SEARCH · Engineering Papers
Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Noise from multi-photon emissions can severely limit the use of probabilistic photon sources in quantum repeater chains. We present a Bell state measurement protocol that suppresses noise from multi-pair emissions in quantum repeaters.
Noise from multi-photon emissions can severely limit the use of probabilistic photon sources in quantum repeater chains. We present a Bell state measurement protocol that suppresses noise from multi-pair emissions in quantum repeaters.
We show how to create practical efficient quantum repeaters for optical quantum communication with double-photon guns. These latter devices create event-ready polarization-entangled photon pairs.
The Quantum Communications group at NASA GRC is focused on developing technologies and system architectures to enable future space-based quantum networks. High-repetition rate pulsed pump lasers are needed because the signal on the quantum channel cannot be amplified, hence entanglement generation rates can only be increased through high-rate pumping. Additionally, tunability in center frequency, pulse width, and repetition rate allows for a wider parameter space over which to optimize quantum channel frequency conversion efficiency, joint spectral engineering, and channel synchronization for high-fidelity entanglement swapping –a necessary stepping-stone towards quantum repeater development. One of the most flexible methods for high-repetition rate pulse generation is through spectral shaping–generating a frequency comb from a continuous-wave(CW)laser using electro-optic modulators (EOMs). As a result, this project focuses on analytically modeling and simulating the effects various EOMs such as phase and intensity modulators have on a CW source. Generating a tunable frequency comb as the pump source allows us to conveniently fine-tune the central frequency, repetition rate, and the spectral shape of our source to match the strict optimal parameters for any given entanglement source considered in the future. These models and simulations are to be used for comparison purposes for future experiments as well as for providing the Quantum Communications group a convenient tool to understand the effects of manipulating various parameters have on the outgoing frequency comb.
We describe a quantum error correction scheme that can increase the effective absorption length of the communication channel. This device can play the role of a quantum transponder when placed in series, or a cyclic quantum memory when inserted in an optical loop.
Dot-in-well (DWELL) quantum-dot infrared photodetectors (QDIPs) [DWELL-QDIPs] are subjects of research as potentially superior alternatives to prior QDIPs. Heretofore, there has not existed a reliable method for fabricating quantum dots (QDs) having precise, repeatable dimensions. This lack has constituted an obstacle to the development of uniform, high-performance, wavelength-tailorable QDIPs and of focal-plane arrays (FPAs) of such QDIPs. However, techniques for fabricating quantum-well infrared photodetectors (QWIPs) having multiple-quantum- well (MQW) structures are now well established. In the present research on DWELL-QDIPs, the arts of fabrication of QDs and QWIPs are combined with a view toward overcoming the deficiencies of prior QDIPs. The longer-term goal is to develop focal-plane arrays of radiationhard, highly uniform arrays of QDIPs that would exhibit high performance at wavelengths from 8 to 15 m when operated at temperatures between 150 and 200 K. Increasing quantum efficiency is the key to the development of competitive QDIP-based FPAs. Quantum efficiency can be increased by increasing the density of QDs and by enhancing infrared absorption in QD-containing material. QDIPs demonstrated thus far have consisted, variously, of InAs islands on GaAs or InAs islands in InGaAs/GaAs wells. These QDIPs have exhibited low quantum efficiencies because the numbers of QD layers (and, hence, the areal densities of QDs) have been small typically five layers in each QDIP. The number of QD layers in such a device must be thus limited to prevent the aggregation of strain in the InAs/InGaAs/GaAs non-lattice- matched material system. The approach being followed in the DWELL-QDIP research is to embed In- GaAs QDs in GaAs/AlGaAs multi-quantum- well (MQW) structures (see figure). This material system can accommodate a large number of QD layers without excessive lattice-mismatch strain and the associated degradation of photodetection properties. Hence, this material system is expected to enable achievement of greater densities of QDs and correspondingly greater quantum efficiencies. The host GaAs/AlGaAs MQW structures are highly compatible with mature fabrication processes that are now used routinely in making QWIP FPAs. The hybrid InGaAs-dot/GaAs/AlGaAs-well system also offers design advantages in that the effects of variability of dot size can be partly compensated by engineering quantum-well sizes, which can be controlled precisely.
This report describes the work performed on a one and a half year advance technology program to develop Impurity Band Conduction (IBC) detectors with very low dark current, high quantum efficiency, and with good repeatable processes. The program fabricated several epitaxial growths of Si:As detecting layers from 15 to 35 microns thick and analyzed the performance versus the thickness and the Arsenic concentration of these epitaxial layers. Some of the epitaxial runs did not yield because of excessive residual impurities. The thicker epitaxial layers and the ones with higher Arsenic concentration resulted in good detectors with low dark currents and good quantum efficiency. The program hybridized six detector die from the best detector wafers to a low noise, 256 x 256 readout array and delivered the hybrids to NASA Ames for a more detailed study of the performance of the detectors.
That particles may be accelerated by vacuum effects in quantum field theory has been repeatedly proposed in the last few years. A natural upshot of this is a mechanism for cosmic rays (CR) primaries acceleration. A mechanism for acceleration by the zero-point field (ZPE) when the ZPE is taken in a realistic sense (in opposition to a virtual field) was considered. Originally the idea was developed within a semiclassical context. The classical Einstein-Hopf model (EHM) was used to show that free isolated electromagnrtically interacting particles performed a random walk in phase space and more importantly in momentum space when submitted to the perennial action of the so called classical electromagnrtic ZPE.
This report summarizes the accomplishments during a three year research project to investigate the use of surfaces, particularly in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), to exploit quantum vacuum forces. During this project, we developed AFM instrumentation to repeatably measure Casimir forces in the nanoNewton range at 10 6 torr, designed an experiment to measure attractive and repulsive quantum vacuum forces, developed a QED based theory of Casimir forces that includes non-ideal material properties for rectangular cavities and for multilayer slabs, developed theoretical models for a variety of microdevices utilizing vacuum forces, applied vacuum physics to a gedanken spacecraft, and investigated a new material with a negative index of refraction.
The significance of HgCdTe photodiodes are discussed relative to their existance in heterodyne detection systems operating in the 9 to 11 micrometer CO2 laser wavelength region. Their successful fabrication as well as the physical properties of the materials are described. The implementation of controlled industrial processes are reported with emphasis on the yield of predictable and repeatable detector characteristics to the discriminating systems, demands for high cutoff frequencies, quantum efficiency, and reliability. The most salient production steps and diode characteristics are presented. Measured results from production units are also given.
Precision measurements involve the accurate determination of parameters through repeated measurements of identically prepared experimental setups. For many parameters there is a 'natural' choice for the quantum observable which is expected to give optimal information; and from this observable one can construct an Heinsenberg uncertainty principle (HUP) bound on the precision attainable for the parameter. However, the classical statistics of multiple sampling directly gives us tools to construct bounds for the precision available for the parameters of interest (even when no obvious natural quantum observable exists, such as for phase, or time); it is found that these direct bounds are more restrictive than those of the HUP. The implication is that the natural quantum observables typically do not encode the optimal information (even for observables such as position, and momentum); we show how this can be understood simply in terms of the Hilbert space geometry. Another striking feature of these bounds to parameter uncertainty is that for a large enough number of repetitions of the measurements all V quantum states are 'minimum uncertainty' states - not just Gaussian wave-packets. Thus, these bounds tell us what precision is achievable as well as merely what is allowed.
It has been observed that a carbon nanotube (CNT) AFM tip coated with ethylene diamine (EDA) penetrates the liquid water-air interface more easily than an uncoated nanotube tip. The EDA coating remains intact through repeated cycles of dipping and removal. In order to understand the physical basis for this observation, we use ab initio quantum chemistry calculations to study the EDA-CNT-water interaction and to parameterize a force field describing this system. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are carried out for EDA-water mixtures and an EDA-coated carbon nanotube immmed in water. These simulations are similar to our earlier MD study that characterized the CNT-water interface. The attractive CNT-EDA and CNT-water interactions arise primarily from van der Waals forces, and the EDA-EDA, EDA-water and water-water interactions are mainly due to hydrogen bond formation. The binding energ of single EDA molecule to the nanotube is nearly three times larger than the corresponding value found for water (4.3 versus 1.5 kcal mol, respectively). The EDA molecules readily stick to and diffuse along the CNT surface. As a resulf mixing of the EDA and water films does not occur on the timescale of the MD simulations. The EDA film reduces the hydrophobicity of the nanotube surface and acts like a prototypical surfactant in stabilizing the suspension of carbon nanotubes in water. For this presentation, we use the MD simulations to determine how the presence of the carbon nanotube surface perturbs the properties of EDA-water mixtures.
Snowballs are transient events observed in HgCdTe detectors with a sudden increase of charge in a few pixels. They appear between consecutive reads of the detector, after which the affected pixels return to their normal behavior. The origin of the snowballs is unknown, but it was speculated that they could be the result of alpha decay of naturally radioactive contaminants in the detectors, but a cosmic ray origin cannot be ruled out. Even though previous studies predicted a low rate of occurrence of these events, and consequently, a minimal impact on science, it is interesting to investigate the cause or causes that may generate snowballs and their impact in detectors designed for future missions. We searched for the presence of snowballs in the dark current data in Euclid and Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) detectors tested in the Detector Characterization Laboratory at Goddard Space Flight Center. Our investigation shows that for Euclid and WFIRST detectors, there are snowballs that appear only one time, and others that repeat in the same spatial localization. For Euclid detectors, there is a correlation between the snowballs that repeat and bad pixels in the operational masks (pixels that do not fulfill the requirements to pass spectroscopy noise, photometry noise, quantum efficiency, and/or linearity). The rate of occurrence for a snowball event is about 0.9 snowballs/hr. in Euclid detectors (for the ones that do not have associated bad pixels in the mask), and about 0.7 snowballs/hr. in PV3 Full Array Lot WFIRST detectors.
In 1959, during a famous lecture entitled "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom", Richard Feynman focused on the startling technical possibilities that would exist at the limit of miniaturization, that being atomically precise devices with dimensions in the nanometer range. A nanometer is both a convenient unit of length for medium to large sized molecules, and the root of the name of the new interdisciplinary field of "nanotechnology". Essentially, "nanoelectronics" denotes the goal of shrinking electronic devices, such as diodes and transistors, as well as integrated circuits of such devices that can perform logical operations, down to dimensions in the range of 100 nanometers. The thirty-year hiatus in the development of nanotechnology can figuratively be seen as a period of waiting for the bottom-up and atomically precise construction skills of synthetic chemistry to meet the top-down reductionist aspirations of device physics. The sub-nanometer domain of nineteenth-century classical chemistry has steadily grown, and state-of-the-art supramolecular chemistry can achieve atomic precision in non-repeating molecular assemblies of the size desired for nanotechnology. For nanoelectronics in particular, a basic understanding of the electron transport properties of molecules must also be developed. Quantum chemistry provides powerful computational methods that can accurately predict the properties of small to medium sized molecules on a desktop workstation, and those of large molecules if one has access to a supercomputer. Of the many properties of a molecule that quantum chemistry routinely predicts, the ability to carry a current is one that had not even been considered until recently. "Currently", there is a controversy over just how to define this key property. Reminiscent of the situation in high-Tc superconductivity, much of the difficulty arises from the different models that are used to simplify the complex electronic structure of real materials. A model-independent approach has been proposed, that sacrifices the plentiful molecular orbitals and Bloch functions of conventional approaches, for a single three-dimensional observable quantity, the electron momentum density Pi(sub rho). This quantity is simply the probability of any electron having momentum rho, multiplied by the total number of electrons in the system (the position of the electron is uncertain). We have explored the utility of this new approach in providing a fundamental understanding of the electron transport properties of molecules that have provi been nominated as candidates for components in the design of nanoelectronics; phenylene-ethynylene oligomers. Some of the molecular systems that have been studied are sketched below.
Microchannel plates (MCPs) from seven manufacturers were subjected to a series of tests to determine their suitability for the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer satellite. Comparative data are presented for sixteen MCP tandem pairs with channel length to diameter ratios (l/d) ranging from 40:1 to 60:1 and for two saturable (curved channel) MCPs with l/d's of 80:1. Results for MCPs with funnelled channel throats are also discussed. Properties of the MCPs which were monitored include: background count rate, output charge pulse height distribution (PHD), modal gain, PHD full width half maximum (FWHM), and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photon quantum efficiency. Five detectors were chosen for further lifetime testing consisting of a mild bake to 100 C, and charge extraction to 0.01 coulombs, repeated high voltage cycling and reexposure to one atmosphere conditions. The results of these tests and their implications for the flight detectors are discussed. Erratic events in the detector background were recorded, probably due to field emission from high voltage surfaces or the absorption of water vapor into the electrode following exposure to air. The steps taken to control the detector background are discussed.
The technique of projective measurements in linear optics can provide an apparent, efficient nonlinear interaction between photons, which is technically problematic otherwise. We present an application of such a technique to prepare large photon-number path entanglement.
We present here a combined analysis of four high spectral resolution observations of the Diffuse X-ray Background, made using the University of Wisconsin-Madison/ Goddard Space Flight Center X-ray Quantum Calorimeter sounding rocket payload. The observed spectra support the existence of a ∼0.1 keV Local Hot Bubble and a ∼0.2 keV Hot Halo, with discrepancies between repeated observations compatible with expected contributions of time-variable emission from Solar Wind Charge Exchange. An additional component of ∼0.9 keV emission observed only at low galactic latitudes can be consistently explained by unresolved dwarf M stars.
Combining an appropriate finite difference method with Richardson's extrapolation results in a simple, highly accurate numerical method for solving a Schrodinger's equation. Important results are that error estimates are provided, and that one can extrapolate expectation values rather than the wavefunctions to obtain highly accurate expectation values. We discuss the eigenvalues, the error growth in repeated Richardson's extrapolation, and show that the expectation values calculated on a crude mesh can be extrapolated to obtain expectation values of high accuracy.