Recent studies have demonstrated that ammonia is an emerging energy vector for the distribution of hydrogen from stranded sources. However, there are still many unknown parameters that need to be understood before ammonia can be a substantial substitute in fuelling current power generation systems. Therefore, current attempts have mainly utilised ammonia as a substitute for natural gas (mainly composed of methane) to mitigate the carbon footprint of the latter. Co-firing of ammonia/methane is likely to occur in the transition of replacing carbonaceous fuels with zero-carbo options. Hence, a better understanding of the combustion performance, flame features, and radical formation of ammonia/methane blends is required to address the challenges that these fuel combinations will bring. This study involves an experimental approach in combination with numerical modelling to elucidate the changes in radical formation across ammonia/methane flames at various concentrations. Radicals such as OH*, CH*, NH*, and NH₂* are characterised via chemiluminescence whilst OH, CH, NH, and NH₂ are described via RANS κ-ω SST complex chemistry modelling. The results show a clear progression of radicals across flames, with higher ammonia fraction blends showing flames with more retreated shape distribution of CH* and NH* radicals in combination with more spread distribution of OH*. Simultaneously, equivalence ratio is a key parameter in defining the flame features, especially for production of NH₂*. Since NH₂* distribution is dependent on the equivalence ratio, CFD modelling was conducted at a constant equivalence ratio to enable the comparison between different blends. The results denote the good qualitative resemblance between models and chemiluminescence experiments, whilst it was recognised that for ammonia/methane blends the combined use of OH, CH, and NH₂ radicals is essential for defining the heat release rate of these flames.

The formation and evolution of spin wave band gaps in the transmission spectrum of a magnonic crystal have been studied. A time and space resolved magneto inductive probing system has been used to map the spin wave propagation and evolution in a geometrically structured yttrium iron garnet film. Experiments have been carried out using (1) a chemically etched magnonic crystal supporting the propagation of magnetostatic surface spin waves, (2) a short microwave pulsed excitation of the spin waves, and (3) direct spin wave detection using a movable magneto inductive probe connected to a synchronized fast oscilloscope. The results show that the periodic structure not only modifies the spectra of the transmitted spin waves but also influences the distribution of the spin wave energy inside the magnonic crystal as a function of the position and the transmitted frequency. These results comprise an experimental confirmation of Bloch′s theorem in a spin wave system and demonstrate good agreement with theoretical observations in analogue phononic and photonic systems. Theoretical prediction of the structured transmission spectra is achieved using a simple model based on microwave transmission lines theory. Here, a spin wave system illustrates in detail the evolution of a much more general physical concept: the band gap.

Band engineering stands as an efficient route to induce strongly correlated quantum many-body phenomena. Besides inspiring analogies among diverse physical fields, tuning on demand the group velocity is highly attractive in photonics because it allows unconventional flows of light. Λ-schemes offer a route to control the propagation of light in a lattice-free configurations, enabling exotic phases such as slow-light and allowing for highly optical non-linear systems. Here, we realize room-temperature intercavity Frenkel polaritons excited across two strongly coupled cavities. We demonstrate the formation of a tuneable heavy-polariton, akin to slow light, appearing in the absence of a periodic in-plane potential. Our photonic architecture based on a simple three-level scheme enables the unique spatial segregation of photons and excitons in different cavities and maintains a balanced degree of mixing between them. This unveils a dynamical competition between many-body scattering processes and the underlying polariton nature which leads to an increased fluorescence lifetime. The intercavity polariton features are further revealed under appropriate resonant pumping, where we observe suppression of the polariton fluorescence intensity.

Here, we study a magnonic crystal made of low-damping yttrium iron garnet that utilizes pseudo-caustic spin wave beams generated from subwavelength square well features arranged in a two-dimensional array. The lattice symmetry and the angle between the caustic beam propagation direction and the applied magnetic field were tailored to optimize the interaction of spin waves with the engineered defects. A prominent, narrow 3 MHz feature with large rejection efficiency is observed in the spin wave transmission spectrum that could be useful as a narrowband notch filter, and time- and space-resolved Brillouin light scattering (BLS) measurements suggest that both caustic interference and edge effects may contribute to this notch feature. Furthermore, the BLS measurements show that caustics are generated efficiently at the laser ablated wells, and by tuning the frequency by 30 MHz, the caustic beam angles and, hence, the details of how the spin wave caustics hit the ablated wells change sufficiently to add and remove caustic beams, which can be used to create additional device functionality. The generation and conversion of caustic beams show promise for applications that require directional energy transport and for magnonic devices.

Organic polaritons, strongly hybridized light-matter excitations, have arisen as a platform to device optical interfaces at room temperature. Despite their inherent complexity, polaritons are commonly regarded as coherent excitations described by Landau's quasiparticle theory. Here, we theoretically study and experimentally demonstrate the role of incoherent matter excitations in terms of generalized Hopfield coefficients, which unveil the fading of the upper polariton at its entrance to a continuum of molecular excitations. This marks the breakdown of the simplistic quasiparticle picture and the formation of a more complex quantum state beyond Landau's formalism.

In this article, we describe a magnonic crystal formed by magnetite nanoparticles. The periodic strip-like structure of the nanoparticles was fabricated on the surface of thin yttrium iron garnet single-crystal film grown on a gallium–gadolinium garnet substrate via dip-coating techniques. It was shown that such periodic structure induces the formation of the bandgaps in the transmission spectra of magnetostatic surface spin-waves (MSSW). The structure was simulated by the transfer matrix method. Spin-wave detection has been carried out by using a pair of microwave antennas and a vector network analyzer.