Photon-Atom Coupling with Parabolic Mirrors

Efficient coupling of light to single atomic systems has gained considerable attention over the past decades. This development is driven by the continuous growth of quantum technologies. The efficient coupling of light and matter is an enabling technology for quantum information processing and quantum communication. And indeed, in recent years much progress has been made in this direction. But applications aside, the interaction of photons and atoms is a fundamental physics problem. There are various possibilities for making this interaction more efficient, among them the apparently 'natural' attempt of mode-matching the light field to the free-space emission pattern of the atomic system of interest. Here we will describe the necessary steps of implementing this mode-matching with the ultimate aim of reaching unit coupling efficiency. We describe the use of deep parabolic mirrors as the central optical element of a free-space coupling scheme, covering the preparation of suitable modes of the field incident onto these mirrors as well as the location of an atom at the mirror's focus. Furthermore, we establish a robust method for determining the efficiency of the photon-atom coupling.Comment: Book chapter in compilation "Engineering the Atom-Photon Interaction" published by Springer in 2015, edited by A. Predojevic and M. W. Mitchell, ISBN 9783319192307, http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319192307. Only change to version1: now with hyperlinks to arXiv eprints of other book chapters mentioned in this on

Computed Tomography-guided fine-needle aspiration and tissue-core biopsy of bone lesions in small animals

Nell'uomo, la biopsia TC-guidata a mano libera è un metodo accurato per ottenere dei campioni di tessuto. Ci sono pochi lavori di questa tecnica in medicina veterinaria. Nel presente studio, 21 cani e 2 gatti sono stati sottoposti a biopsia TC-guidata (17 animali) o ago aspirato fine TC-guidato (6 animali) di lesioni ossee. Due delle 17 biospie sono state anche sottoposta ad esame colturale. Tutte le 17 biospie erano diagnostiche (accuratezza 100%). Cinque dei sei aghi aspirati fini erano diagnostici (accuratezza 83.3%). L'accuratezza totale era 95.7%. In un aspirato, la qualità citologica è stata considerata insufficiente in quanto conteneva solo sangue. Non si sono evidenziate complicazioni maggiori. Sono state diagnosticate 14 lesioni neoplastiche, 2 infezioni, e 6 lesioni benigne. L'esame TC dopo somministrazione di mezzo di cotnrasto endovenoso ha aggiunto informazioni utili per evitare grossi vasi e per biopsare tessuto vitale. La bipsia e l'ago aspirato fine TC-guidati a mano libera sembra essere una tecnica sicura e molto accurata per la diagnosi di patologie ossee nei piccoli animaliIn humans, free-hand computed tomography (CT)-guided biopsy is an accurate method to obtain a tissue sample. There are only a few reports of this technique in veterinary medicine. In the present study, 21 dogs and two cats underwent a free-hand CT-guided tissue-core biopsy (17 animals) or fine-needle aspiration (six animals) of a bone lesion. Two out of 17 tissue-core samples were also cultured. All 17 tissue-core biopsy samples were diagnostic (accuracy of 100%). Five out of six aspirates were diagnostic (accuracy of 83.3%). The overall accuracy was 95.7%. In one aspirate, cytologic quality was insufficient containing only blood. No major complications were encountered. Fourteen neoplastic, two infectious and six benign lesions were diagnosed. CT examination after intravenous contrast medium added useful information to avoid large vessels and to biopsy-viable tissue. Free-hand CT-guided tissue-core biopsy and aspiration appears to be a safe and very accurate procedure for use in the diagnosis of bone-associated diseases in small animal