Simulation Monitoring for Rainfall Infiltration in Soil Based on High Density Electrical Method

Rainfall infiltration is a porous medium flow problem with variable saturation. Based on the theoretical analysis of the flow field, electrical conductivity of rocks, the electrical field, the paper simulates the coupling relationship between the water saturation in soil and the apparent resistivity distribution. It combines the Richards equation, the Archie formula and the Laplace equation. The experiment simulates the potential field data by the Wenner setting in electrical exploration on a two-layer geologic model with continuous rainfall during 5 days, which shows that the effective saturation in soil is increasing with the rainfall time, while the apparent resistivity is decreasing. This can provide a theoretical basis for the analyzing the rainfall infiltration and porosity of the soil by using high-density electrical method in the future.

Electric field effect in ultrathin zigzag graphene nanoribbons

The electric field effect in ultrathin zigzag graphene nanoribbons containing only three or four zigzag carbon chains is studied by first-principles calculations, and the change of conducting mechanism is observed with increasing in-plane electric field perpendicular to the ribbon. Wider zigzag graphene nanoribbons have been predicted to be spin-splitted for both valence band maximum（VBM） and conduction band minimum（CBM） with an applied electric field and become half-metal due to the vanishing band gap of one spin with increasing applied field. The change of VBM for the ultrathin zigzag graphene nanoribbons is similar to that for the wider ones when an electric field is applied. However, in the ultrathin zigzag graphene nanoribbons, there are two kinds of CBMs, one is spin-degenerate and the other is spin-splitted, and both are tunable by the electric field. Moreover, the two CBMs are spatially separated in momentum space. The conducting mechanism changes from spin-degenerate CBM to spin-splitted CBM with increasing applied electric field. Our results are confirmed by density functional calculations with both LDA and GGA functionals, in which the LDA always underestimates the band gap while the GGA normally produces a bigger band gap than the LDA.

Experimental Measurement of the Generalized Stokes Parameters of a Radially Polarized Random Electromagnetic Beam

Utilizing the Young’s double slits and Mach-Zehnder interferometer, we proposed an experimental method to measure the generalized Stokes parameters of a radially polarized random electromagnetic beam. After the partially coherent beam propagating through the Young’s double slits, the interference fringe is obtained by the help of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer consisting of apertures, quarter-wave plates and polarizers. The electric cross-spectral density matrix is detected by the coherence degree of interference fringe and the density of each single slit. The generalized Stokes parameters can be obtained from the electric cross-spectral density matrix. This experiment measures the generalized Stokes parameters of the random electromagnetic beam successfully. The results show that the spectral degree of coherence for copolarized cases (xx and yy) is similar with that for cross-polaried cases (xy and yx) for the radially polarized random electromagnetic beam. This method will help us determine the change of the polarization and coherence of the light in propagation by detecting the change of the generalized Stokes parameters.