197 research outputs found
Finite element simulation of a perturbed axial-symmetric whispering-gallery mode and its use for intensity enhancement with a nanoparticle coupled to a microtoroid
We present an optical mode solver for a whispering gallery resonator coupled
to an adjacent arbitrary shaped nano-particle that breaks the axial symmetry of
the resonator. Such a hybrid resonator-nanoparticle is similar to what was
recently used for bio-detection and for field enhancement. We demonstrate our
solver by parametrically studying a toroid-nanoplasmonic device and get the
optimal nano-plasmonic size for maximal enhancement. We investigate cases near
a plasmonic resonance as well as far from a plasmonic resonance. Unlike common
plasmons that typically benefit from working near their resonance, here working
far from plasmonic resonance provides comparable performance. This is because
the plasmonic resonance enhancement is accompanied by cavity quality
degradation through plasmonic absorption.Comment: Supplementary COMSOL script, see
http://www.quantumchaos.de/Media/comsol2013/Supplement_Script_for_Fig.3_Comsol_4.3a.mp
Exploiting disorder for perfect focusing
We demonstrate experimentally that disordered scattering can be used to
improve, rather than deteriorate, the focusing resolution of a lens. By using
wavefront shaping to compensate for scattering, light was focused to a spot as
small as one tenth of the diffraction limit of the lens. We show both
experimentally and theoretically that it is the scattering medium, rather than
the lens, that determines the width of the focus. Despite the disordered
propagation of the light, the profile of the focus was always exactly equal to
the theoretical best focus that we derived.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Anomalous spectral scaling of light emission rates in low dimensional metallic nanostructures
The strength of light emission near metallic nanostructures can scale
anomalously with frequency and dimensionality. We find that light-matter
interactions in plasmonic systems confined in two dimensions (e.g., near metal
nanowires) strengthen with decreasing frequency owing to strong mode
confinement away from the surface plasmon frequency. The anomalous scaling also
applies to the modulation speed of plasmonic light sources, including lasers,
with modulation bandwidths growing at lower carrier frequencies. This allows
developing optical devices that exhibit simultaneously femto-second response
times at the nano-meter scale, even at longer wavelengths into the mid IR,
limited only by non-local effects and reversible light-matter coupling
Personalized Feedback on Staff Dose in Fluoroscopy-Guided Interventions: A New Era in Radiation Dose Monitoring
Radiation safety and protection are a key component of fluoroscopy-guided interventions. We hypothesize that providing weekly personal dose feedback will increase radiation awareness and ultimately will lead to optimized behavior. Therefore, we designed and implemented a personalized feedback of procedure and personal doses for medical staff involved in fluoroscopy-guided interventions. Medical staff (physicians and technicians, n = 27) involved in fluoroscopy-guided interventions were equipped with electronic personal dose meters (PDMs). Procedure dose data including the dose area product and effective doses from PDMs were prospectively monitored for each consecutive procedure over an 8-month period (n = 1082). A personalized feedback form was designed displaying for each staff individually the personal dose per procedure, as well as relative and cumulative doses. This study consisted of two phases: (1) 1-5th months: Staff did not receive feedback (n = 701) and (2) 6-8th months: Staff received weekly individual dose feedback (n = 381). An anonymous evaluation was performed on the feedback and occupational dose. Personalized feedback was scored valuable by 76% of the staff and increased radiation dose awareness for 71%. 57 and 52% reported an increased feeling of occupational safety and changing their behavior because of personalized feedback, respectively. For technicians, the normalized dose was significantly lower in the feedback phase compared to the prefeedback phase: [median (IQR) normalized dose (phase 1) 0.12 (0.04-0.50) A mu Sv/Gy cm(2) versus (phase 2) 0.08 (0.02-0.24) A mu Sv/Gy cm(2), p = 0.002]. Personalized dose feedback increases radiation awareness and safety and can be provided to staff involved in fluoroscopy-guided interventions
Nonlinear spectral calculus and super-expanders
Nonlinear spectral gaps with respect to uniformly convex normed spaces are
shown to satisfy a spectral calculus inequality that establishes their decay
along Cesaro averages. Nonlinear spectral gaps of graphs are also shown to
behave sub-multiplicatively under zigzag products. These results yield a
combinatorial construction of super-expanders, i.e., a sequence of 3-regular
graphs that does not admit a coarse embedding into any uniformly convex normed
space.Comment: Typos fixed based on referee comments. Some of the results of this
paper were announced in arXiv:0910.2041. The corresponding parts of
arXiv:0910.2041 are subsumed by the current pape
On the well-posedness of uncalibrated photometric stereo under general lighting
Uncalibrated photometric stereo aims at estimating the 3D-shape of a surface, given a set of images captured from the same viewing angle, but under unknown, varying illumination. While the theoretical foundations of this inverse problem under directional lighting are well-established, there is a lack of mathematical evidence for the uniqueness of a solution under general lighting. On the other hand, stable and accurate heuristical solutions of uncalibrated photometric stereo under such general lighting have recently been proposed. The quality of the results demonstrated therein tends to indicate that the problem may actually be well-posed, but this still has to be established. The present paper addresses this theoretical issue, considering first-order spherical harmonics approximation of general lighting. Two important theoretical results are established. First, the orthographic integrability constraint ensures uniqueness of a solution up to a global concave-convex ambiguity , which had already been conjectured, yet not proven. Second, the perspective integrability constraint makes the problem well-posed, which generalizes a previous result limited to directional lighting. Eventually, a closed-form expression for the unique least-squares solution of the problem under perspective projection is provided , allowing numerical simulations on synthetic data to empirically validate our findings
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