1,860 research outputs found
Planar immersion lens with metasurfaces
The solid immersion lens is a powerful optical tool that allows light
entering material from air or vacuum to focus to a spot much smaller than the
free-space wavelength. Conventionally, however, they rely on semispherical
topographies and are non-planar and bulky, which limits their integration in
many applications. Recently, there has been considerable interest in using
planar structures, referred to as metasurfaces, to construct flat optical
components for manipulating light in unusual ways. Here, we propose and
demonstrate the concept of a planar immersion lens based on metasurfaces. The
resulting planar device, when placed near an interface between air and
dielectric material, can focus electromagnetic radiation incident from air to a
spot in material smaller than the free-space wavelength. As an experimental
demonstration, we fabricate an ultrathin and flexible microwave lens and
further show that it achieves wireless energy transfer in material mimicking
biological tissue
Valsartan for attenuating disease evolution in early sarcomeric hypertrophic cardiomyopathy: the design of the Valsartan for Attenuating Disease Evolution in Early Sarcomeric Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (VANISH) trial
Background:
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is often caused by sarcomere gene mutations, resulting in left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), myocardial fibrosis, and increased risk of sudden cardiac death and heart failure. Studies in mouse models of sarcomeric HCM demonstrated that early treatment with an angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) reduced development of LVH and fibrosis. In contrast, prior human studies using ARBs for HCM have targeted heterogeneous adult cohorts with well-established disease. The VANISH trial is testing the safety and feasibility of disease-modifying therapy with an ARB in genotyped HCM patients with early disease.
Methods:
A randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial is being conducted in sarcomere mutation carriers, 8 to 45 years old, with HCM and no/minimal symptoms, or those with early phenotypic manifestations but no LVH. Participants are randomly assigned to receive valsartan 80 to 320 mg daily (depending on age and weight) or placebo. The primary endpoint is a composite of 9 z-scores in domains representing myocardial injury/hemodynamic stress, cardiac morphology, and function. Total z-scores reflecting change from baseline to final visits will be compared between treatment groups. Secondary endpoints will assess the impact of treatment on mutation carriers without LVH, and analyze the influence of age, sex, and genotype.
Conclusions:
The VANISH trial is testing a new strategy of disease modification for treating sarcomere mutation carriers with early HCM, and those at risk for its development. In addition, further insight into disease mechanisms, response to therapy, and phenotypic evolution will be gained
Theoretical and Experimental Studies of Schottky Diodes That Use Aligned Arrays of Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes
We present theoretical and experimental studies of Schottky diodes that use
aligned arrays of single walled carbon nanotubes. A simple physical model,
taking into account the basic physics of current rectification, can adequately
describe the single-tube and array devices. We show that for as grown array
diodes, the rectification ratio, defined by the
maximum-to-minimum-current-ratio, is low due to the presence of m-SWNT shunts.
These tubes can be eliminated in a single voltage sweep resulting in a high
rectification array device. Further analysis also shows that the channel
resistance, and not the intrinsic nanotube diode properties, limits the
rectification in devices with channel length up to ten micrometer.Comment: Nano Research, 2010, accepte
Two-photon Lithography for 3D Magnetic Nanostructure Fabrication
Ferromagnetic materials have been utilised as recording media within data
storage devices for many decades. Confinement of the material to a two
dimensional plane is a significant bottleneck in achieving ultra-high recording
densities and this has led to the proposition of three dimensional (3D)
racetrack memories that utilise domain wall propagation along nanowires.
However, the fabrication of 3D magnetic nanostructures of complex geometry is
highly challenging and not easily achievable with standard lithography
techniques. Here, by using a combination of two-photon lithography and
electrochemical deposition, we show a new approach to construct 3D magnetic
nanostructures of complex geometry. The magnetic properties are found to be
intimately related to the 3D geometry of the structure and magnetic imaging
experiments provide evidence of domain wall pinning at a 3D nanostructured
junction
Spontaneous decay in the presence of dispersing and absorbing bodies: general theory and application to a spherical cavity
A formalism for studying spontaneous decay of an excited two-level atom in
the presence of dispersing and absorbing dielectric bodies is developed. An
integral equation, which is suitable for numerical solution, is derived for the
atomic upper-state-probability amplitude. The emission pattern and the power
spectrum of the emitted light are expressed in terms of the Green tensor of the
dielectric-matter formation including absorption and dispersion. The theory is
applied to the spontaneous decay of an excited atom at the center of a
three-layered spherical cavity, with the cavity wall being modeled by a
band-gap dielectric of Lorentz type. Both weak coupling and strong coupling are
studied, the latter with special emphasis on the cases where the atomic
transition is (i) in the normal-dispersion zone near the medium resonance and
(ii) in the anomalous-dispersion zone associated with the band gap. In a
single-resonance approximation, conditions of the appearance of Rabi
oscillations and closed solutions to the evolution of the atomic state
population are derived, which are in good agreement with the exact numerical
results.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, typos fixed, 1 figure adde
Multipole interaction between atoms and their photonic environment
Macroscopic field quantization is presented for a nondispersive photonic
dielectric environment, both in the absence and presence of guest atoms.
Starting with a minimal-coupling Lagrangian, a careful look at functional
derivatives shows how to obtain Maxwell's equations before and after choosing a
suitable gauge. A Hamiltonian is derived with a multipolar interaction between
the guest atoms and the electromagnetic field. Canonical variables and fields
are determined and in particular the field canonically conjugate to the vector
potential is identified by functional differentiation as minus the full
displacement field. An important result is that inside the dielectric a dipole
couples to a field that is neither the (transverse) electric nor the
macroscopic displacement field. The dielectric function is different from the
bulk dielectric function at the position of the dipole, so that local-field
effects must be taken into account.Comment: 17 pages, to be published in Physical Review
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