Extremely fast and highly selective detection of nitroaromatic explosive vapours using fluorescent polymer thin films

Cataloged from PDF version of article.A novel sensing material based on pyrene doped polyethersulfone worm-like structured thin film is developed using a facile technique for detection of nitroaromatic explosive vapours. The formation of pi-pi stacking in the thin fluorescent film allows a highly sensitive fluorescence quenching which is detectable by the naked eye in a response time of a few seconds

Soft biomimetic tapered babostructures for large-area antireflective surfaces and SERS sensing

Cataloged from PDF version of article.We report a facile fabrication method for the fabrication of functional large area nanostructured polymer films using a drop casting technique. Reusable and tapered silicon molds were utilized in the production of functional polymers providing rapid fabrication of the paraboloid nanostructures at the desired structural heights without the requirement of any complex production conditions, such as high temperature or pressure. The fabricated polymer films demonstrate promising qualities in terms of antireflective, hydrophobic and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) features. We achieved up to 92% transmission from the single-side nanostructured polymer films by implementing optimized nanostructure parameters which were determined using a finite difference time domain (FDTD) method prior to production. Large-area nanostructured films were observed to enhance the Raman signal with an enhancement factor of 4.9 x 10(6) compared to bare film, making them potentially suitable as freestanding SERS substrates. The utilized fabrication method with its demonstrated performances and reliable material properties, paves the way for further possibilities in biological, optical, and electronic applications

Admissible replacements for simplicial monoidal model categories

Using Dugger’s construction of universal model categories, we produce replacements for simplicial and combinatorial symmetric monoidal model categories with better operadic properties. Namely, these replacements admit a model structure on algebras over any given colored operad. As an application, we show that in the stable case, such symmetric monoidal model categories are classified by commutative ring spectra when the monoidal unit is a compact generator. In other words, they are strong monoidally Quillen equivalent to modules over a uniquely determined commutative ring spectrum

Bose-Einstein condensation of noninteracting charged Bose gas in the presence of external potentials

We investigate thermodynamic properties of noninteracting charged bosons in the presence of externally applied electric and magnetic fields. Using the semiclassical density of states, we obtain the condensate fraction, chemical potential, total energy, and specific heat of a system of finite number of charged Bose particles. We conclude that Bose-Einstein condensation of the charged Bose gas occurs in the crossed electric and magnetic fields

Pluronic polymer capped biocompatible mesoporous silica nanocarriers

A facile self-assembly method is described to prepare PEGylated silica nanocarriers using hydrophobic mesoporous silica nanoparticles and a pluronic F127 polymer. Pluronic capped nanocarriers revealed excellent dispersibility in biological media with cyto- and blood compatibilities. © 2013 The Royal Society of Chemistry

Plasmonically enhanced hot electron based photovoltaic device

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Hot electron photovoltaics is emerging as a candidate for low cost and ultra thin solar cells. Plasmonic means can be utilized to significantly boost device efficiency. We separately form the tunneling metal-insulator-metal (MIM) junction for electron collection and the plasmon exciting MIM structure on top of each other, which provides high flexibility in plasmonic design and tunneling MIM design separately. We demonstrate close to one order of magnitude enhancement in the short circuit current at the resonance wavelengths. (C) 2013 Optical Society of Americ

Quasimetallic silicon micromachined photonic crystals

Cataloged from PDF version of article.We report on fabrication of a layer-by-layer photonic crystal using highly doped silicon wafers processed by semiconductor micromachining techniques. The crystals, built using (100) silicon wafers, resulted in an upper stop band edge at 100 GHz. The transmission and defect characteristics of these structures were found to be analogous to metallic photonic crystals. We also investigated the effect of doping concentration on the defect characteristics. The experimental results agree well with predictions of the transfer matrix method simulations. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics

Superhydrophobic and Omnidirectional Antifreflective Surfaces from Nanostructured Ormosil Colloids

Cataloged from PDF version of article.A large-area superhydrophobic and omnidirectional antireflective nanostructured organically modified silica coating has been designed and prepared. The coating mimics the self-cleaning property of superhydrophobic lotus leaves and omnidirectional broad band antireflectivity of moth compound eyes, simultaneously. Water contact and sliding angles of the coating are around 160 and 10, respectively. Coating improves the transmittance of the glass substrate around 4%, when coated on a single side of a glass, in visible and near-infrared region at normal incidence angles. At oblique incidence angles (up to 60) improvement in transmission reaches to around 8%. In addition, coatings are mechanically stable against impact of water droplets from considerable heights. We believe that our inexpensive and durable multifunctional coatings are suitable for stepping out of the laboratory to practical outdoor applications

Guiding and bending of photons via hopping in three-dimensional photonic crystals

A new mechanism to manipulate the propagation of electromagnetic waves in 3D photonic crystals is proposed and demonstrated. Photons hop from one evanescent defect mode to the next one regardless of the direction of propagation. A complete (near 100%) transmission along a straight path and around sharp corners were observed experimentally. The measured dispersion relation of the waveguiding band agrees well with the results of the classical wave analog of tight-binding method

Tight-Binding Description of the Coupled Defect Modes in Three-Dimensional Photonic Crystals

We have experimentally observed the eigenmode splitting due to coupling of the evanescent defect modes in three-dimensional photonic crystals. The splitting was well explained with a theory based on the classical wave analog of the tight-binding (TB) formalism in solid state physics. The experimental results were used to extract the TB parameters. A new type of waveguiding in a photonic crystal was demonstrated experimentally. A complete transmission was achieved throughout the entire waveguiding band. We have also obtained the dispersion relation for the waveguiding band of the coupled periodic defects from the transmission-phase measurements and from the TB calculations