2,272 research outputs found
Dominance of backward stimulated Raman scattering in gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fibers
Backward stimulated Raman scattering in gases provides a promising route to
compression and amplification of a Stokes seed-pulse by counter-propagating
against a pump-pulse, as has been already demonstrated in various platforms,
mainly in free-space. However, the dynamics governing this process when seeded
by noise has not yet been investigated in a fully controllable collinear
environment. Here we report the first unambiguous observation of efficient
noise-seeded backward stimulated Raman scattering in a hydrogen-filled
hollow-core photonic crystal fiber. At high gas pressures, when the backward
Raman gain is comparable with, but lower than, the forward gain, we report
quantum conversion efficiencies exceeding 40% to the backward Stokes at 683 nm
from a narrowband 532-nm-pump. The efficiency increases to 65% when the
backward process is seeded by a small amount of back-reflected
forward-generated Stokes light. At high pump powers the backward Stokes signal,
emitted in a clean fundamental mode and spectrally pure, is unexpectedly always
stronger than its forward-propagating counterpart. We attribute this striking
observation to the unique temporal dynamics of the interacting fields, which
cause the Raman coherence (which takes the form of a moving fine-period Bragg
grating) to grow in strength towards the input end of the fiber. A good
understanding of this process, together with the rapid development of novel
anti-resonant-guiding hollow-core fibers, may lead to improved designs of
efficient gas-based Raman lasers and amplifiers operating at wavelengths from
the ultraviolet to the mid-infrared.Comment: 6 pages and 8 figures in the main section. 4 pages and 5 figures in
the supplementary sectio
Implementation of liquid culture for tuberculosis diagnosis in a remote setting: lessons learned.
Although sputum smear microscopy is the primary method for tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis in low-resource settings, it has low sensitivity. The World Health Organization recommends the use of liquid culture techniques for TB diagnosis and drug susceptibility testing in low- and middle-income countries. An evaluation of samples from southern Sudan found that culture was able to detect cases of active pulmonary TB and extra-pulmonary TB missed by conventional smear microscopy. However, the long delays involved in obtaining culture results meant that they were usually not clinically useful, and high rates of non-tuberculous mycobacteria isolation made interpretation of results difficult. Improvements in diagnostic capacity and rapid speciation facilities, either on-site or through a local reference laboratory, are crucial
The key role of off-axis singularities in free-space vortex transmutation
We experimentally demonstrate the generation of off-axis phase singularities
in a vortex transmutation process induced by the breaking of rotational
symmetry. The process takes place in free space by launching a highly-charged
vortex, owning full rotational symmetry, into a linear thin diffractive element
presenting discrete rotational symmetry. It is shown that off-axis phase
singularities follow straight dark rays bifurcating from the symmetry axis.
This phenomenon may provide new routes towards the spatial control of multiple
phase singularities for applications in atom trapping and particle
manipulation.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Applied Physics B: Lasers and Optic
Polarization-Tailored Raman Frequency Conversion in Chiral Gas-Filled Hollow Core Photonic Crystal Fibers
Broadband-tunable sources of circularly-polarized light are crucial in fields
such as laser science, biomedicine and spectroscopy. Conventional sources rely
on nonlinear wavelength conversion and polarization control using standard
optical components, and are limited by the availability of suitably transparent
crystals and glasses. Although gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber
provides pressure-tunable dispersion, long well-controlled optical
path-lengths, and high Raman conversion efficiency, it is unable to preserve
circular polarization state, typically exhibiting weak linear birefringence.
Here we report a revolutionary approach based on helically-twisted hollow-core
photonic crystal fiber, which displays circular birefringence, thus robustly
maintaining circular polarization state against external perturbations. This
makes it possible to generate pure circularly-polarized Stokes and anti-Stokes
signals by rotational Raman scattering in hydrogen. The polarization state of
the frequency-shifted Raman bands can be continuously varied by tuning the gas
pressure in the vicinity of the gain suppression point. The results pave the
way to a new generation of compact and efficient fiber-based sources of
broadband light with fully-controllable polarization state.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Novel mid-infrared dispersive wave generation in gas-filled PCF by transient ionization-driven changes in dispersion
Gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fibre (PCF) is being used to generate
ever wider supercontinuum spectra, in particular via dispersive wave (DW)
emission in the deep and vacuum ultraviolet, with a multitude of applications.
DWs are the result of the resonant transfer of energy from a self-compressed
soliton, a process which relies crucially on phase matching. It was recently
predicted that, in the strong-field regime, the additional transient anomalous
dispersion introduced by gas ionization would allow phase-matched DW generation
in the mid-infrared (MIR)-something that is forbidden in the absence of free
electrons. Here we report for the first time the experimental observation of
such MIR DWs, embedded in a 4.7-octave-wide supercontinuum that uniquely
reaches simultaneously to the vacuum ultraviolet, with up to 1.7 W of total
average power
Synthesis and structure of an asymmetric copper(I) dimer with two-coordinate and four-coordinate copper(I) sites
Journal ArticleCopper(I) coordination compounds have been studied intensively due to their biological relevance, catalytic properties, and theoretical interests. Numerous mononuclear and polynuclear copper(I) complexes with different coordination numbers have been prepared and characterized. Recently the possible d10-d10 interactions in copper(I) dimers have been the subjects of many experimental and theoretical studies. Among the dimers and even polynuclear complexes, asymmetric ones are rare, especially when the compounds are synthesized from a single copper(I) source. Because of their potential of being selective catalysts and biomimetic models, asymmetric polynuclear complexes are of great interest, and several examples have been reported.3 An example is CuI 2Cl2(PPh3)3 (1), which has both three- and four-coordinate copper(I).4 Herein, we report an unusual asymmetric copper(I) dimer with both 2- and 4-coordinate copper(I) sites (2a and its most important resonance form 2b). 2 is an unusual homobimetallic complex with two isolated donor sets of different coordinate numbers,3d and more importantly it was prepared in a way to not enforce asymmetry, i.e., it self assembles. Hence, asymmetric 2 appears to be more stable than symmetric 3, while our calculations of those of others5 show that 3 is a possible stable structure
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