Interaction of imploding shock waves with expanding central plasma in spherical pinch experiments: Simulation analysis

In the spherical pinch scheme, the hot D-T plasma produced in the center of the high pressure spherical vessel is confined by means of imploding shock waves launched from the periphery of the vessel for a time sufficiently long to achieve break-even conditions for plasma fusion. Theoretical studies on spherical pinch made so far have been limited up to the conditions of substantial expansion of the central plasma and the well-defined time delay between the creation of central plasma and the launching of the peripheral shock which led to the conclusion that, in realistic situations of SP experiments, negative time delays should be adopted, i.e., the launching of the imploding shock wave should precede the formation of the central plasma. However, the interaction of converging shock wave with the central plasma causing an additional heating and compression of the central plasma favoring plasma fusion conditions was not taken into account. Starting from the hydrodynamic equations of the system, the proposed simulation code deals with the propagation of converging shock waves and its interaction with the expanding central plasma. Considering the above-mentioned interaction in a self-consistent manner, the temporal evolution of temperature of central plasma is studied. Some results of the numerical simulation on the dynamics of shock wave propagation are also compared with the predictions of point strong explosing theory.     

Comparative study of two new commercial echelle spectrometers equipped with intensified CCD for analysis of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

The purpose of this paper is to provide the reader with comparative information about two new commercial echelle spectrometers equipped with intensified CCD (ICCD) detectors for laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy analysis. We carried out a performance comparison between two commercial ICCD/echelle spectrometers [ESA 3000 (LLA Instruments GmbH, Berlin-Adlershof, Germany) and a Mechelle 7500 (Multichannel Instruments, Stockholm, Sweden)] for the determination of the concentrations of Be, Mg, Si, Mn, Fe, and Cu in the same Al alloy samples adopting the same experimental conditions. The results show that both systems, despite their differences in terms of resolution, have similar performance in terms of sensitivity and precision of measurements for these elements in an Al alloy matrix at least for the range of wavelength 280-400 nm studied in this work.     

Multi-wavelength Q-switched Erbium-doped fiber laser with photonic crystal fiber and multi-walled carbon nanotubes

A simple multi-wavelength passively Q-switched Erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) is demonstrated using low-cost multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)-based saturable absorber, which is prepared using polyvinyl alcohol as a host polymer. The multi-wavelength operation is achieved based on non-linear polarization rotation effect by incorporating 50?m long photonic crystal fiber in the ring cavity. The EDFL produces a stable multi-wavelength comb spectrum for more than 14 lines with a fixed spacing of 0.48?nm. The laser also demonstrates a stable pulse train with the repetition rate increasing from 14.9 to 25.4?kHz as the pump power increases from the threshold power of 69.0?mW to the maximum pump power of 133.8?mW. The minimum pulse width of 4.4?μs was obtained at the maximum pump power of 133.8?mW while the highest energy of 0.74 nJ was obtained at the pump power of 69.0?mW.     

Generation of stable and narrow spacing dual-wavelength ytterbium-doped fiber laser using a photonic crystal fiber

Abstract

We demonstrate the design and operation of novel narrow spacing and stable dual-wavelength fiber laser (DWFL). A 70-cm ytterbium-doped fiber has been chosen as the gain medium in a ring cavity arrangement. Our design includes a short length photonic crystal fiber, acting as a dual-wavelength stabilizer based on its birefringence coefficient and nonlinear behavior and tunable band pass filter (TBPF) to achieve narrow spacing spectrum lasing. Our laser output is considered to be highly stable, with power fluctuation less than 0.8 dB over a period of 15 min. The flexibility and tunability of TBPF, together with polarization controller enable the spacing tuning of the DWFL from 0.03 nm up to 0.07 nm for 1040 nm region, and 0.10 nm up to 0.40 nm for 1060 nm region. The tunable wavelength spacing shows the flexibility of the DWFL in addition to stable and reliable properties of fiber laser in 1-μm region.