Plasmon-polariton emission from a coherently p-excited quantum dot near a metal interface

We study the emission of surface plasmon polaritons by the decay of the lowest excited state of a quantum emitter when the system is excited by a laser in resonance with a higher excited state (p-shell excitation). By solving a master equation and by using the quantum-regression theorem, we show how the emission is enhanced by the Purcell effect due to the weak coupling between the emitter and the structured spectral density of plasmon-polariton states of a metal surface. Measurable magnitudes, as the spectrum and the second-order coherence function, are extremely affected by the coherent p-shell excitation. In many cases, such coherent excitation completely masks the physical features of the emission under study. The coexistence between coherent p-shell excitation in the first step of the process and weak coupling in the final step is very important and completely general for any structured reservoir of final states. The advantage of our system is that, just by changing the distance from the quantum emitter to the metal surface, one can access a very rich set of regimes as purely dissipative direct photon emission or emission of plasmon polaritonsThis work was supported by the Spanish MICINN under Contracts No. MAT2008-01555 and No. MAT2011-22997and by CAM under Contract No. S-2009/ESP-1503. C.S.-M. acknowledges a grant from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. A.G.-T. acknowledges an FPU Grant No. AP2008-00101 from the Spanish Ministry of Educatio

Characterisation of “flushable” and “non-flushable” commercial wet wipes using microRaman, FTIR spectroscopy and fluorescence microscopy: to flush or not to flush

The introduction to the market of wet wipes, advertised and labelled as “flushable”, has been the subject of controversy due to their perceived potential to block sewer systems as observed with other non-woven cloths such as traditional non-flushable wipes. Non-woven cloths that enter wastewater systems can find their way into the aquatic environment via wastewater effluents and it has been suggested that the breakdown of these fabrics can release materials such as microplastics into the environment. Worldwide research has revealed the alarming number of aquatic organisms affected by the presence of plastic debris in the aquatic environment harbouring a potential risk to humans through the introduction of microplastics into the food chains. However, the actual material composition of flushable wipes, their fate and impacts in the aquatic environment have not yet been scientifically studied. This paper investigates the fibre composition of flushable and non-flushable wipes, specifically with regard to synthetic polymer material, using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and microRaman spectroscopy along with fluorescence microscopy. The study demonstrated the presence of polyester (polyethylene terephthalate, (PET)), high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polyethylene/vinyl acetate (PEVA/EVA) in some flushable wipes and PET in all non-flushable. Other polymers such us polypropylene (PP), low-density polyethylene (LDPE), expanded polystyrene (EPS) and polyurethane (PU) were also identified as potential components in the flushable material. Hence, commercially available wet wipes labelled as flushable could also be considered as a possible source of microplastic fibres in the wastewater streams and, if not retained, in the environment

Characterization of industrially pre-treated waste printed circuit boards for the potential recovery of rare earth elements

Rare earth elements (REE) are classified as critical raw materials and the environmental impact of mining them is of growing concern. The recovery of REE from electronic waste (e-waste) could offer a more sustainable practice. Waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs) are an important resource in the e-waste stream due to their content of valuable materials. However, data regarding the concentration and distribution of REE in WPCBs is very limited. The aims of this research were: (a) to analyse the chemical composition of comminuted WPCBs prior to processing (industrially pre-treated) with emphasis on REE, and (b) to determine the distribution of REE and other metals in different size fractions of the pre-treated WPCBs. The samples were supplied by commercial e-waste recycling companies, which makes them representative of the e-waste processing industry in the UK. Correlation between elemental concentrations and particle size was analysed using Spearman’s rank correlation. Most REE concentrations were inversely correlated to the particle size. Concentrations of Y, La and Gd were found up to a thousand times higher in the smaller particle size compared with coarser particles. However, most of base metals including Cu, Sn, Pb and Zn did not show this trend. The present study highlights the occurrence of REE in comminuted WPCBs, and fine fractions as potential sources of these critical elements, currently not recovered during recycling process. A cost-effective sieving step is proposed to enrich the REE content for further recovery, prevent the possible loss of REE and maximize the total material recovered from WPCBs

Molding the future: optimization of bioleaching of rare earth elements from electronic waste by Penicillium expansum and insights into its mechanism

The recovery of rare earth elements (REE) from electronic waste is crucial for ensuring future demand security, as there is a high supply risk for this group of elements, and mitigating the environmental impacts of conventional mining. This research focuses on extracting REE from waste printed circuit boards through bioleaching, addressing the limited attention given to this source. A strain of Penicillium expansum demonstrated efficient bioleaching under optimal conditions of 7.5 initial pH, 0.1 mM phosphate concentration, and excluding a buffering agent. The study achieved significant improvements in La and Tb extraction and enhancements in Pr, Nd, and Gd recovery, approaching 70 % within 24 h. Fungal mechanisms involved in REE extraction included fungal pH control, organic acid biosynthesis, phosphate bioavailability, and potential fungal proton pump involvement. This approach offers a promising solution for sustainable REE recovery from e-waste, contributing to resource security and circular economy

Release of microplastic fibres and fragmentation to billions of nanoplastics from period products: preliminary assessment of potential health implications

Health effects related to the plastic content of disposable period products have not been recognized or scientifically addressed. To begin to understand their potential impact on the environment and human health, this study employed standardised in vitro tests (Syngina), infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), confocal Raman microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (FEG-SEM) and nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA) to characterize the bulk chemical composition of different components in period products, and quantified the amount of fibres released using in vitro experiments, and measured their fragmentation into smaller particles (nanoplastics) under conditions that mimic vaginal fluids. It was found that 12 out of 24 of the tested products contain synthetic polymers (plastics) that would be in direct contact with the vaginal wall when in use. Many of the products released fibres during in vitro tests and also fragmented to release up to 17 billion nanoplastics per tampon. These micro fibres and nanoplastics could be released into the environment upon disposal. The health implications within the body are unknown, but due to the large quantity of nano size plastics being released, public health concern could manifest in three ways: from the nanoplastics themeselves, from release of contaminants adsorbed to the nanoplastics and finally, from leaching of additives associated with the production of the plastics

Unit-cell design for antenna arrays efficiently matched to uni-travelling-carrier photodiodes

International audienceWe present an antenna array with a backing reflector that allows one to obtain efficient matching to integrated sources or loads with low input resistance. In the infinite array limit, it is possible to describe the proposed unit-cell as an equivalent network with closed-form expressions for its different constituents. This analytic approach enables the preliminary design of arrays with improved matching efficiency for optimum power transmission/reception. The proposed solution has enabled an improved matching to a uni-travelling-carrier photodiode with a maximum improvement of 3 dB in the radiated power with respect to a 72-Ω antenna, and featuring a 50% bandwidth

Evaluating the effect of age and area of residence in the metal and metalloid contents in human hair and urban topsoils

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Monitoring the levels of trace elements in hair can allow estimating the effects of the geographical location and also can provide a notion of the metal body burden. However, the use of human hair is controversial due to the different confounding factors that could affect the presence of trace elements in hair. As a result, a comprehensive monitoring study was performed in Alcalá de Henares, one of the major cities in the Madrid region, Spain. Trace elements have been monitored in urban topsoils and in human hair of two well-defined and healthy groups of population: children (6–9 years) and adolescents (13–16 years). The city was divided into four areas or zones with different characteristics to assess the possible effect of area of residence and age in the presence of Al, As, Be, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mn, Pb, Sn, Ti, Tl and Zn in soils and hair. There is no current hypothesis that explains the possible effect of the area of monitoring in the distribution of Be, Cr, Ni, Sn and Ti found in these urban soils, maybe because urban soils receive high disturbance, and there are many factors involved. The presence of most of the trace elements monitored was significantly higher in the hair of the children population, except for Sn and Zn. This could be attributed mainly to dietary habits. Other factors influencing metal content in hair such as environmental factors would have had a minimal effect in the population groups here studied. Finally, none of the levels of trace elements studied in hair were significantly correlated with levels measured in the topsoils of public parks in Alcalá de Henares, with the exception of Pb in adolescent participants

Robustness and transferability of universal attacks on compressed models

Neural network compression methods like pruning and quantization are very effective at efficiently deploying Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) on edge devices. However, DNNs remain vulnerable to adversarial examples-inconspicuous inputs that are specifically designed to fool these models. In particular, Universal Adversarial Perturbations (UAPs), are a powerful class of adversarial attacks which create adversarial perturbations that can generalize across a large set of inputs. In this work, we analyze the effect of various compression techniques to UAP attacks, including different forms of pruning and quantization. We test the robustness of compressed models to white-box and transfer attacks, comparing them with their uncompressed counterparts on CIFAR-10 and SVHN datasets. Our evaluations reveal clear differences between pruning methods, including Soft Filter and Post-training Pruning. We observe that UAP transfer attacks between pruned and full models are limited, suggesting that the systemic vulnerabilities across these models are different. This finding has practical implications as using different compression techniques can blunt the effectiveness of black-box transfer attacks. We show that, in some scenarios, quantization can produce gradient-masking, giving a false sense of security. Finally, our results suggest that conclusions about the robustness of compressed models to UAP attacks is application dependent, observing different phenomena in the two datasets used in our experiments

New VR magnification ratios of QSO 0957+561

We present VR magnification ratios of QSO 0957+561, which are inferred from the GLITP light curves of Q0957+561A and new frames taken with the 2.56m Nordic Optical Telescope about 14 months after the GLITP monitoring. From two photometric approaches and a reasonable range for the time delay in the system (415-430 days), we do not obtain achromatic optical continuum ratios, but ratios depending on the wavelength. These new measurements are consistent with differential extinction in the lens galaxy, the Lyman limit system, the damped Ly-alpha system, or the host galaxy of the QSO. The possible values for the differential extinction and the ratio of total to selective extinction in the V band are reasonable. Moreover, crude probability arguments suggest that the ray paths of the two components cross a similar dusty environment, including a network of compact dust clouds and compact dust voids. As an alternative (in fact, the usual interpretation of the old ratios), we also try to explain the new ratios as caused by gravitational microlensing in the deflector. From magnification maps for each of the gravitationally lensed images, using different fractions of the surface mass density represented by the microlenses, as well as different sizes and profiles of the V-band and R-band sources, several synthetic distributions of V-band and R-band ratios are derived. In some gravitational scenarios, there is an apparent disagreement between the observed pair of ratios and the simulated distributions. However, several microlensing pictures work well. To decide between either extinction, or microlensing, or a mixed scenario (extinction + microlensing), new observational and interpretation efforts are required.Comment: PS and PDF versions are created from the LaTeX file and 5 EPS figures, two additional figues (Figs. 6 and 7) in JPEG format, scheduled for the ApJ 20 January 2005 issu