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At the Jyvaskyla Ion Guide Isotope Separator On-Line (IGISOL) facility, independent fission yields are measured employing the Penning-trap technique. Fission products are produced, e.g. by impinging protons on a uranium target, and are stopped in a gas-filled chamber. The products are collected by a flow of He gas and guided through a mass separator to a Penning trap, where their masses are identified. This work investigates how fission-product properties, such as mass and energy, affect the ion stopping efficiency in the gas cell. The study was performed using the Geant4 toolkit and the SRIM code. The main results show a nearly mass-independent ion stopping with regard to the wide spread of ion masses and energies, with a proper choice of uranium target thickness. Although small variations were observed, in the order of 5%, the results are within the systematic uncertainties of the simulations. To optimize the stopping efficiency while reducing the systematic errors, different experimental parameters were varied; for instance material thicknesses and He gas pressure. Different parameters influence the mass dependence and could alter the mass dependencies in the ion stopping efficiency.

Two-wave mixing of phase-modulated beams in photorefractive crystals under a dc electric field is studied both theoretically and experimentally. Based on the vectorial theory of light diffraction in crystals of cubic symmetry, we derived an analytical expression that describes the phase demodulation in crystals with an arbitrarily oriented electric field. The phase-demodulation technique was used for estimation of the space-charge field created in photorefractive crystals. It is shown that the space-charge-field grating created in GaP and Bi12TiO20 crystals is much smaller than that predicted from the one-level band-transport model of the photorefractive effect.

We present an experimental study of the self-pumped phase-conjugate-mirror (SPPCM) recording in a Bi12TiO20 sample due to the partial internal reflection of the pump beam from the rear face. SPPCM has been recorded under an external alternating electric field of a square-wave form with response time equal to 170 s at the pump beam intensity of 520 mW/cm2. The mechanism of the SPPCM formation is similar to that of photorefractive double-phase-conjugate mirrors. The most effective SPPCM is recorded at the much larger pump-beam-incident angle than it could be supposed from the typical angular dependence of the two-wave-mixing gain factor. Strong dependence of the gain distribution on the pump-beam-propagation angle is observed. It is found that the response time strongly depends on the preliminary history of the sample.

The experimental study of the in-plain vibration of the speckle pattern in photorefractive GaP and BTO crystals using the polarization self-modulation effect are presented. The simple model based on the propagation of the Gaussian beam through the crystal with recorded space-charge field is proposed to explain main features of the experiment. It is shown that these results allow designing a linear sensor of the speckle-pattern displacement in an effective way. The optical system is very simple and does not include any reference or readout beam. The sensitivity of this system is the same as that of an interferometer.

Experimental results on magnetic resonance (ESR) and magnetic susceptibility are given for single crystalline (VO)$_2$P$_2$O$_{7}$. The crystal growth procedure is briefly discussed. The susceptibility is interpreted numerically using a model with alternating spin chains. We determine $J$=51 K and $\delta$=0.2. Furthermore we find a spin gap of $\approx 6$meV from our ESR measurements. Using elastic constants no indication of a phase transition forcing the dimerization is seen below 300 K.

We report on the photonic band gap effect in the visible range in a three-dimensional dielectric lattice formed by closely packed silica spherical clusters and by interconnected cavities filled with various liquids. The spectral position and the spectral width of the optical "stop-band" depend on the lattice period and on the relative sphere/cavity refraction indexn. The stop band peak wavelength shows a linear dependence on n. Transmission characteristics of the lattice have been successfully simulated by numerical calculations within the framework of a quasicrystalline approximation.

The spectra of transmission and reflection of synthetic opal which has 3-dimensional periodic structure were measured at different orientations of incident beam relative to the sample facets. It is shown that opal behaves as «semi-metallic» photonic band gap (PBG) material in the vicinity of photon energy 2.3 eV. The synthesis of CdS microcrystals embedded in the pores of opal was made for the first time in an attempt to form a system of quantum dots. Optical spectra (reflection and transmission, photoluminescence and Raman scattering) were studied. The results demonstrate good crystallinity of microcrystals embedded in opal matrix and exhibit well-pronounced quantum confinement effects in fundamental edge absorption spectra. The spectral overlap of the PBG of opal with electronic band gap of many of II–VI semiconductors seems to make opal/semiconductor system a promising media for experimental studies of such PBG-related effects as inhibition of spontaneous emission, microcavity polariton, etc.

Experimental results for two-wave mixing experiments in a single Bi12TiO20 fibre-type crystal at a wavelength of 632.8 nm under transverse a.c. electric field are reported. An exponential gain factor Γ=4.7 cm-1, which is much higher than the absorption coefficient (0.6 cm-1), is obtained. It is observed that the signal beam enhancement is in fact signal beam depletion for spatial frequencies higher than FB, which is determined by fibre geometry. An unusually strong dependence of response time on the recording beams intensities ratio reflects the nonlinearities of the multi-two-wave mixing process.