Quantitative evaluation of extrinsic factors influencing electrical excitability in neuronal networks： Voltage Threshold Measurement Method(VTMM)

The electrical excitability of neural networks is influenced by different environmental factors. Effective and simple methods are required to objectively and quantitatively evaluate the influence of such factors, including variations in temperature and pharmaceutical dosage. The aim of this paper was to introduce ‘the voltage threshold measurement method＇, which is a new method using microelectrode arrays that can quantitatively evaluate the influence of different factors on the electrical excitability of neural networks. We sought to verify the feasibility and efficacy of the method by studying the effects of acetylcholine, ethanol, and temperature on hippocampal neuronal networks and hippocampal brain slices. First, we determined the voltage of the stimulation pulse signal that elicited action potentials in the two types of neural networks under normal conditions. Second, we obtained the voltage thresholds for the two types of neural networks under different concentrations of acetylcholine, ethanol, and different temperatures. Finally, we obtained the relationship between voltage threshold and the three influential factors. Our results indicated that the normal voltage thresholds of the hippocampal neuronal network and hippocampal slice preparation were 56 and 31 m V, respectively. The voltage thresholds of the two types of neural networks were inversely proportional to acetylcholine concentration, and had an exponential dependency on ethanol concentration. The curves of the voltage threshold and the temperature of the medium for the two types of neural networks were U-shaped. The hippocampal neuronal network and hippocampal slice preparations lost their excitability when the temperature of the medium decreased below 34 and 33°C or increased above 42 and 43°C, respectively. These results demonstrate that the voltage threshold measurement method is effective and simple for examining the performance/excitability of neuronal networks.

Photo-Doped Active Electrically Controlled Terahertz Modulator

We demonstrate an electric-controlled terahertz（THz） modulator which can be used to realize amplitude modulation of terahertz waves with slight photo-doping. The THz pulse transmission was efficiently modulated by electrically controlling the monolayer silicon-based device. The modulation depth reached 100% almost when the applied voltage was 7V at an external laser intensity of 0.6W/cm2. The saturation voltage reduced with the increase of the photo-excited intensity. In a THz continuous wave（CW）system, a significant fall in both THz transmission and reflection was also observed with the increase of applied voltage. This reduction in the THz transmission and reflection was induced by the absorption for electron injection. The results show that a high-efficiency and high modulation depth broadband electric-controlled terahertz modulator in a pure Si structure has been realized.

Design and Comparison of Electrically Excited Double Rotor Flux Switching Motor Drive Systems for Automotive Applications

This paper presents a cost-effective driving system for automotive applications based on a double rotor electrically excited flux switching machine(FSM).Benefiting from a double rotor topology,this FSM can realize a drum winding design and thus winding ends are effectively shorten and the copper loss is mitigated.The machine structure,operation principle and design consideration are studied and further verified by time-stepping finite element method.Moreover,three topologies of drive circuit for the proposed FSM are introduced.By using electromagnetic-circuit coupling simulation,a comparison between three different three drive systems are performed,with focus on the system cost and overall electromagnetic performance,especially the effect of current control and torque ripple.A prototype is established and tested.Relevant experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed new FSM drive system.

Effective Lifetime Experimental Measurement under External Magnetic Field in Transient Dynamic State by Open Circuit Voltage Decay Method

In this work, we present an experimental transient 3-Dimensionnal study for the minority charge carriers’ effective lifetime measurement under magnetic field in transient dynamic state. The magnitude of the magnetic field B is varied from 0 mT to 0.03 mT. The method used is mainly based on the open circuit voltage decay method. The solar cell is injected by a low electrical excitation which protects against capacitance effects. Our approach is based on the open circuit voltage decay response analysis. From an experimental set-up, we get the transient voltage data on a digital scope. The data are used for plotting transient voltage decay curves. The curves obtained and analyzed are fitted in their linear zone. This zone presents an ideal decay which permits to get good values of lifetime. The slope of the linear decay is inversely proportional to effective lifetime. The results of fitting permit determinate the effective charge carriers’ lifetime directly. The results obtained are then presented and analyzed. The observations indicate that the charge carriers effective lifetime decrease when the magnetic field increases.

Equivalent circuit and characteristic simulation of a brushless electrically excited synchronous wind power generator

A brushless electrically excited synchronous generator （BEESG） with a hybrid rotor is a novel electrically excited synchronous generator. The BEESG proposed in this paper is composed of a conventional stator with two different sets of windings with different pole numbers, and a hybrid rotor with powerful coupling capacity. The pole number of the rotor is different from those of the stator windings. Thus, an analysis method different from that applied to conventional generators should be applied to the BEESG. In view of this problem, the equivalent circuit and electromagnetic torque expression of the BEESG are derived on the basis of electromagnetic relation of the proposed generator. The generator is simulated and tested experimentally using the established equivalent circuit model. The experimental and simulation data are then analyzed and compared. Results show the validity of the equivalent circuit model.

Application of electric field ionization method to detect the high-lying Rydberg states of Eu I

The 4f^76s（~9S）np 8 P J （J = 5/2, 7/2, 9/2） Rydberg series converging to the first ionization limit 4f 7 6s 9 S 4 of the Eu atom using the three-step laser excitation and electric-field-ionization （EFI） method are studied. First, the Eu atom is excited from the 4f 7 6s 2 8 S o 7/2 ground state to the 4f 7 6s7s 8 S o 7/2 state through the 4f 7 6s6p 10 P 9/2 state by the first two dye lasers. Next, it is populated to many higher-n members of the 4f 7 6s（ 9 S）np 8 P J Rydberg series by the third dye laser whose wavelength is scanned within a certain range. Finally, the atom in these higher-n states is ionized by the external pulsed electric field. With the field strength up to 2 kV/cm, we can detect the atom in 4f 7 6s（ 9 S）np 8 P J states with n 40. With the given laser line width, the level energies of Rydberg states with n as high as 72 can be determined. We not only confirm the previous data on the 4f 7 6s（ 9 S） np 8 P J Rydberg series, but also extend the n-value assignment significantly by detecting more states.

Current-voltage characteristics of light-emitting diodes under optical and electrical excitation

The factors influencing the current-voltage（I-V） characteristics of light-emitting diodes（LEDs） are investigated to reveal the connection of I-V characteristics under optical excitation and those under electrical excitation.By inspecting the I-V curves under optical and electrical excitation at identical injection current,it has been found that the I-V curves exhibit apparent differences in voltage values.Furthermore,the differences are found to originate from the junction temperatures in diverse excitation ways.Experimental results indicate that if the thermal effect of illuminating spot is depressed to an ignorable extent by using pulsed light,the junction temperature will hardly deflect from that under optical excitation,and then the I-V characteristics under two diverse excitation ways will be the same.

Research on a direct torque control for an electrically excited synchronous motor drive with low ripple in flux and torque

The electrically excited synchronous motor(ESM)has typically small synchronous inductance values and quite low transient values because of the damper windings mounted on the rotor.Therefore,the torque and stator flux linkage ripples are high in the direct torque control(DTC)drive of the ESM with a torque and flux linkage hysteresis controller(basic DTC).A DTC scheme with space vector modulation(SVM)for the ESM was investigated in this paper.It is based on the compensation of the stator flux link-age vector error using the space vector modulation in order to decrease the torque and flux linkage ripples and produce fixed switching frequency under the principle that the torque is controlled by the torque angle in the ESM.Compared with the basic DTC,the results of the simulation and experiment show that the torque and flux linkage ripples are reduced,the maximum current value is decreased during the startup,and the current distortion is much smaller in the steady-state under the SVM-DTC.The field-weakening control is incorporated with the SVM-DTC successfully.

Photoemission mechanisms of methane in intense laser fields

The visible and near-UV emission spectroscopy of methane （CH4） induced by a femtosecond intense laser field （800 nm, 40 fs, 1014 W/cm2） is studied. By measuring the decay profiles of the neutral fragment product CH （A2△→X2П）, two reaction pathways, i.e., the electron-ion recombination through e- ＋ CH＋ and the direct disintegration of CH＋ are found to be responsible for populating the electronic excited states of the neutral fragment product CH, which gives rise to the photoemissions. Our results provide complementary information on previous understanding of the strong-field-induced photoemission mechanism of CH4 through neutral dissociation of superexcited states.

RF excited diffusively cooled all-metal slab waveguide CO_2 laser

In this paper, a new type of radio frequency （RF） excited diffusively cooled all-metal slab waveguide CO2 laser is presented, in which the waveguide channel is constructed by two aluminum side walls and two aluminum electrodes, the discharge is confined in the slab waveguide channel in terms of the voltage division structure. From this type of structure, 127-W laser power is obtained.

Multimode resonance bandpass filter with twin wideband channels

A bandpass filter with twin wideband channels in a single-layer guided-mode resonance grating is presented. Strong refractive-index modulation is used to support the excitation of multimode resonances TEl,0, TEl,l, TE2,0, TEl,2, and TE2,1, which are excited by the first and second diffraction orders, relate asymmetrical line shapes and broad low-transmission bands, where TE is the transverse electric. Taking advantage of narrow linewidth and sharp edge line shape in the spectra of TE2,, （v is the mode）, a bandpass filter with form factors of 0.61 and 0.7 for long- and short-wave channels is presented to demonstrate this concept.

Theoretical study of Pr^(3+):ZBLAN upconversion ultraviolet fiber laser based on 4f5d state

A theoretical study of the kinetics of two-step-excitation upconversion ultraviolet cw fiber laser based on the 4f5d state in Pr3+:ZBLAN is performed using steady population rate equations and light propagation equations. Under different Pr3+ concentrations, the dependence of the threshold pump powers on the other pump power, the variations of laser output power with reflectivity of output coupler, pump powers and fiber length as well as the dependence of the optimum fiber length on pump powers are investigated. The results predict some optimum laser parameters for maximizing output power.

Conditional quantum CNOT gate between two four-level atoms

We propose a scheme to implement a quantum controlled-NOT (CNOT) gate between two four-level atoms inside the detuned optical cavity. The system state is evolved inside the decoherence-free (DF) subspace through stimulated Raman processes, which yields the desired unitary evolution operation for the CNOT. Our scheme is immune to decoherence due to dissipation of cavity excitation and spontaneous emission from the excited atomic level.