ALBERT

Notes: The interaction of continuous CO2 laser radiation with water is described. Tightly focused radiation at powers of up to 120 W is used to generate and maintain a conical depression in the water surface similar to the keyhole created during laser penetration welding. The observed penetration depth of up to 7 mm is explained in terms of a hydrodynamic model and observations on the interaction induced liquid flows are described. The momentum reaction to the flow of steam up out of the keyhole generates a downward flow in the liquid around the keyhole with a velocity of ∼20 cm/s under the conditions of these experiments. The experiment has also been performed under variable gravity conditions provided by the NASA KC-135 Microgravity Aircraft to observe effects associated with changes in hydrostatic pressure and buoyancy on the system.

Notes: Packaging-induced strain is studied in high-power semiconductor lasers by a noninvasive optical technique. Fourier-transform photocurrent measurements with intentionally strained laser array devices for 808 nm emission reveal spectral shifts of optical transitions within the active region. These shifts by up to 10 meV serve as a measure for the strain status within the active layer of the devices and are compared with model calculations. For different packaging architectures we quantify the strain portion which is transmitted to the optically active region of the semiconductor device. © 1999 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: New experimental and theoretical results on TE/TM bistability in 1.3 μm ridge-waveguide InGaAsP/InP bulk lasers at room temperature are presented. Measured polarization resolved light power–current (P–I) characteristics as well as lateral near- and far-field patterns are compared with results from a theoretical model based on the paraxial wave equations for TE- and TM-polarized modes and the diffusion equation for the carrier distribution. The model was numerically evaluated by use of the beam propagation method. The observed TE/TM bistability is explained by the interplay of three different effects: (i) Tensile stress of about 109 dyn/cm2 promotes the TM gain strongly enough to compete with the TE mode. (ii) Improved TM waveguiding due to an enhancement of the effective refractive index near the beam axis caused by carrier depletion with increasing current leads to the onset of TM lasing and TE/TM switching. (iii) The TE/TM transition is accompanied by an abrupt increase of spatial hole burning in the lateral carrier distribution. Because of this nonlinear effect, a lower current is needed to switch the laser back to TE, giving rise to a hysteresis loop in the P–I characteristics and to TE/TM polarization bistability. © 1995 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: The effect of particulate volume fraction vp and diameter dp on the composite Young's modulus Ec is studied both experimentally, using a silica bead/epoxy system, as well as with the help of computer simulations. The experimental and simulation results show that for a given particulate size, the overall Ec vs vp curve displays a concave upward shape and not a linear shape. This superlinear trend of the data implies that the average strain normalized to the applied strain λ=ε¯p/εc transferred to the particulates increases with volume fraction. The above finding is explained in terms of a mean-field picture, where a single particle interacts with an effective medium consisting of the remaining particles embedded in the matrix. As the modulus of the effective medium surrounding a reference particle increases with vp, the modulus mismatch between the reference particulate and the medium is consequently reduced. This leads to an overall increase in the normalized average strain λ transferred to each particulate as vp is increased. The experimental results using silica particulates with various sizes dp, as well as the simulation results, show that smaller particulates provide an increased composite modulus as compared to larger particulates, at constant vp. General equations are developed, which relate the composite modulus to the average particle stress or strain, given only information about the volume fraction and the Young's modulus of each of the phases present.Through the application of these relations, it is found that smaller particulates display a greater amount of normalized average strain λ transferred than larger particulates. The effect of particulate Young's modulus Ep in combination with particulate size on the resulting Ec is also studied using simulations only. It is found that for a low particulate to matrix modulus ratio Ep/Em, the particulate size has very little influence on Ec. Moreover, the shape of the Ec vs vp curve can be well approximated by a straight line up to large values of vp. On the other hand, as the ratio Ep/Em is increased, the superlinear trend of the composite modulus Ec vs vp data is more apparent. This results in a smaller range of the Ec vs vp curve, which can be approximated by a linear function. It is also found that the extent of this linear region also decreases with particle size.

Notes: Light emission from a ridge waveguide 1.3 μm InGaAsP/InP semiconductor laser pumped both electrically and optically was analyzed by polarization- and time-resolved measurements. The electric and the optical excitation was realized with a dc-bias current and with 150 ps pulses from a Q-switched Nd-YAG laser at 1.064 μm wavelength, respectively. The pump light was introduced into the InGaAsP/InP laser through a window opened in the substrate gold contact. The steady-state P–I characteristics of the semiconductor laser exhibited a transition from TM- to TE-polarized light emission if the injection current surpasses a certain value that depends on the heatsink temperature. Depending on the dc-bias current and the optical pulse power, a variety of different emission characteristics of the semiconductor laser were observed: pure TE or TM pulsations, in combination with a background cw emission in some cases; simultaneous emission of TE and TM pulses and switching between TM and TE emission states with switching times as short as 30 ps. © 1997 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: Decays of the diffraction efficiency of gratings written in Fe:LiNbO3 have been studied in connection with photorefractive fixing. Measurements have been carried at five different temperatures within the range of interest in photorefractive fixing, 144–168 °C. The decay curves are nonexponential and can be fitted to a sum of three simple exponential components, whose effective activation energies and preexponential factors have been determined. The dependence of the last exponential component on the grating period Λ has been measured and a 1/Λ2 law has been found. The decay constants have also been found to depend on the time the crystal is kept at the setting temperature before writing the grating. The difficulties for establishing a model taking into account the occurrence of several sites for protons in LiNbO3 are discussed. © 1995 American Institute of Physics.