Search

An environment friendly nonlinear chalcogenide glass fiber with a Ge-Sb-Se core and a Ge-Se cladding is fabricated for bright broadband mid-infrared ( MIR) supercontinuum ( SC) generation. The fabricated Ge-Sb-Se/Ge-Se fiber with a core diameter of 6 μm shows zero group velocity dispersion at ~4.2 μm and ~7.3 μm. By pumping the fiber with a length of 11 cm at 4.485 μm with 330 fs pulses, we achieve a SC covering the 2.2-12 μm spectral range and with an output average power of ~17 mW. This bright broadband SC source is promising for high-resolution MIR spectroscopy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An enduring question is whether language learning aptitude is a stable trait or is one influenced by experience, such as living with two languages. We investigated aptitude in bilinguals and treated their bilingual experience as an aggregate of variables, focusing on how individual differences in (a) language experience variables of proficiency, exposure, and age of onset and (b) nonverbal IQ explain variability in aptitude. Results from 80 Spanish–English bilinguals in the United States revealed positive relationships between balanced proficiency in Spanish and English, nonverbal IQ, and aptitude for grammatical inferencing. Similar relationships, plus a positive role for more exposure to bilinguals' more dominant language, emerged for aptitude in building sound–symbol associations. No aptitude component related to age of onset and age at testing, nor did any language experience variable or IQ relate to aptitude for sound recognition. We discuss results vis‐à‐vis language and cognition in minority language bilinguals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-purity Ge-As-Se and Ge-As-S chalcogenide glasses were prepared by modified physical and chemical purification techniques. Using the purified glasses, step-index fibers with a small core (~5.5 μm) and large numerical aperture (~1.3) were fabricated. When a 13.5-cm-long fiber was pumped with 320 fs pulses at a repetition rate of 10.5 MHz at 4.1 μm, supercontinuum spanning from ~1.8 to ~9.8 μm with a dynamic range of ±10 dB and an average power of ~3 mW was generated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]