Volume 23, Issue 2

Over the last twenty years, there has been a growing interest in the design of tunable devices at microwave frequencies by us- ing liquid crystals technology. In particular, the use of liquid crystals with high dielectric anisotropy allows manufacturing voltage-controlled devices to operate in a wide frequency range. In this work the frequency response of a liquid crystal band-pass filter with dual-mode microstrip structure has been studied in depth by using a simulation software tool. A reshap- ing of a conventional dual-mode square patch resonator bandpass filter with a square notch, studied in the literature, has been proposed with the goal of improving the filter performance. The main features achieved are a significant increase in the return loss of the filter and a narrowing of a 3-dB bandwidth. Specifically, a reduction in the filter bandwidth from 800 MHz to 600 MHz, which leads to a return loss increase from 6 dB to 12.5 dB, has been achieved. The filter centre frequency can be tuned from 4.54 GHz to 5.19 GHz.

Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) based on indigo dyes exhibit suitable conversion efficiency. These organic dyes have been undergone for aggregation. Electron transfer process is reduced due to an aggregation of molecular dyes. Therefore, anti-aggregation agent is commonly utilized in fabrication of DSSCs. In the present study, two anti-aggregation agents namely as 3α,7α-dihydroxy-5β-cholanic acid (cheno) and 3α,7α,12α-trihydroxy-5β-cholanic acid (cholic acid) were added to indigo dye solution in DSSCs in order to determine the photovoltaic parameters such as short circuit photocurrent, open circuit voltage and conversion efficiency of each individual dye in the absence and presence of anti-aggregation agents. The results show that the conversion efficiencies are improved with reduced aggregation. Spectrophotometric evaluations of the indigo dyes in solution and on a TiO 2 substrate were carried out in the absence and presence of anti-aggregation agents in order to estimate changes in the status of the dyes in different environments. J-type aggregates on the nano TiO 2 are reduced in the presence of anti-aggregation agents.

The effect of modifications in epi-side (top) gold metallization on a thermal performance and on power roll-over of blue-vio- let III-N-based p-up edge-emitting ridge-waveguide laser diode (RW EEL) was explored in this paper. The calculations were carried out using a two-dimensional self-consistent electrical-thermal model combined with a simplified optical model tuned to a RW EEL fabricated in the Institute of High Pressure Physics (Unipress). Our results suggest that with proper modifica- tions in the III-N-based RW EEL, excluding modifications in its inner structure, it is possible to considerably improve the thermal performance and, thus, increase the maximal output power.

Already published data for the optical band gap (Eg) of thin films and nanostructured copper zinc tin sulphide (CZTS) have been reviewed and combined. The vacuum (physical) and non-vacuum (chemical) processes are focused in the study for band gap comparison. The results are accumulated for thin films and nanostructured in different tables. It is inferred from the re- view that the nanostructured material has plenty of worth by engineering the band gap for capturing the maximum photons from solar spectrum.

The performance of HgCdTe barrier detectors with cut-off wavelengths up to 3.6 μm fabricated using metaloorganic chemi- cal vapour deposition operated at high temperatures is presented. The detectors’ architecture consists of four layers: cap contact, wide bandgap barrier, absorber and bottom contact layer. The structures were fabricated both with n- and p-type absorbing layers. In the paper, different design of cap-barrier structural unit (n-B p′ , n + -B p′ , p+-B p ) were analysed in terms of various electrical and optical properties of the detectors, such as dark current, current responsivity time constant and detectivity. The devices with a p-type cap contact exhibit very low dark current densities in the range of (2÷3)×10 -4 A/cm 2 at 230 K and the maximum photoresponse of about 2 A/W in wide range of reverse bias voltage. The time constant of measured de- vices with n-type cap contact and p-type absorbing drops below 1 ns with reverse bias while the detectivity is at the level of 1010 cm・Hz1/2/W.

A review of night vision metrology is presented in this paper. A set of reasons that create a rather chaotic metrologic situation on night vision market is presented. It is shown that there has been made a little progress in night vision metrology during last decades in spite of a big progress in night vision technology at the same period of time. It is concluded that such a big discrep- ancy between metrology development level and technology development can be an obstacle in the further development of night vision technology.

An efficient operation of a Ho:YLF laser pumped by a Tm-doped fibre laser is reported. The research in a continuous-wave (CW) operation was done for two crystals of the same 0.5 at.%Ho dopant concentration and with different lengths (3×3×30 mm 3 and 3×3×50 mm 3 ). For an output coupling transmission of 20% and a crystal length of 50 mm, the maximum CWoutput power of 38.9 W for 81.4 W of incident pump power, corresponding to the slope efficiency of 52.3% and optical-to-optical conversion efficiency of 47.8% (determined with respect to the incident pump power) was achieved. The highest opti- cal-to-optical conversion efficiency of 70.2% with respect to the absorbed pump power was obtained. The influence of a heat-sink cooling water temperature on theCWlaser performance was studied. For a Q-switched operation the pulse repe- tition frequency (PRF) was changed from 2 to 10 kHz. The maximum average output power of 34.1 W at the PRF of 10 kHz was obtained for a 50 mm holmium crystal length. For 2 kHz PRF and 71.9 W of incident pump power, pulse energies of 13.7 mJ with a 21 ns FWHM pulse width corresponding to 652 kW peak power were recorded.

In this work a review of investigations concerning interaction of intense extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and soft X-ray (SXR) pulses with matter is presented. The investigations were performed using laser-produced plasma (LPP) EUV/SXR sources based on a double stream gas puff target. The sources are equipped with dedicated collectors allowing for efficient focusing of the EUV/SXR radiation pulses. Intense radiation in a wide spectral range, as well as a quasi-monochromatic radiation can be produced. In the paper different kinds of LPP EUV/SXR sources developed in the Institute of Optoelectronics, Military University of Technology are described. Radiation intensities delivered by the sources are sufficient for different kinds of interaction experiments including EUV/SXR induced ablation, surface treatment, EUV fluorescence or photoionized plasma creation. A brief review of the main results concerning this kind of experiments performed by author of the paper are presented. However, since the LPP sources cannot compete with large scale X-ray sources like synchrotrons, free electron lasers or high energy density plasma sources, it was indicated that some investigations not requiring extreme irradiation parameters can be performed using the small scale installations. Some results, especially concerning low temperature photoionized plasmas are very unique and could be hardly obtained using the large facilities.