4,998 research outputs found
SWIPE: a bolometric polarimeter for the Large-Scale Polarization Explorer
The balloon-borne LSPE mission is optimized to measure the linear
polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background at large angular scales. The
Short Wavelength Instrument for the Polarization Explorer (SWIPE) is composed
of 3 arrays of multi-mode bolometers cooled at 0.3K, with optical components
and filters cryogenically cooled below 4K to reduce the background on the
detectors. Polarimetry is achieved by means of large rotating half-wave plates
and wire-grid polarizers in front of the arrays. The polarization modulator is
the first component of the optical chain, reducing significantly the effect of
instrumental polarization. In SWIPE we trade angular resolution for
sensitivity. The diameter of the entrance pupil of the refractive telescope is
45 cm, while the field optics is optimized to collect tens of modes for each
detector, thus boosting the absorbed power. This approach results in a FWHM
resolution of 1.8, 1.5, 1.2 degrees at 95, 145, 245 GHz respectively. The
expected performance of the three channels is limited by photon noise,
resulting in a final sensitivity around 0.1-0.2 uK per beam, for a 13 days
survey covering 25% of the sky.Comment: In press. Copyright 2012 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation
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Mechanism of Contact between a Droplet and an Atomically Smooth Substrate
When a droplet gently lands on an atomically smooth substrate, it will most
likely contact the underlying surface in about 0.1 s. However, theoretical
estimation from fluid mechanics predicts a contact time of 10 to 100 s. What
causes this large discrepancy, and how does nature speed up contact by 2 orders
of magnitude? To probe this fundamental question, we prepare atomically smooth
substrates by either coating a liquid film on glass or using a freshly cleaved
mica surface, and visualize the droplet contact dynamics with 30 nm resolution.
Interestingly, we discover two distinct speed-up approaches: (1) droplet
skidding due to even minute perturbations breaks rotational symmetry and
produces early contact at the thinnest gap location, and (2) for the
unperturbed situation with rotational symmetry, a previously unnoticed boundary
flow around only 0.1 mm/s expedites air drainage by over 1 order of magnitude.
Together, these two mechanisms universally explain general contact phenomena on
smooth substrates. The fundamental discoveries shed new light on contact and
drainage research.Comment: Published versio
3D tomography of cells in micro-channels
We combine confocal imaging, microfluidics and image analysis to record
3D-images of cells in flow. This enables us to recover the full 3D
representation of several hundred living cells per minute. Whereas 3D confocal
imaging has thus far been limited to steady specimen, we overcome this
restriction and present a method to access the 3D shape of moving objects. The
key of our principle is a tilted arrangement of the micro-channel with respect
to the focal plane of the microscope. This forces cells to traverse the focal
plane in an inclined manner. As a consequence, individual layers of passing
cells are recorded which can then be assembled to obtain the volumetric
representation. The full 3D information allows for a detailed comparisons with
theoretical and numerical predictions unfeasible with e.g.\ 2D imaging. Our
technique is exemplified by studying flowing red blood cells in a micro-channel
reflecting the conditions prevailing in the microvasculature. We observe two
very different types of shapes: `croissants' and `slippers'. Additionally, we
perform 3D numerical simulations of our experiment to confirm the observations.
Since 3D confocal imaging of cells in flow has not yet been realized, we see
high potential in the field of flow cytometry where cell classification thus
far mostly relies on 1D scattering and fluorescence signals
High-speed surface profilometry based on an adaptive microscope with axial chromatic encoding
An adaptive microscope with axial chromatic encoding is designed and developed, namely the AdaScope. With the ability to confocally address any locations within the measurement volume, the AdaScope provides the hardware foundation for a cascade measurement strategy to be developed, dramatically accelerating the speed of 3D confocal microscopy
Fiber optically integrated cost-effective spectrometer for optical coherence tomography
A tilted fiber Bragg grating (TFBG) was integrated as the dispersive element in a high performance biomedical imaging system. The spectrum emitted by the 23 mm long active region of the fiber is projected through custom designed optics consisting of a cylindrical lens for vertical beam collimation and successively by an achromatic doublet onto a linear detector array. High resolution tomograms of biomedical samples were successfully acquired by the frequency domain OCT-system. Tomograms of ophthalmic and dermal samples obtained by the frequency domain OCT-system were obtained achieving 2.84 μm axial and 10.2 μm lateral resolution. The miniaturization reduces costs and has the potential to further extend the field of application for OCT-systems in biology, medicine and technology
A Multi Camera and Multi Laser Calibration Method for 3D Reconstruction of Revolution Parts
This paper describes a method for calibrating multi camera and multi laser 3D triangulation systems, particularly for those using Scheimpflug adapters. Under this configuration, the focus plane of the camera is located at the laser plane, making it difficult to use traditional calibration methods, such as chessboard pattern-based strategies. Our method uses a conical calibration object whose intersections with the laser planes generate stepped line patterns that can be used to calculate the camera-laser homographies. The calibration object has been designed to calibrate scanners for revolving surfaces, but it can be easily extended to linear setups. The experiments carried out show that the proposed system has a precision of 0.1 mm
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