1.47 /spl mu/m Tm/sup 3+/:ZBLAN fibre laser pumped at 1.064 /spl mu/m

A large core area (1257 /spl mu/m/sup 2/) Tm/sup 3+/-doped ZBLAN fibre laser operated at 1.47 /spl mu/m is demonstrated. The pump source is a Nd:YAG laser operated at 1.064 /spl mu/m. A laser output power of 1.56 W continuous wave was obtained for 5.2 W of launched pump power. The slope efficiency with respect to the launched pump power was measured to be 33%.     

Precisely Controlled Microsphere Design via Visible‐Light Cross‐Linking of Functional Prepolymers

A new strategy for particle synthesis is enabled by utilizing modern synthetic, polymer, and photochemical techniques to facilitate the synthesis of highly narrow–disperse multifunctional microspheres from visible‐light induced crosslinking of prepolymers in both a single and dual polymer system. The approach requires no stabilizers, bases, or initiators, and proceeds at ambient temperature to yield microspheres with a tunable size range (0.25–5 µm) in less than 4 h, depending largely on solvent composition, but also polymer concentration (2–10 mg mL^?1), ratio, and irradiation intensity (3–20 W). Critically, the visible‐light induced dimerization reaction exploited herein enables simple functional particle syntheses via a single polymer system. Underpinned by an in‐depth kinetic analysis of the particle formation as well as a detailed small molecule study, the mechanism for particle formation is also elucidated. Importantly, inherent advantages of the system are exploited for surface functionalization of residual acrylate and hydroxyl groups (generating inherently fluorescent particles).     

Ultrasensitive Strain Gauges Enabled by Graphene‐Stabilized Silicone Emulsions

Here, an approach is presented to incorporate graphene nanosheets into a silicone rubber matrix via solid stabilization of oil‐in‐water emulsions. These emulsions can be cured into discrete, graphene‐coated silicone balls or continuous, elastomeric films by controlling the degree of coalescence. The electromechanical properties of the resulting composites as a function of interdiffusion time and graphene loading level are characterized. With conductivities approaching 1 S m^?1, elongation to break up to 160%, and a gauge factor of ≈20 in the low‐strain linear regime, small strains such as pulse can be accurately measured. At higher strains, the electromechanical response exhibits a robust exponential dependence, allowing accurate readout for higher strain movements such as chest motion and joint bending. The exponential gauge factor is found to be ≈20, independent of loading level and valid up to 80% strain; this consistent performance is due to the emulsion‐templated microstructure of the composites. The robust behavior may facilitate high‐strain sensing in the nonlinear regime using nanocomposites, where relative resistance change values in excess of 10⁷ enable highly accurate bodily motion monitoring.     

A 100-V lateral DMOS transistor with a 0.3-micrometer channel in a1-micrometer silicon-film-on-insulator-on-silicon

A novel LDMOS transistor structure with breakdown voltages above 100 V has been fabricated in silicon-on-insulator-on-silicon (SOIS). This structure has been fabrication by silicon direct bonding (SDB) and etch-back to a typical film thickness of 1 μm. The silicon carrier layer (handle) serves as a back-gate electrode, which, under proper bias, improves the transistor characteristics significantly. The effective channel length or basewidth is 0.3 μm. Under these conditions, the drift region becomes the current-limiting element. The physics in the drift region in thin silicon films (⩽1 μm) in the transistor on-state is dominated by the injected electrons from the channel. The limitation of the maximum drain current is given by the quasi-saturation effect. Criteria for the further optimization of SOIS LDMOS transistors are presented     

Self‐Assembled Conjugated Thiophene‐Based Rotaxane Architectures: Structural,Computational, and Spectroscopic Insights into Molecular Aggregation

A comparative study of the self‐assembly at a variety of surfaces of a dithiophene rotaxane 1 ?β‐CD and its corresponding dumbbell, 1, by means of atomic force microscopy (AFM) imaging and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) imaging on the micrometer and nanometer scale, respectively. The dumbbell is found to have a greater propensity to form ordered supramolecular assemblies, as a result of π–π interactions between dithiophenes belonging to adjacent molecules, which are hindered in the rotaxane. The fine molecular structure determined by STM was compared to that obtained by molecular modelling. The optical properties of both rotaxane and dumbbell in the solid state were investigated by steady‐state and time‐resolved photoluminescence (PL) experiments on spin‐cast films and diluted solutions. The comparison between the optical features of the threaded and unthreaded systems reveals an effective role of encapsulation in reducing aggregation and exciton migration for the rotaxanes with respect to the dumbbells, thus leading to higher PL quantum efficiency and preserved single‐molecule photophysics for longer times after excitation in the threaded oligomers.     

Interfacial Strain Gradients Control Nanoscale Domain Morphology in Epitaxial BiFeO3 Multiferroic Films

Domain switching pathways fundamentally control performance in ferroelectric thin film devices. In epitaxial bismuth ferrite (BiFeO₃) films, the domain morphology is known to influence the multiferroic orders. While both striped and mosaic domains have been observed, the origins of the latter have remained unclear. Here, it is shown that domain morphology is defined by the strain profile across the film–substrate interface. In samples with mosaic domains, X‐ray diffraction analysis reveals strong strain gradients, while geometric phase analysis using scanning transmission electron microscopy finds that within 5 nm of the film–substrate interface, the out‐of‐plane strain shows an anomalous dip while the in‐plane strain is constant. Conversely, if uniform strain is maintained across the interface with zero strain gradient, striped domains are formed. Critically, an ex situ thermal treatment, which eliminates the interfacial strain gradient, converts the domains from mosaic to striped. The antiferromagnetic state of the BiFeO₃ is also influenced by the domain structure, whereby the mosaic domains disrupt the long‐range spin cycloid. This work demonstrates that atomic scale tuning of interfacial strain gradients is a powerful route to manipulate the global multiferroic orders in epitaxial films.     

Configuration Q-switching in a diode-pumped multirodvariable-configuration resonator

We report on a novel technique for Q-switching at high repetition rates, where the change in the Q of the cavity is due to the capability of a variable-configuration multirod resonator (VCR) to switch between an unstable Fabry-Perot configuration and a stable ring configuration. The switching between the configurations is accomplished simply by the means of a Pockels cell. Using the new Q-switching technique, 35-ns-long pulses with a peak power of 17 kW at a repetition rate of 4 kHz, giving an average power of 2.4 W, were obtained     

Introducing Widget-based IMS Client Applications

Classic telecommunication methods and Internet services are converging. For this reason Telecommunication companies are looking for new ways to include their services in Web 2.0 applications. A strong candidate for the telecommunication infrastructure of the future is the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), an all IP telecommunication core network. In the last few years a new kind of application has increasingly gained popularity: they are known as widgets. Widgets are small but fancy applications based on Web technologies that are very easy to develop. This paper describes a new approach to combining widgets with telecommunication features, such as Voice over IP calls or messaging, using IMS. Our solution includes a new abstraction layer with interfaces for the different telecommunication capabilities. Moreover, we implemented a widget engine that makes these telecommunication interfaces available to its widgets. Our solution allows the rapid development of new IMS client applications and a short time-to-market. The combination of other Web 2.0 services with IMS features becomes an exploitable opportunity.