Resonant transparency of materials with negative permittivity

It is shown that the transparency of opaque material with negative permittivity exhibits resonant behavior. The resonance occurs as a result of the excitation of the surface waves at slab boundaries. Dramatic field amplification of the incident evanescent fields at the resonance improves the resolution of the the sub-wavelength imaging system (superlens). A finite thickness slab can be totally transparent to a \textit{p}-polarized obliquely incident electromagnetic wave for certain values of the incidence angle and wave frequency corresponding to the excitation of the surface modes. At the resonance, two evanescent waves have a finite phase shift providing non-zero energy flux through the non-transparent region

Spatial and spatiotemporal variation in metapopulation structure affects population dynamics in a passively dispersing arthropod

The spatial and temporal variation in the availability of suitable habitat within metapopulations determines colonization-extinction events, regulates local population sizes and eventually affects local population and metapopulation stability. Insights into the impact of such a spatiotemporal variation on the local population and metapopulation dynamics are principally derived from classical metapopulation theory and have not been experimentally validated. By manipulating spatial structure in artificial metapopulations of the spider mite Tetranychus urticae, we test to which degree spatial (mainland-island metapopulations) and spatiotemporal variation (classical metapopulations) in habitat availability affects the dynamics of the metapopulations relative to systems where habitat is constantly available in time and space (patchy metapopulations). Our experiment demonstrates that (i) spatial variation in habitat availability decreases variance in metapopulation size and decreases density-dependent dispersal at the metapopulation level, while (ii) spatiotemporal variation in habitat availability increases patch extinction rates, decreases local population and metapopulation sizes and decreases density dependence in population growth rates. We found dispersal to be negatively density dependent and overall low in the spatial variable mainland-island metapopulation. This demographic variation subsequently impacts local and regional population dynamics and determines patterns of metapopulation stability. Both local and metapopulation-level variabilities are minimized in mainland-island metapopulations relative to classical and patchy ones

Function-led design of multifunctional stimuli-responsive superhydrophobic surface based on hierarchical graphene-titania nanocoating

Multifunctional smart superhydrophobic surface with full-spectrum tunable wettability control is fabricated through the self-assembly of the graphene and titania nanofilm double-layer coating. Advanced microfluidic manipulative functions, including directional water transport, adhesion & spreading controls, droplet storage & transfer, and droplet sensing array, can be readily realized on this smart surface. An in-depth mechanism study regarding the underlying secrets of the tunable wettability and the UV-induced superhydrophilic conversion of anatase titania are also presented

Full light absorption in single arrays of spherical nanoparticles

In this paper we show that arrays of core-shell nanoparticles function as effective thin absorbers of light. In contrast to known metamaterial absorbers, the introduced absorbers are formed by single planar arrays of spherical inclusions and enable full absorption of light incident on either or both sides of the array. We demonstrate possibilities for realizing different kinds of symmetric absorbers, including resonant, ultra-broadband, angularly selective, and all-angle absorbers. The physical principle behind these designs is explained considering balanced electric and magnetic responses of unit cells. Photovoltaic devices and thermal emitters are the two most important potential applications of the proposed designs.Comment: (e.g.: 18 pages, 5 figures

Electrical Control of Linear Dichroism in Black Phosphorus from the Visible to Mid-Infrared

The incorporation of electrically tunable materials into photonic structures such as waveguides and metasurfaces enables dynamic control of light propagation by an applied potential. While many materials have been shown to exhibit electrically tunable permittivity and dispersion, including transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) and III-V semiconductors and quantum wells, these materials are all optically isotropic in the propagation plane. In this work, we report the first known example of electrically tunable linear dichroism, observed here in few-layer black phosphorus (BP), which is a promising candidate for multi-functional, broadband, tunable photonic elements. We measure active modulation of the linear dichroism from the mid-infrared to visible frequency range, which is driven by anisotropic quantum-confined Stark and Burstein-Moss effects, and field-induced forbidden-to-allowed optical transitions. Moreover, we observe high BP absorption modulation strengths, approaching unity for certain thicknesses and photon energies

Multilayer optical learning networks

A new approach to learning in a multilayer optical neural network based on holographically interconnected nonlinear devices is presented. The proposed network can learn the interconnections that form a distributed representation of a desired pattern transformation operation. The interconnections are formed in an adaptive and self-aligning fashioias volume holographic gratings in photorefractive crystals. Parallel arrays of globally space-integrated inner products diffracted by the interconnecting hologram illuminate arrays of nonlinear Fabry-Perot etalons for fast thresholding of the transformed patterns. A phase conjugated reference wave interferes with a backward propagating error signal to form holographic interference patterns which are time integrated in the volume of a photorefractive crystal to modify slowly and learn the appropriate self-aligning interconnections. This multilayer system performs an approximate implementation of the backpropagation learning procedure in a massively parallel high-speed nonlinear optical network

Resolving Multi-path Interference in Time-of-Flight Imaging via Modulation Frequency Diversity and Sparse Regularization

Time-of-flight (ToF) cameras calculate depth maps by reconstructing phase shifts of amplitude-modulated signals. For broad illumination or transparent objects, reflections from multiple scene points can illuminate a given pixel, giving rise to an erroneous depth map. We report here a sparsity regularized solution that separates K-interfering components using multiple modulation frequency measurements. The method maps ToF imaging to the general framework of spectral estimation theory and has applications in improving depth profiles and exploiting multiple scattering.Comment: 11 Pages, 4 figures, appeared with minor changes in Optics Letter

A Review on Mechanics and Mechanical Properties of 2D Materials - Graphene and Beyond

Since the first successful synthesis of graphene just over a decade ago, a variety of two-dimensional (2D) materials (e.g., transition metal-dichalcogenides, hexagonal boron-nitride, etc.) have been discovered. Among the many unique and attractive properties of 2D materials, mechanical properties play important roles in manufacturing, integration and performance for their potential applications. Mechanics is indispensable in the study of mechanical properties, both experimentally and theoretically. The coupling between the mechanical and other physical properties (thermal, electronic, optical) is also of great interest in exploring novel applications, where mechanics has to be combined with condensed matter physics to establish a scalable theoretical framework. Moreover, mechanical interactions between 2D materials and various substrate materials are essential for integrated device applications of 2D materials, for which the mechanics of interfaces (adhesion and friction) has to be developed for the 2D materials. Here we review recent theoretical and experimental works related to mechanics and mechanical properties of 2D materials. While graphene is the most studied 2D material to date, we expect continual growth of interest in the mechanics of other 2D materials beyond graphene