3,647 research outputs found
Focusing and imaging with increased numerical apertures through multimode fibers with micro-fabricated optics
The use of individual multimode optical fibers in endoscopy applications has
the potential to provide highly miniaturized and noninvasive probes for
microscopy and optical micromanipulation. A few different strategies have been
proposed recently, but they all suffer from intrinsically low resolution
related to the low numerical aperture of multimode fibers. Here, we show that
two-photon polymerization allows for direct fabrication of micro-optics
components on the fiber end, resulting in an increase of the numerical aperture
to a value that is close to 1. Coupling light into the fiber through a spatial
light modulator, we were able to optically scan a submicrometer spot (300 nm
FWHM) over an extended region, facing the opposite fiber end. Fluorescence
imaging with improved resolution is also demonstrated.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Nanoscale electron-beam-driven metamaterial light sources
Free-standing and fiber-coupled photonic metamaterials act as nanoscale, free-electron-driven, tuneable light sources: emission occurs at wavelengths determined by structural geometry in response to electron-beam excitation of metamaterial resonant plasmonic modes
The old anticentre open cluster Berkeley 32: membership and fundamental parameters
We have obtained medium-low resolution spectroscopy and BVI CCD imaging of
Berkeley 32, an old open cluster which lies in the anticentre direction. From
the radial velocities of 48 stars in the cluster direction we found that 31 of
them, in crucial evolutionary phases, are probable cluster members, with an
average radial velocity of +106.7 (sigma = 8.5) km/s. From isochrone fitting to
the colour magnitude diagrams of Berkeley 32 we have obtained an age of 6.3
Gyr, (m-M)0 = 12.48 and E(B-V) = 0.10. The best fit is obtained with Z=0.008. A
consistent distance, (m-M)0 ~= 12.6 +/- 0.1, has been derived from the mean
magnitude of red clump stars with confirmed membership; we may assume (m-M)0 ~=
12.55 +/- 0.1. The colour magnitude diagram of the nearby field observed to
check for field stars contamination looks intriguingly similar to that of the
Canis Major overdensity.Comment: MNRAS, in press. Degraded resolution for Fig.
Near Infrared Spectroscopy of High Redshift Active Galactic Nuclei. II. Disappearing Narrow Line Regions and the Role of Accretion
We present new near infrared spectroscopic measurements for 29 luminous
high-z quasars and use the data to discuss the size and other properties of the
NLRs in those sources. The high resolution spectra have been used to carefully
model the Fe II blends and to provide reliable [O III], Fe II and Hb
measurements. We find that about 2/3 of all high luminosity sources show strong
[O III] lines while the remaining objects show no or very weak such line. While
weak [O III] emitters are also found among lower luminosity AGN, we argue that
the implications for very high luminosity objects are different. In particular,
we suggest that the averaging of these two populations in other works gave rise
to claims of a Baldwin relationship in [O III] which is not confirmed by our
data. We also argue that earlier proposed relations of the type R_NLR \propto
L_[O III]^{1/2}, where R_NLR is the NLR radius, are theoretically sound yet
they must break down for R_NLR exceeding a few kpc. This suggests that the NLR
properties in luminous sources are different from those observed in nearby AGN.
In particular, we suggest that some sources lost their very large, dynamically
unbound NLR while others are in a phase of violent star-forming events that
produce a large quantity of high density gas in the central kpc. This gas is
ionized and excited by the central radiation source and its spectroscopic
properties may be different from those observed in nearby, lower luminosity
NLRs. We also discuss the dependence of EW(Hb) and Fe II/Hb on L, M_BH, and
accretion rate for a large sample of AGNs. The strongest dependence of the two
quantities is on the accretion rate and the Fe II/Hb correlation is probably
due to the EW(Hb) dependence on accretion rate. We show the most extreme values
measured so far of Fe II/Hb and address its correlation with EW([O III]).Comment: 10 pages (emulateapj), 9 figures. Accepted by Ap
Electron-beam-driven nanoscale metamaterials light sources
Nanoscale light (ultimately laser) and surface plasmon (ultimately 'spaser') sources for numerous potential nanophotonic applications have generated and continue to generate considerable research interest, with a variety of optically- and electrically-pumped sources recently demonstrated. We show experimentally that beams of free electrons can be used to induce light emission from nanoscale planar photonic metamaterials, at wavelengths determined by both the metamaterial design parameters and the electron energy
Drug delivery applications of three-dimensional printed (3DP) mesoporous scaffolds
Mesoporous materials are structures characterized by a well-ordered large pore system with uniform porous dimensions ranging between 2 and 50 nm. Typical samples are zeolite, carbon molecular sieves, porous metal oxides, organic and inorganic porous hybrid and pillared materials, silica clathrate and clathrate hydrates compounds. Improvement in biochemistry and materials science led to the design and implementation of different types of porous materials ranging from rigid to soft two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) skeletons. The present review focuses on the use of three-dimensional printed (3DP) mesoporous scaffolds suitable for a wide range of drug delivery applications, due to their intrinsic high surface area and high pore volume. In the first part, the importance of the porosity of materials employed for drug delivery application was discussed focusing on mesoporous materials. At the end of the introduction, hard and soft templating synthesis for the realization of ordered 2D/3D mesostructured porous materials were described. In the second part, 3DP fabrication techniques, including fused deposition modelling, material jetting as inkjet printing, electron beam melting, selective laser sintering, stereolithography and digital light processing, electrospinning, and two-photon polymerization were described. In the last section, through recent bibliographic research, a wide number of 3D printed mesoporous materials, for in vitro and in vivo drug delivery applications, most of which relate to bone cells and tissues, were presented and summarized in a table in which all the technical and bibliographical details were reported. This review highlights, to a very cross-sectional audience, how the interdisciplinarity of certain branches of knowledge, as those of materials science and nano-microfabrication are, represent a growing valuable aid in the advanced forum for the science and technology of pharmaceutics and biopharmaceutics
Design of a beamline for soft and deep lithography on third generation synchrotron radiation source
ELETTRA is a third generation synchrotron radiation source. The energy spectrum allows the design of beamlines suitable for x-ray lithography from soft to hard x-ray wavelengths. An appropriate lithographic window for micro- and nanofabrication can be obtained by a combination of selected filters and mirrors. As the beamline is interfaced to a vertical x-ray stepper, a uniformity in the beam intensity better than 3% (3σ) in the horizontal direction has to be reached. The present beamline is designed by taking into account the main factors which can affect the beam quality, namely, thermal loading on mirrors and filters, slope errors, and surface roughness of the mirrors. The resulting lithographic resolution at soft x-ray wavelengths is better than 100 nm
A Composite Index for Measuring Stock Market Inefficiency
Market inefficiency is a latent concept, and it is difficult to be measured by means of a single indicator. In this paper, following both the adaptive market hypothesis (AMH) and the fractal market hypothesis (FMH), we develop a new time-varying measure of stock market inefficiency. The proposed measure, called composite efficiency index (CEI), is estimated as the synthesis of the most common efficiency measures such as the returns' autocorrelation, liquidity, volatility, and a new measure based on the Hurst exponent, called the Hurst efficiency index (HEI). To empirically validate the indicator, we compare different European stock markets in terms of efficiency over time
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