Propellant Mass Gauging in a Spherical Tank under Micro-Gravity Conditions Using Capacitance Plate Arrays and Machine Learning.

Propellant mass gauging under micro-gravity conditions is a challenging task due to the unpredictable position and shape of the fuel body inside the tank. Micro-gravity conditions are common for orbiting satellites and rockets that operate on limited fuel supplies. Capacitance sensors have been investigated for this task in recent years; however, the effect of various positions and shapes of the fuel body is not analyzed in detail. In this paper, we investigate this with various fill types, such as annular, core-annular, and stratified fills at different positions. We compare the performance among several curve-fitting-based approaches and a machine-learning-based approach, the latter of which offers superior performance in estimating the fuel content.

Generalized Veselago-Pendry lenses via complex transformation optics.

Field solutions for a conventional Veselago-Pendry (VP) flat lens with ϵ=-ϵ 0 and µ=-µ 0 can be derived based on transformation optics (TO) principles. The TO viewpoint makes it clear that perfect imaging by a VP lens is a consequence of multivalued nature of the particular coordinate transformation involved. This transformation is equivalent to a "space folding" whereby one point in the transformed domain (source point) is mapped to three different points in the physical domain (the original source point plus two focal points). In theory, a VP lens would enable the recovery of the entire range of spectral components, i.e. both propagating and evanescent fields, thus characterizing a "perfect lens". Such lens, if lossess, is indeed "perfect" for monochromatic waves; however, for any realistic wave packet the space folding interpretation provided by TO makes it clear that a VP lens violates primitive causality constraints, which precludes any practical realization. Here, we utilize complex transformation optics (CTO) to derive generalized Veselago-Pendry (GVP) lenses without requiring a multivalued transformation. Unlike the conventional VP lens, the proposed lenses can fully recover the evanescent spectra under more general conditions that include the presence of (anisotropic) material loss/gain.

Broadband c-Si metasurfaces with polarization control at visible wavelengths: applications to 3D stereoscopic holography.

Visual arts and entertainment related industries are continuously looking at promising innovative technologies to improve users' experience with state-of-the-art visualization platforms. This requires further developments on pixel resolution and device miniaturization which can be achieved, for instance, with high contrast materials, such as crystalline silicon (c-Si). Here, a new broadband stereoscopic hologram metasurface is introduced, where independent phase control is achieved for two orthogonal polarizations in the visible spectrum. The holograms are fabricated with a birefringent metasurface consisting of elliptical c-Si nanoposts on Sapphire substrate. Two holograms are combined on the same metasurface (one for each polarization) where each is encoded with four phase levels. The theoretical bandwidth is 110 nm with a signal to noise ratio (SNR) >15 dB. The stereoscopic view is obtained with a pair of cross-polarized filters in front of the observers' eyes. The measured transmission and diffraction efficiencies are about 70% and 15%, respectively, at 532 nm (the design wavelength). The metasurfaces are also investigated at 444.9 nm and 635 nm to experimentally assess their bandwidth performance. The stereoscopic effect is surprisingly good at 444.9 nm (and less so at 635 nm) with transmission and diffraction efficiencies around 70% and 18%, respectively.

Highly efficient holograms based on c-Si metasurfaces in the visible range.

This paper reports on the first hologram in transmission mode based on a c-Si metasurface in the visible range. The hologram shows high fidelity and high efficiency, with measured transmission and diffraction efficiencies of ~65% and ~40%, respectively. Although originally designed to achieve full phase control in the range [0-2π] at 532 nm, these holograms have also performed well at 444.9 nm and 635 nm. The high tolerance to both fabrication and wavelength variations demonstrate that holograms based on c-Si metasurfaces are quite attractive for diffractive optics applications, and particularly for full-color holograms.

Tensor Green's function evaluation in arbitrarily anisotropic, layered media using complex-plane Gauss-Laguerre quadrature.

We discuss the application of complex-plane Gauss-Laguerre quadrature (CGLQ) to efficiently evaluate two-dimensional Fourier integrals arising as the solution to electromagnetic fields radiated by elementary dipole antennas embedded within planar-layered media exhibiting arbitrary material parameters. More specifically, we apply CGLQ to the long-standing problem of rapidly and efficiently evaluating the semi-infinite length "tails" of the Fourier integral path while simultaneously and robustly guaranteeing absolute, exponential convergence of the field solution despite diversity in the doubly anisotropic layer parameters, source type (i.e., electric or equivalent magnetic dipole), source orientation, observed field type (magnetic or electric), (nonzero) frequency, and (nonzero) source-observer separation geometry. The proposed algorithm exhibits robustness despite unique challenges arising for the fast evaluation of such two-dimensional integrals. Herein we develop the mathematical treatment to rigorously evaluate the tail integrals using CGLQ, as well as discuss and address the specific issues posed to the CGLQ method when anisotropic, layered media are present. To empirically demonstrate the CGLQ algorithm's computational efficiency, versatility, and accuracy, we perform a convergence analysis along with two case studies related to modeling of electromagnetic resistivity tools employed in geophysical prospection of layered, anisotropic Earth media and validating the ability of isoimpedance substrates to enhance the radiation performance of planar antennas placed in close proximity to metallic ground planes.

Robust computation of dipole electromagnetic fields in arbitrarily anisotropic, planar-stratified environments.

We develop a general-purpose formulation, based on two-dimensional spectral integrals, for computing electromagnetic fields produced by arbitrarily oriented dipoles in planar-stratified environments, where each layer may exhibit arbitrary and independent anisotropy in both its (complex) permittivity and permeability tensors. Among the salient features of our formulation are (i) computation of eigenmodes (characteristic plane waves) supported in arbitrarily anisotropic media in a numerically robust fashion, (ii) implementation of an hp-adaptive refinement for the numerical integration to evaluate the radiation and weakly evanescent spectra contributions, and (iii) development of an adaptive extension of an integral convergence acceleration technique to compute the strongly evanescent spectrum contribution. While other semianalytic techniques exist to solve this problem, none have full applicability to media exhibiting arbitrary double anisotropies in each layer, where one must account for the whole range of possible phenomena (e.g., mode coupling at interfaces and nonreciprocal mode propagation). Brute-force numerical methods can tackle this problem but only at a much higher computational cost. The present formulation provides an efficient and robust technique for field computation in arbitrary planar-stratified environments. We demonstrate the formulation for a number of problems related to geophysical exploration.

Spectral-domain-based scattering analysis of fields radiated by distributed sources in planar-stratified environments with arbitrarily anisotropic layers.

We discuss the numerically stable, spectral-domain computation and extraction of the scattered electromagnetic field excited by distributed sources embedded in planar-layered environments, where each layer may exhibit arbitrary and independent electrical and magnetic anisotropic response and loss profiles. This stands in contrast to many standard spectral-domain algorithms that are restricted to computing the fields radiated by Hertzian dipole sources in planar-layered environments where the media possess azimuthal-symmetric material tensors (i.e., isotropic, and certain classes of uniaxial, media). Although computing the scattered field, particularly when due to distributed sources, appears (from the analytical perspective, at least) relatively straightforward, different procedures within the computation chain, if not treated carefully, are inherently susceptible to numerical instabilities and (or) accuracy limitations due to the potential manifestation of numerically overflown and (or) numerically unbalanced terms entering the chain. Therefore, primary emphasis herein is given to effecting these tasks in a numerically stable and robust manner for all ranges of physical parameters. After discussing the causes behind, and means to mitigate, these sources of numerical instability, we validate the algorithm's performance against closed-form solutions. Finally, we validate and illustrate the applicability of the proposed algorithm in case studies concerning active remote sensing of marine hydrocarbon reserves embedded deep within lossy, planar-layered media.

Lattice models for large-scale simulations of coherent wave scattering.

Lattice approximations for partial differential equations describing physical phenomena are commonly used for the numerical simulation of many problems otherwise intractable by pure analytical approaches. The discretization inevitably leads to many of the original symmetries to be broken or modified. In the case of Maxwell's equations for example, invariance and isotropy of the speed of light in vacuum is invariably lost because of the so-called grid dispersion. Since it is a cumulative effect, grid dispersion is particularly harmful for the accuracy of results of large-scale simulations of scattering problems. Grid dispersion is usually combated by either increasing the lattice resolution or by employing higher-order schemes with larger stencils for the space and time derivatives. Both alternatives lead to increased computational cost to simulate a problem of a given physical size. Here, we introduce a general approach to develop lattice approximations with reduced grid dispersion error for a given stencil (and hence at no additional computational cost). The present approach is based on first obtaining stencil coefficients in the Fourier domain that minimize the maximum grid dispersion error for wave propagation at all directions (minimax sense). The resulting coefficients are then expanded into a Taylor series in terms of the frequency variable and incorporated into time-domain (update) equations after an inverse Fourier transformation. Maximally flat (Butterworth) or Chebyshev filters are subsequently used to minimize the wave speed variations for a given frequency range of interest. The use of such filters also allows for the adjustment of the grid dispersion characteristics so as to minimize not only the local dispersion error but also the accumulated phase error in a frequency range of interest.