Towards spectrally selective catastrophic response

We study the large-amplitude response of classical molecules to electromagnetic radiation, showing the universality of the transition from linear to nonlinear response and breakup at sufficiently large amplitudes. We demonstrate that a range of models, from the simple harmonic oscillator to the successful Peyrard-Bishop-Dauxois type models of DNA, which include realistic effects of the environment (including damping and dephasing due to thermal fluctuations), lead to characteristic universal behavior: formation of domains of dissociation in driving force amplitude-frequency space, characterized by the presence of local boundary minima. We demonstrate that by simply following the progression of the resonance maxima in this space, while gradually increasing intensity of the radiation, one must necessarily arrive at one of these minima, i.e., a point where the ultrahigh spectral selectivity is retained. We show that this universal property, applicable to other oscillatory systems, is a consequence of the fact that these models belong to the fold catastrophe universality class of Thom's catastrophe theory. This in turn implies that for most biostructures, including DNA, high spectral sensitivity near the onset of the denaturation processes can be expected. Such spectrally selective molecular denaturation could find important applications in biology and medicine

Optimization of hierarchical structure and nanoscale enabled plasmonic refraction for window electrodes in photovoltaics

An ideal network window electrode for photovoltaic applications should provide an optimal surface coverage, a uniform current density into and/or from a substrate, and a minimum of the overall resistance for a given shading ratio. Here we show that metallic networks with quasi-fractal structure provides a near-perfect practical realization of such an ideal electrode. We find that a leaf venation network, which possesses key characteristics of the optimal structure, indeed outperforms other networks. We further show that elements of hierarchal topology, rather than details of the branching geometry, are of primary importance in optimizing the networks, and demonstrate this experimentally on five model artificial hierarchical networks of varied levels of complexity. In addition to these structural effects, networks containing nanowires are shown to acquire transparency exceeding the geometric constraint due to the plasmonic refraction

Cluster expansion for the dielectric constant of a polarizable suspension

We derive a cluster expansion for the electric susceptibility kernel of a dielectric suspension of spherically symmetric inclusions in a uniform background. This also leads to a cluster expansion for the effective dielectric constant. It is shown that the cluster integrals of any order are absolutely convergent, so that the dielectric constant is well defined and independent of the shape of the sample in the limit of a large system. We compare with virial expansions derived earlier in statistical mechanics for the dielectric constant of a nonpolar gas. In these expansions the virial coefficients are given by integrals which are only conditionally convergent.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45141/1/10955_2005_Article_BF01011628.pd