Active control of mid-wavelength infrared non-linearity in silicon photonic crystal slab

Natural materials’ inherently weak nonlinear response demands the design of artificial substitutes to avoid optically large samples and complex phase-matching techniques. Silicon photonic crystals are promising artificial materials for this quest. Their nonlinear properties can be modulated optically, paving the way for applications ranging from ultrafast information processing to quantum technologies. A two-dimensional 15-μm-thick silicon photonic structure, comprising a hexagonal array of air holes traversing the slab’s thickness, has been designed to support a guided resonance for the light with a wavelength of 4-μm. At the resonance conditions, a transverse mode of the light is strongly confined between the holes in the "veins" of the silicon component. Owing to the confinement, the structure exhibits a ratio of nonlinear to linear absorption coefficients threefold higher than the uniform silicon slab of the same thickness. A customised time-resolved Z-scan method with provisions to accommodate ultrafast pump-probe measurements was used to investigate and quantify the non-linear response. We show that optically pumping free charge carriers into the structure decouples the incoming light from the resonance and reduces the non-linear response. The time-resolved measurements suggest that the decoupling is a relatively long-lived effect on the scale comparable to the non-radiative recombination in the bulk material. Moreover, we demonstrate that the excited free carriers are not the source of the nonlinearity, as this property is determined by the structure design

Photophysics of cage/guest assemblies : photoinduced electron transfer between a coordination cage containing osmium(II) luminophores, and electron-deficient bound guests in the central cavity

An octanuclear cubic Os4Zn4 coordination cage, containing Os(II) tris-diimine units at four of the eight vertices which are good photoelectron donors from their 3MLCT excited state, performs photoinduced electron transfer to electron-accepting organic guests which bind in the central cavity in water via the hydrophobic effect: the resulting charge-separated states have lifetimes of ca. 200 ps and have been characterized by transient absorption spectroscopy

Phototoxicity of cyclometallated Ir(III) complexes bearing a thio-bis-benzimidazole ligand, and its monodentate analogue, as potential PDT photosensitisers in cancer cell killing

Two novel cyclometallated iridium(III) complexes have been prepared with one bidentate or two monodentate imidazole-based ligands, 1 and 2, respectively. The complexes showed intense emission with long lifetimes of the excited state. Femtosecond transient absorption experiments established the nature of the lowest excited state as 3IL state. Singlet oxygen generation with good yields (40% for 1 and 82% for 2) was established by detecting 1O2 directly, through its emission at 1270 nm. Photostability studies were also performed to assess the viability of the complexes as photosensitizers (PS) for photodynamic therapy (PDT). Complex 1 was selected as a good candidate to investigate light-activated killing of cells, whilst complex 2 was found to be toxic in the dark and unstable under light. Complex 1 demonstrated high phototoxicity indexes (PI) in the visible region, PI > 250 after irradiation at 405 nm and PI > 150 at 455 nm, in EJ bladder cancer cells

Limits on WWgamma and WWZ Couplings from W Boson Pair Production

The results of a search for W boson pair production in pbar-p collisions at sqrt{s}=1.8 TeV with subsequent decay to emu, ee, and mumu channels are presented. Five candidate events are observed with an expected background of 3.1+-0.4 events for an integrated luminosity of approximately 97 pb^{-1}. Limits on the anomalous couplings are obtained from a maximum likelihood fit of the E_T spectra of the leptons in the candidate events. Assuming identical WWgamma and WWZ couplings, the 95 % C.L. limits are -0.62<Delta_kappa<0.77 (lambda = 0) and -0.53<lambda<0.56 (Delta_kappa = 0) for a form factor scale Lambda = 1.5 TeV.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Physical Review

A measurement of the W boson mass using large rapidity electrons

We present a measurement of the W boson mass using data collected by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron during 1994--1995. We identify W bosons by their decays to e-nu final states where the electron is detected in a forward calorimeter. We extract the W boson mass, Mw, by fitting the transverse mass and transverse electron and neutrino momentum spectra from a sample of 11,089 W -> e nu decay candidates. We use a sample of 1,687 dielectron events, mostly due to Z -> ee decays, to constrain our model of the detector response. Using the forward calorimeter data, we measure Mw = 80.691 +- 0.227 GeV. Combining the forward calorimeter measurements with our previously published central calorimeter results, we obtain Mw = 80.482 +- 0.091 GeV

Search for Squarks and Gluinos in Events Containing Jets and a Large Imbalance in Transverse Energy

Using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 79 pb-1, D0 has searched for events containing multiple jets and large missing transverse energy in pbar-p collisions at sqrt(s)=1.8 TeV at the Fermilab Tevatron collider. Observing no significant excess beyond what is expected from the standard model, we set limits on the masses of squarks and gluinos and on the model parameters m_0 and m_1/2, in the framework of the minimal low-energy supergravity models of supersymmetry. For tan(beta) = 2 and A_0 = 0, with mu < 0, we exclude all models with m_squark < 250 GeV/c^2. For models with equal squark and gluino masses, we exclude m < 260 GeV/c^2.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, Submitted to PRL, Fixed typo on page bottom of p. 6 (QCD multijet background is 35.4 events

Probing BFKL Dynamics in the Dijet Cross Section at Large Rapidity Intervals in ppbar Collisions at sqrt{s}=1800 and 630 GeV

Inclusive dijet production at large pseudorapidity intervals (delta_eta) between the two jets has been suggested as a regime for observing BFKL dynamics. We have measured the dijet cross section for large delta_eta in ppbar collisions at sqrt{s}=1800 and 630 GeV using the DO detector. The partonic cross section increases strongly with the size of delta_eta. The observed growth is even stronger than expected on the basis of BFKL resummation in the leading logarithmic approximation. The growth of the partonic cross section can be accommodated with an effective BFKL intercept of a_{BFKL}(20GeV)=1.65+/-0.07.Comment: Published in Physical Review Letter

Search for Electroweak Production of Single Top Quarks in ppbar Collisions

We present a search for electroweak production of single top quarks in the electron+jets and muon+jets decay channels. The measurements use ~90 pb^-1 of data from Run 1 of the Fermilab Tevatron collider, collected at 1.8 TeV with the DZero detector between 1992 and 1995. We use events that include a tagging muon, implying the presence of a b jet, to set an upper limit at the 95% confidence level on the cross section for the s-channel process ppbar->tb+X of 39 pb. The upper limit for the t-channel process ppbar->tqb+X is 58 pb.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures. This is the published versio