Sharif Digital Repository

Characteristics of a lumped element L-C tank circuit resonator of high-Tc rf-SQUIDs, which plays an important role in the device operation, have been experimentally investigated, according to the corresponding simulations obtained by COMSOL Multiphysics. We experimentally investigated the characteristics of the resonators by measuring their scattering parameters, as well as evaluating the rf-SQUID signal. Our SQUIDs are made of sputtered YBCO thin films with 3-mm-diameter washer areas. Different configurations of the resonator are investigated, and it is observed that, by increasing the thickness of the dielectric in a specific range, the reflection coefficient (S11) increases. For the... 

Geometry of different electromagnetic parts of Vibrating Sample Magnetometer (VSM) is a major factor of VSM output voltage. In this paper design, geometry optimization and implementation of a sensitive, versatile and relatively inexpensive VSM system has been described. Considering all effective geometrical parameters in the system output voltage, the induced voltage in the pick-up coils has been obtained analytically and the geometry of the pick-up coils has been optimized for maximum output induced voltage. Two opposite series of pick-up coils, piezoelectric based vibration system and required electronic circuits have been designed and the VSM system has been implemented. The implemented... 

An active noise cancellation method is proposed for superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUID)-based magnetocardiography systems working out of magnetically shielded rooms. Using YBCO high-Tc rf-SQUID magnetometers as magnetic field sensors, an active shielding system was implemented based on this method. This method incorporates two different shielding frequency regimes of operation simultaneously. This is because the unwanted background magnetic field signals range from very low frequencies up to high frequencies with a wide range of amplitudes at the upper and lower frequency spectra. Therefore, the shielding system is designed in a bistage configuration, and each stage covers... 

Fluxgate magnetometers with different design and core materials have been made. The sensors have been characterized and the frequency responses of the sensors have been measured. The fluxgate magnetometer based on orthogonal design and amorphous wire core working in fundamental mode reaches 30pT/Hz noise level and 40μV/nT sensitivity. Finally an active magnetic shield constructed based on the amorphous core fluxgate magnetometer reaches more than 60dB field attenuation for DC field and has a good response for frequencies below 100Hz  

A new high capacity method for transform domain image steganography is introduced in this paper. The proposed steganography algorithm works on the wavelet transform coefficients of the original image to embed the secret data. As compared to current transform domain data hiding methods, this scheme can provide a larger capacity for data hiding without sacrificing the cover image quality. This is achieved through retaining integrity of the wavelet coefficients at high capacity embedding. This improvement to capacity-quality trading-off interrelation is analyzed in detailed and experimentally illustrated in the paper  

A Non-magnetic scanning Robotic system with special EMC considerations has been designed for SQUID-Based NDE of room temperature stationary samples in unshielded environment. Considerable efforts have been made to cancel out noise of the system which resulted in detection of two major noise sources. Characterizing the noise contribution of the involved parts, a minor noise component was found to be due to the robot and the other due to liquid nitrogen bubbling in some frequencies which could be avoided by choosing proper excitation frequency. Using our NDE system we performed a NDE scan of hidden cracks in aluminum plates with white noise level of 50 μΦ0/ Hz-1/2. © 2008 IOP Publishing Ltd  

This paper introduces an efficient scheme to image steganography by introducing the hidden message (payload) insertion in spatial domain and transforming the stego-image to compressed domain. We apply a recently-proposed LSB method in order to obtain better statistical behavior of the stego-message and subsequently, the obtained stego-image is transformed and quantized in order to enhance the security of hiding. Performance analysis comparisons confirm a higher efficiency for our proposed method. Compared to recently-proposed approaches, our method offers the advantage that it combines an efficient LSB method with transform domain security. © 2009 IEEE  

A RF SQUID electronic system has been implemented which works at the frequency range of 650MHz to 1GHz. By incorporating particle swarm algorithm for the optimization of the system parameters, the readout system could automatically set its parameters for a desired RF SQUID. Using the implemented system, the noise characteristics of a RF SQUID gradiometer is being measured. The measured flux noise of the High-Tc YBCO magnetometer is below 100μ Φ0/ √ Hz at 100Hz in unshielded environment  

Incorporating the finite-element method for the modeling of the SQUID NDE response to a predefined defect pattern, an adaptive algorithm has been developed for the reconstruction of unknown defects using an optimization algorithm for updating of the forward problem. The defect reconstruction algorithm starts with an initial estimation for the defect pattern. Then the forward problem is solved and the obtained field pattern is compared with the measured signal from the SQUID NDE system. The result is used by an optimization algorithm to update the defect structure to be incorporated in the FEM forward problem for the next iteration. Since the mentioned model based inverse algorithm normally... 

Incorporating an efficient approach for the finite-element simulation of eddy current superconductive quantum interface device (SQUID) nondestructive evaluation (NDE) systems, an appropriate finite-element method (FEM) has been presented for simulating and analyzing such systems. We have introduced a new model for the planar double-D coils, which are used as the excitation source in eddy current SQUID NDE systems, and also another model for the description of the flaw effect on the induced current. We have also examined our simulation results with their associated measurements. Our system is based on a high-TC YBCO gradiometer RF-SQUID sensor with a flux noise level below 100 μΦ0 √Hz at 100... 

Incorporating numerical simulation with COMSOL Multiphysics, the aggregation and detection of superparamagnetic nanoparticles in microfluidic channels are investigated. Considering the physical specifications of the implemented microchannels, the parameters which determine the ability of the system for aggregation and detection of the particles are examined and simulated. Based on the simulation results, we propose a new approach for both capturing and detecting of the magnetic nanoparticles passing through microchannels  

A terahertz modulator based on the Type-II superconductor flux flow oscillator has been proposed. Analytical calculations are presented and the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic parameters such as disorder strength of crystal, penetration depth, frequency, and amplitude of the modulated current on the radiation power spectrum have been studied. The proposed structure also exhibits a mixer-like behavior, in the sense that its output harmonics range from the washboard frequency up to the superconductor gap frequency, so the input signal is practically mixed with the washboard frequency and its harmonics. The modulation index for each harmonic of this modulator has also been investigated. This... 

An efficient Non-Destructive Evaluation algorithm has been developed in order to extract the required information for pattern recognition of defects in the conductive samples. Using high-Tc gradiometer RF-SQUIDs in unshielded environments and incorporating an automated two dimensional non-magnetic scanning robot, samples with different intentional defects have been tested. We have used a developed noise cancellation approach for the improvement of the effectiveness of the used inverse-problem technique. In this approach we have used a well examined Finite Element Method (FEM) to apply a noise reduction filtering on the obtained raw magnetic image data before incorporating the signal... 

Incorporating an analytical approach to simulate the interaction of a series of long cracks and the induced current of a double-D excitation coil, we have developed a model-based method to do precise detection of the positions of the cracks in a metallic structure by using eddy-current superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) nondestructive evaluation (NDE) measurements. Conventionally, the structure of the defects is found by iteratively solving a numerical forward problem, which is usually based on finite-element, boundary-element, or volume-integral method. This, however, incurs a heavy numerical burden, as every time the forward problem is to be solved, a rigorous numerical... 

This paper introduces a new method for the least significant bit (LSB) steganography in spatial domain. The new method, called one-third LSB embedding, reduces the probability of change per pixel to one-third without sacrificing the embedding capacity, as compared to previous LSB steganography techniques. This improvement results in a better imperceptibility and higher robustness against well known LSB detectors. Each bit of the message is carried through a function of three adjacent cover pixels and it is shown that no significant improvement is achieved by increasing the length of the pixel sequence employed. ©2009 IEEE  

Comparison of the traditional linear heating method of TPD with an original stepwise heating scheme was reported for the first time. Stepwise heating TPD was carried out by keeping the temperature constant as soon as ammonia desorption signal rises until the signal returns to the baseline. More ammonia desorption peaks on a SAPO-34 catalyst were identified using TPD with stepwise heating. The effect of temperature ramp on desorption peak broadening in TPD curve was also addressed. The more distinct ammonia desorption peaks in stepwise TPD indicates that ammonia adsorbs in about five or six different ways on SAPO-34, and attribution of different adsorptions may be explained considering some... 

Most part of Iran is dominated by arid and semi-arid areas due to low annual rainfall. The need for production of fresh water from brackish water is considerably high, especially in dry regions. In this study 1 month daily-based experimental data from a solar still site has been reported. The technical and operational problems of this site which finally contributed to the total cease of the site are described. Then a detailed analysis is investigated on progress of a prototype which constructed in order to solve the site's problems. The results of 1 month of experimental data of the final design showed that the last prototype could be used to solve the current problems of the site. The... 

Hydrocracking is one of the most versatile petroleum refining processes for production of valuable products including gasoline, gas oil, and jet fuel. In this paper, a five-parameter continuous lumping model was used for kinetic modeling of hydrocracking of vacuum gas oil (VGO). The model parameters were estimated from industrial data obtained from a fixed bed reactor operating at an average temperature of 400°C and residence time of 0.3 h. Product distributions were obtained in terms of the weight fraction of various boiling point cuts. The model parameters were estimated using the Nelder-Mead optimization procedure and were correlated with temperature. Comparison of experimental and...