufbaus durch Studien des Methanol-Dimers durchgeführt.

No description available.