Low Temperature Physics at the Laboratoire National des Champs Magnétiques Pulsés in Toulouse

An overview over past and present activities and future developments at the Toulouse pulsed magnetic field facility is given, both as far as technical developments of the infrastructure, as well as low temperature physics performed at the LNCMP are concerned.     

Volumetric Change and Surface Properties of Temperature-Sensitive Polyvinylalcohol (PVA) Hydrogel

Polyvinylalcohol (PVA) polymer gel is a temperature sensitive polymeric gel, with a critical transition temperature (with H₂O) of 310 K. At higher than 310 K, this temperature sensitive polymer gel shrinks because of discharging water, whereas at lower temperatures, the gel swelled because of absorbing water. The reversibility of the gel's volume change was confirmed by temperature swing. The adsorption behavior of an organic compound onto the PVA polymer gel in water was tested at various temperatures. The amount of adsorbed organic compound increased remarkably at temperatures higher than about 310 K. Then, it was confirmed that the organic compound in PVA polymer gel could be reversibly adsorbed and desorbed by a temperature change between 293 and 323 K. The mechanism of adsorption of the organic compound onto the PVA polymer gel could be explained by hydration and dehydration of polymer gel.     

Microstrip stepped impedance resonator bandpass filter with an extended optimal rejection bandwidth

Bandpass filters with an optimal rejection bandwidth are designed using parallel-coupled stepped impedance resonators (SIRs). The fundamental (f/sub o/) and higher order resonant harmonics of an SIR are analyzed against the length ratio of the high-Z and low-Z segments. It is found that an optimal length ratio can be obtained for each high-Z to low-Z impedance ratio to maximize the upper rejection bandwidth. A tapped-line input/output structure is exploited to create two extra transmission zeros in the stopband. The singly loaded Q(Q/sub si/) of a tapped SIR is derived. With the aid of Q/sub si/, the two zeros can be independently tuned over a wide frequency range. When the positions of the two zeros are purposely located at the two leading higher order harmonics, the upper rejection band can be greatly extended. Chebyshev bandpass filters with spurious resonances up to 4.4f/sub o/, 6.5f/sub o/, and 8.2f/sub o/ are fabricated and measured to demonstrate the idea.     

Mechanical spectroscopy in commercial Fe–6 wt.% Si alloys between 400 and 1000 K

Mechanical spectroscopy, neutron diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) were performed on commercial Fe–6 wt.% Si alloy after quenching from high temperature. The damping spectrum shows a peak at around 800 K and an associated modulus defect. The modulus shows an increase during the second and subsequent heating runs. In addition, an anomaly in the modulus behavior has been found at around 400 K. Different thermal treatments allows to obtain two different recovery degrees of the quenched-in defects. The influence of the recovery degree on the 800 K internal friction peak and on the anelastic modulus has been evaluated and confirm the validity of the grain boundary mechanism associated to this peak. Experimental results are discussed on the basis of recovery and ordering processes.     

Wavelength-tunable 40-GHz picosecond harmonically mode-locked fiber laser source

We demonstrate a novel 40-GHz mode-locked fiber laser that utilizes a single active device to provide both gain and mode-locking. The laser produces pulses as short as 2.2 ps, is tunable over a 27-nm band centered at 1553 nm, and exhibits long-term stability without cavity-length feedback control. The pulse train at 1556 nm was used in a 40-Gb/s transmission experiment over 45 km with a low 0.4-dB power penalty.     

Joint scheduling and power control supporting multicasting in wireless ad hoc networks

This paper addresses the problem of power control in a multihop wireless network supporting multicast traffic. We face the problem of forwarding packet traffic to multicast group members while meeting constraints on the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) at the intended receivers. First, we present a distributed algorithm which, given the set of multicast senders and their corresponding receivers, provides an optimal solution when it exists, which minimizes the total transmit power. When no optimal solution can be found for the given set of multicast senders and receivers, we introduce a distributed, joint scheduling and power control algorithm which eliminates the weak connections and tries to maximize the number of successful multicast transmissions. The algorithm allows the other senders to solve the power control problem and minimize the total transmit power. We show that our distributed algorithm converges to the optimal solution when it exists, and performs close to centralized, heuristic algorithms that have been proposed to address the joint scheduling and power control problem.     

Modification of ASM3 for the determination of biomass adsorption/storage capacity in bulking sludge control.

The selector activated sludge (SAS) systems are known to prevent excessive growth of filamentous microorganisms responsible for bulking sludge, but these systems were hardly ever modelled. This study aimed to develop a model capable of predicting rapid substrate removal in the SAS systems. For this purpose, the Activated Sludge Model No. 3 (ASM3) was extended with three processes (adsorption, direct growth on the adsorbed substrate under aerobic or anoxic conditions). The modified ASM3 was tested against the results of batch experiments with the biomass originating from two full-scale SAS systems in Germany. The endogenous biomass was mixed with various readily biodegradable substrates (acetate, peptone, glucose and wastewater) and the utilisation of substrate (expresses as COD) and oxygen uptake rates (OURs) were measured during the experiments. In general, model predictions fitted to the experimental data, but a considerable number of kinetic (5) and stoichiometric (2) parameters needed to be adjusted during model calibration. The simulation results revealed that storage was generally a dominating process compared to direct growth in terms of the adsorbed substrate utilisation. The contribution of storage ranged from 65-71% (Plant A) and 69-92% (Plant B).