Specular reflection based sensing surface deformation of gas tungsten arc weld pool

A sensing system is developed to measure the weld pool boundary and pool suoface deformation in gas tungsten arc welding. LaserStrobe technique is used to eliminate the strong arc light inteoference, and specular reflection from the pool suoface is sensed to describe the relation between the deformed stripes and pool surface depression. Clear images of both the pool boundary and the deformed stripes edges are obtained during gas tungsten arc welding process, which lays foundation for realtime monitoring the pool suoface depression and weld penetration.

Comparison between Top and Bottom NiO-pinning Spin Valves: Effect of Interfacial Roughness on Specular Reflection

Top and bottom NiO-pinning spin valves of Si/Ta/NiO/Co/Cu/Co/Ta and Si/Ta/Co/Cu/Co/NiO/Ta were prepared by magnetron sputtering, and X-ray diffraction and giant magnetoresistance （GMR） ratio were measured in the temperature range from 5 to 300 K. For the bottom spin valve, the interracial roughness at NiO/Co is much smaller than that of Co/NiO in the top one. The Co/Cu and Cu/Co interfaces have the same roughness in the bottom and the top spin valves. NiO, Co, and Cu layers have （111） preferred orientations in the top one and random orientations in the bottom one. The GMR ratio of the bottom spin valve is larger than that of the top one at all temperatures and their difference increases with decreasing temperature.

Altimetric Algorithm and Errors of Ocean Altimetry Using GNSS Reflection Signals

As a new remote sensing technology, the global navigation satellite system（GNSS） reflection signals can be used to collect the information of ocean surface wind, surface roughness and sea surface height. Ocean altimetry based on GNSS reflection technique is of low cost and it is easy to obtain large amounts of data thanks to the global navigation satellite constellation. We can estimate the sea surface height as well as the position of the specular reflection point. This paper focuses on the study of the algorithm to determine the specular reflection point and altimetry equations to estimate the sea surface height over the reflection region. We derive the error equation of sea surface height based on the error propagation theory. Effects of the Doppler shift and the size of the glistening zone on the altimetry are discussed and analyzed at the same time. Finally, we calculate the sea surface height based on the simulated GNSS data within the whole day and verify the sea surface height errors according to the satellite elevation angles. The results show that the sea surface height can reach the precision of 6 cm for elevation angles of 55° to 90°, and the theoretical error and the calculated error are in good agreement.

Deposition Mitigation of the First Mirrors Exposed in EAST with Metal and Carbon Mixed Wall Materials

In order to investigate the effect of aperture geometry on deposition mitigation, stainless steel （SS） first mirrors （FMs） were fixed on the holders of protective aperture geometry with different depth-diameter ratios （DDRs） and exposed in the deposition dominated environment of EAST. A baffle was used during the wall conditioning. The surface properties and reflectivity of the FMs were characterized before and after exposure. It is shown that using aperture geometry and a baffle can effectively mitigate the impurities deposition. The degradation of the surface and specular reflectivity of the FMs is reduced with the increase of DDRs in the range of 0 to 2. The main contaminated elements in a low-Z and high-Z mixed wall materials environment were still carbon and oxygen.

Spin transport properties in ferromagnet/superconductor junctions on topological insulator

The spin-dependent Andreev reflection is investigated theoretically by analyzing the electronic transport in a thin-film topological insulator(TI)ferromagnet/superconductor(FM/SC)junction.The tunneling conductance and shot noise are calculated based on the Dirac-Bogoliubov-de Gennes equation and Blonder-Tinkham-Klapwijk theory.It is found that the magnetic gap in ferromagnet can enhance the Andreev retro-reflection but suppress the specular Andreev reflection.The gate potential applied to the electrode on top of superconductor can enhance the two types of reflections.There is a transition between the two types of reflections at which both the tunneling conductance and differential shot noise become zero.These results provide a method to realize and detect experimentally the intra-band specular Andreev reflection in thin film TI-based FM/SC structures.

3D Radiative Transfer Equation Coupled with Heat Conduction Equation with Realistic Boundary Conditions Applied on Complex Geometries

This paper presents the solution of coupled radiative transfer equation with heat conduction equation in complex three-dimensional geometries. Due to very different time scales for both physics, the radiative problem is considered steady-state but solved at each time iteration of the transient conduction problem. The discrete ordinate method along with the decentered streamline-upwind Petrov-Galerkin method is developed. Since specular reflection is considered on borders, a very accurate algorithm has been developed for calculation of partition ratio coefficients of incident solid angles to the several reflected solid angles. The developed algorithms are tested on a paraboloid-shaped geometry used for example on concentrated solar power technologies.

Enhancement of subgap conductance in a graphene superconductor junction by valley polarization

We theoretically study the differential conductance of a graphene/graphene superconductor junction, where the valley polarization of Dirac electrons is considered in the nonsuperconducting region. It is shown that the subgap conductance will increase monotonically with the valley-polarization strength when the chemical potential μ is near the Dirac point μ≤ 3？（？ is the superconducting gap）, whereas it will decrease monotonically when μ is far away from the Dirac point, μ≥ 5？.The former case is induced by the specular Andreev reflection while the retro-reflection accounts for the later result. Our findings may shed light on the control of conductance of a graphene superconductor junction by valley polarization.

Photometric stereo for strong specular highlights

Photometric stereo is a fundamental technique in computer vision known to produce 3D shape with high accuracy. It uses several input images of a static scene taken from one and the same camera position but under varying illumination. The vast majority of studies in this 3D reconstruction method assume orthographic projection for the camera model.In addition, they mainly use the Lambertian reflectance model as the way that light scatters at surfaces.Thus, providing reliable photometric stereo results from real world objects still remains a challenging task. We address 3D reconstruction by use of a more realistic set of assumptions, combining for the first time the complete Blinn–Phong reflectance model and perspective projection. Furthermore, we compare two different methods of incorporating the perspective projection into our model. Experiments are performed on both synthetic and real world images; the latter do not benefit from laboratory conditions. The results show the high potential of our method even for complex real world applications such as medical endoscopy images which may include many specular highlights.

Improved seeded region growing for detection of water bodies in aerial images

In aerial images,near-specular and specular reflection often appear in water bodies.They often lead to irregular brightness or color changes in water bodies and even produce hot spots,harmful to radiometric normalization.Therefore,water bodies must be eliminated when calculating radiometric differences during radiometric normalization of aerial images.In this paper,a simple method to detect water bodies in aerial images based on texture features is presented,an improved seeded region growing(SRG)method.A texture feature is calculated using the relative standard deviation index(RSDI)and a coarse-to-fine procedure is employed.The proposed method includes a multiple partition strategy and a refinement in gradient image that improves the reliability and accuracy of water body detection.By fusing water bodies detected in multiple images,hot spots in these water bodies are also detected.Experiments validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.

Photoswitchable molecular dipole antennas with tailored coherent coupling in glassy composite

Here,we introduce the first experimental proof of coherent oscillation and coupling of photoswitchable molecules embedded randomly in a polymeric matrix and acting cooperatively upon illumination with UV light.In particular,we demonstrate the specular reflection and Brewster phenomenon alteration of photochromic molecular dipole antennas.We successfully demonstrate the concept of Brewster wavelength,which is based on the dipolar interaction between radiating dipoles and the surrounding matrix possessing a net dipole moment,as a key tool for highly localized sensing of matrix polarity.We also introduce the concept of‘tailored molecular photonic coupling’while highlighting the role of interferences for the design of optically active media by adjusting the photonic response of the medium with the real and imaginary refractive index of photoswitchable molecules in the‘ON’state.Our results enhance our fundamental understanding of coherent dipole radiation and open a new vein of research based on glassy disordered dipolar composites that act as macroscopic antenna with cooperative action;furthermore,these results have important implications for new design rules of tailored photonics.

Interplay between magnetic gap and quasiparticle lifetime in topological insulator ferromagnet/f-wave superconductor junctions

Using the modified Blonder-Tinkham-Klapwijk(BTK)theory,the interplay between the lifetime of quasi particles and the magnetic gap in a topological insulator-based ferromagnet/fwave superconductor(TI-based FM/f-wave SC)tunnel structure is theoretically studied.Two symmetries of f_(1) and f_(2) waves are considered for superconducting pairing states.The results indicate that reducing the finite quasi-particle lifetime will induce a transformation of energy-gap peaks into a zero-bias peak in tunneling conductance spectrum,as well as a transformation of energy-gap dips into a zero-bias dip in shot noise spectrum,ultimately resulting in the smoothing of the zero-bias conductance peak and the zero-bias shot noise dip.An increase in magnetic gap will suppress the tunnel conductance and shot noise when the conventional Andreev retroreflection dominates,but will enhance them when the specular Andreev reflection is dominant.Both specular Andreev reflection and conventional Andreev retro-reflection will be enhanced as the quasi-particle lifetime increases.When Fermi energy equals the magnetic gap,shot noise and tunneling conductance vanish across all energy ranges.These findings not only contribute to a better understanding of specular Andreev reflection in the FM/f-wave SC junction based on TIs but also provide insights for experimentally determining the f-wave pairing symmetry.