Los invisibles del Real de Minas. Reflexiones y propuestas en torno al sitio arqueológico de Nóvita Viejo, Alto San Juan-Chocó (Colombia). Siglos XVIII-XIX

nuloChoco Department, in Colombia, is an area characterized by both conflict and potential. Archaeological fieldwork at the ancient Royal Mines at San Francisco de Nóvita enabled us to reach the interests of affected communities and thus to broaden our outlook. The site is now abandoned in the jungle, but still resonates in local lore and archives. The archaeological study is also useful for rescuing the rich cultural heritage in the area. Most of all, it empowers local people. This paper addresses theoretical and methodological issues, studying primary sources and international literature.Em meio dos conflitos e potencialidades que fazem de Choco um dos departamentos mais controvertidos da Colômbia, a possibilidade de levar a cabo uma intervenção arqueológica no antigo Real de Minas de San Francisco de Nóvita, hoje abandonado na selva mas vivo nas tradições locais e nos documentos de arquivo, constitui uma alternativa de interesse comunitário que não só permitiria ampliar nosso horizonte investigativo, mas também contribuiria para destacar com maior ênfase a grande riqueza cultural da região e, sobretudo, a imagem que se tornou invisível dos protagonistas de sua própria história. Este artigo busca fazer aproximações teóricas e metodológicas a partir de fontes primárias e alguns estudos adiantados em outros países

Twelfth Intercomparison Campaign of the Regional Brewer Calibration Center Europe: El Arenosillo Atmospheric Sounding Station, Huelva, Spain, 29 May to 9 June 2017

Editado por Alberto Redondas y Stoyka NetchevaThe twelfth European Brewer Intercomparison Campaign was organized by the Regional Brewer Calibration Center for Europe (RBCC-E) in collaboration with the “Area of Instrumentation and Atmospheric Research Area” of Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aeroespacial (INTA), with the support of the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) Programme of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the EUBREWNET ES1207 COST Action. Alongside the campaign, the ATMOZ (Traceability of Atmospheric Total Ozone) project workshop took place at the station. In addition, this event was also used as a demonstration exercise of the calibration methodologies and error assessment developed by the project (Gröbner et al., 2018)

Engineering aspheric liquid crystal lenses by using the transmission electrode technique

The transmission electrode technique has been recently proposed as a versatile method to obtain various types of liquid-crystal (LC) lenses. In this work, an equivalent electric circuit and new analytical expressions based on this technique are developed. In addition, novel electrode shapes are proposed in order to generate different phase profiles. The analytical expressions depend on manufacturing parameters that have been optimized by using the least squares method. Thanks to the proposed design equations and the associated optimization, the feasibility of engineering any kind of aspheric LC lenses is demonstrated, which is key to obtain aberration-free lenses. The results are compared to numerical simulations validating the proposed equations. This novel technique, in combination with the proposed design equations, opens a new path for the design and fabrication of LC lenses and even other types of adaptive-focus lenses based on voltage control.This work was supported by Comunidad de Madrid and FEDER Program (S2018/NMT-4326), the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of Spain (TEC2016-77242-C3-1-R and TEC2016-76021-C2-2-R), the FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and Agencia Estatal de Investigación (RTC2017-6321-1, PID2019-107270RB-C21 and PID2019-109072RB-C31)

EUBREWNET Updates

Presentación realizada en: Nordic Ozone Group Meeting (2021), celebrado el 21 de abril de 2021 de manera virtual

Double electromagnetically induced transparency resonance in slotted metasurfaces supporting bound states in the continuum

This work proposes and theoretically demonstrates a double electromagnetic induced transparency resonance generated by a novel dielectric metasurface consisting of a periodic array of square slots. The resonances stem from symmetry-protected bound states in the continuum whose quality factor tends to infinity when the structure is symmetric. The quasi-bound states in the continuum supported by the asymmetric metasurface can be exploited to obtain double high quality factor resonances in transmission (electromagnetic induced transparency like effect) that can be modulated with the external refractive index for sensing.This work was supported by Comunidad de Madrid and FEDER Program (S2018/NMT-4326), the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of Spain (TEC2016-77242-C3-1-R and TEC2016-76021-C2-2-R), the FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and Agencia Estatal de Investigación (RTC2017-6321-1, PID2019-107270RB-C21 and PID2019-109072RB-C31)

Strongly resonant silicon slot metasurfaces with symmetry-protected bound states in the continuum

In this work, a novel all-dielectric metasurface made of arrayed circular slots etched in a silicon layer is proposed and theoretically investigated. The structure is designed to support both Mie-type multipolar resonances and symmetry-protected bound states in the continuum (BIC). Specifically, the metasurface consists of interrupted circular slots, following the paradigm of complementary split-ring resonators. This configuration allows both silicon-on-glass and free-standing metasurfaces and the arc length of the split-rings provides an extra tuning parameter. The nature of both BIC and non-BIC resonances supported by the metasurface is investigated by employing the Cartesian multipole decomposition technique. Thanks to the non-radiating nature of the quasi-BIC resonance, extremely high Q-factor responses are calculated, both by fitting the simulated transmittance spectra to an extended Fano model and by an eigenfrequency analysis. Furthermore, the effect of optical losses in silicon on quenching the achievable Q-factor values is discussed. The metasurface features a simple bulk geometry and sub-wavelength dimensions. This novel device, its high Q-factors, and strong energy confinement open new avenues of research on light-matter interactions in view of new applications in non-linear devices, biological sensors, and optical communications.Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (PID2019-107270RB-C21, PID2019-109072RB-C31, RTC2017-6321-1); Comunidad de Madrid (S2018/NMT-4326); Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (TEC2016-76021-C2-2-R, TEC2016-77242-C3-1-R)

Electromagnetically induced transparency in square slotted dielectric metasurfaces supporting bound states in the continuum

In this work, a novel dielectric metasurface consisting of square slotted arrays etched in a silicon layer is proposed and theoretically demonstrated. The structure is designed to support electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) based on quasi-bound states in the continuum (qBIC). Specifically, the metasurface consists of square slots with a silicon gap that breaks the symmetry of the structure. Thanks to the interaction of the sharp quasi-BIC resonances with a broadband background mode, an extremely high Q factor EIT response of 6⋅106 is demonstrated (considering the length scales feasible during fabrication and optical losses). Moreover, the resonator possesses a simple bulk geometry and subwavelength dimensions. The proposed metasurface, its high Q factors, and strong energy confinement may open new avenues of research on light-matter interactions in emerging applications in non-linear devices, lasing, biological sensors, optical communications, etc.This work was supported by Comunidad de Madrid and FEDER Program (S2018/NMT-4326), the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of Spain (TEC2016-77242-C3-1-R and TEC2016-76021-C2-2-R), the FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and Agencia Estatal de Investigación (RTC2017-6321-1, PID2019-107270RB-C21 and PID2019-109072RB-C31)

Cylindrical and Powell liquid crystal lenses with positive-negative optical power

We demonstrate a technique to engineer cylindrical and Powell liquid crystal lenses with positive or negative optical power. The device is based on two indium-tin-oxide electrode combs and a microstructured voltage transmission electrode. The technique features the advantages of a multielectrode lens, albeit using a single lithographic step and only two voltage sources. Extensive control of the phase profile across the device active area is demonstrated, achieving both positive and negative optical power. The lens aperture is not constrained by the geometrical parameters and can be scaled to larger values.This work was supported in part by the Comunidad de Madrid and FEDER Program under Grant S2018/NMT-4326, in part by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of Spain under Grant TEC2013-47342-C2-2-R and Grant TEC2016-76021-C2-2-R, in part by the FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and Agencia Estatal de Investigación under Grant RTC2017-6321-1, Grant PID2019-109072RB-C31, and Grant PID2019-107270RB-C21, in part by the Ministry of National Defense of Poland under Grant GBMON/13-995/2018/WAT, and in part by the Military University of Technology under Grant 23-895

Refractive index sensing by all-dielectric metasurfaces supporting quasi-bound states in the continuum

All-dielectric metasurfaces have attracted increasing attention due to their negligible losses and sharper resonances compared to their metallic counterparts. In this work, we numerically studied the optical performance of a novel alldielectric metasurface based on complementary split-ring resonators (CSRRs), in which ultrathin slots were periodically etched in a thin silicon layer. The proposed CSRR metasurface exhibits two multipolar resonances in the near-infrared (NIR) window. Moreover, a quasi-bound state in the continuum (quasi-BIC) with an ultra-high quality factor can be excited by breaking the symmetry of the structure. Taking advantage of the high-quality factor quasi-BIC mode and its sensitivity to the superstrate medium refractive index (S = [Di] res/[Dn]), we design an ultra-high figure of merit (FoM = S/FWHM) refractive index sensor for biomedical applications. By three-dimensional finite element method (3D-FEM), we evaluate the sensitivity of the sensing device to the variation of the superstrate refractive index in the range 1.31-1.33, which is typical for aqueous solutions. Our simulations reveal that a sensitivity of S ~ 155 nm RIU-1 and an extraordinary FoM ~ 387500 RIU-1 can be achieved using the ultra-narrow quasi-BIC resonance in the CSRR metasurface structure. The proposed approach opens new paths to develop flat biochemical sensors with high accuracy and real-time performance