The effects of hydration and dehydration of silica-supported vanadia have been investigated with the aim of understanding how these processes alter the structure of the dispersed vanadia. Samples containing either 9 or 12 wt % V2O5/SiO2 were examined by in situ Raman spectroscopy during hydration in 3 kPa water vapor at room temperature and during dehydration at temperatures between 298 and 773 K. The vanadia in freshly dehydrated 9 wt % V2O5/SiO2 is present exclusively in the form of monovanadate species. Monovanadate species are predominant in the 12 wt % V2O5/SiO2, but a small amount of V2O5 is present as well. Room-temperature hydration causes a progressive loss of the Raman band at 1043 cm-1, characteristic of isolated monovanadate species, and the gradual appearance of bands at 1021, 986, 895, 773, 706, 666, 512, 415, 325, 267, and 158 cm-1, characteristic of a hydrated vanadia gel. Dehydration at elevated temperatures decomposes the gel and partially restores the presence of isolated monovanadate species. V2O5 particles are also formed during dehydration. Repeated low-temperature hydration and high-temperature dehydration leads to an irreversible conversion of isolated monovanadate species into V2O5 particles. A mechanism by which this process occurs is proposed.
Abstract not Available.
Optical flow estimation is classically marked by the requirement of dense sampling in time. While coarse-to-fine warping schemes have somehow relaxed this constraint, there is an inherent dependency between the scale of structures and the velocity that can be estimated. This particularly renders the estimation of detailed human motion problematic, as small body parts can move very fast. In this paper, we present a way to approach this problem by integrating rich descriptors into the variational optical flow setting. This way we can estimate a dense optical flow field with almost the same high accuracy as known from variational optical flow, while reaching out to new domains of motion analysis where the requirement of dense sampling in time is no longer satisfied.
Creating a single bandgap solar cell that approaches the Shockley-Queisser limit requires a highly reflective rear mirror. This mirror enhances the voltage of the solar cell by providing photons with multiple opportunities for escaping out the front surface. Efficient external luminescence is a pre-requisite for high voltage. Intermediate mirrors in a multijunction solar cell can enhance the voltage for each cell in the stack. These intermediate mirrors need to have the added function of transmitting the below bandgap photons to the next cell in the stack. In this work, we quantitatively establish the efficiency increase possible with the use of intermediate selective reflectors between cells in a tandem stack. The absolute efficiency increase can be up to ~6% in dual bandgap cells with optimal intermediate and rear mirrors. A practical implementation of an intermediate selective mirror is an air gap sandwiched by antireflection coatings. The air gap provides perfect reflection for angles outside the escape cone, and the antireflection coating transmits angles inside the escape cone. As the incoming sunlight is within the escape cone, it is transmitted on to the next cell, while most of the internally trapped luminescence is reflected.
We report measurements and analyses of noise characteristics of very-high frequency (VHF) silicon nanowire (SiNW) nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). VHF SiNW resonators vibrating at ~200MHz typically have displacement sensitivity of ~5fm/Hz <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1/2</sup> and force sensitivity of 50~250aN/Hz <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">½</sup> , set by thermomechanical fluctuations. They have ~1nm critical amplitude and intrinsic dynamic range of 90~110 dB. Amplifier noise and resistor thermal noise dominate the resonance detection, resulting in in compromised displacement noise floor (typically ≥30fm/Hz <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">½</sup> ), dynamic range (reduced to 70~90dB), and phase noise (≥20~30dB degradation). We develop SiNW-NEMS-based phase-locking techniques to investigate the phase noise and frequency stability performance. Frequency stability of ~0.1ppm and 71 resonant mass sensitivity of ~10zg(1zg=10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-21</sup> g) have been achieved.