12 research outputs found
The dutch FOm/f approach to gender balance in physics
Almost 20 years ago, the Dutch Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) launched the FOm/f programme to encourage women to continue a career in physics after finishing their PhDs. As of 2016, 86% of the FOm/f laureates hold permanent positions in academic research, while 11 laureates have become full-time physics professors. Key to the success of the FOm/f programme is a customised personal approach. Since September 2015, FOM has been a partner in the European Horizon 2020 GENERA project, which aims to implement Gender Equality Plans customized for physics. The positive experience with the personal approach of the FOm/f programme and dedicated tenure-track programmes for women will be paramount for a future Gender Equality Plan for improving the gender balance in the physics community.</p
GENERA gender in physics days in Europe
The GENERA European Horizon 2020 project aims at designing and implementing gender equality plans customised for physics. The three-year project started in September 2015. GENERA's activities include the national Gender in Physics Day in each European country participating in the GENERA project. Typically, at these days, national physics managers, human resources managers, and gender equality policy officers meet with senior and early-career physicists to review the status quo and formulate recommendations for improving the gender balance in the national physics community. We will report on the recommendations of the first GENERA Gender in Physics Day organised in 2016 in the Netherlands.</p
Layering, freezing and re-entrant melting of hard spheres in soft confinement
Confinement can have a dramatic effect on the behavior of all sorts of
particulate systems and it therefore is an important phenomenon in many
different areas of physics and technology. Here, we investigate the role played
by the softness of the confining potential. Using grand canonical Monte Carlo
simulations, we determine the phase diagram of three-dimensional hard spheres
that in one dimension are constrained to a plane by a harmonic potential. The
phase behavior depends strongly on the density and on the stiffness of the
harmonic confinement. Whilst we find the familiar sequence of confined
hexagonal and square-symmetric packings, we do not observe any of the usual
intervening ordered phases. Instead, the system phase separates under strong
confinement, or forms a layered re-entrant liquid phase under weaker
confinement. It is plausible that this behavior is due to the larger positional
freedom in a soft confining potential and to the contribution that the
confinement energy makes to the total free energy. The fact that specific
structures can be induced or suppressed by simply changing the confinement
conditions (e.g. in a dielectrophoretic trap) is important for applications
that involve self-assembled structures of colloidal particles.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
Creating and Controlling Polarization Singularities in Plasmonic Fields
Nanoscale light fields near nanoplasmonic objects can be highly structured and can contain highly-subwavelength features. Here, we present the results of our search for the simplest plasmonic system that contains, and can be used to control, the smallest such optical feature: an optical singularity. Specifically, we study the field around subwavelength holes in a metal film and look for polarization singularities. These can be circular (C)-points, at which the polarization is circular, or linear (L)-lines, where the polarization is linear. We find that, depending on the polarization of the incident light, two or three holes are sufficient to create a wealth of these singularities. Moreover, we find for the two-hole system that C-points are created in multiples of eight. This can be explained using symmetry arguments and conservation laws. We are able to predict where these singularities are created, their index and the topology of the field surrounding them. These results demonstrate the promise of this plasmonic platform as a tool for studying and controlling fundamental properties of light fields and may be important to applications where control over these properties is required at the nanoscale
Creating and controlling polarization singularities in plasmonic fields
Nanoscale light fields near nanoplasmonic objects can be highly structured and can contain highly-subwavelength features. Here, we present the results of our search for the simplest plasmonic system that contains, and can be used to control, the smallest such optical feature: an optical singularity. Specifically, we study the field around subwavelength holes in a metal film and look for polarization singularities. These can be circular (C)-points, at which the polarization is circular, or linear (L)-lines, where the polarization is linear. We find that, depending on the polarization of the incident light, two or three holes are sufficient to create a wealth of these singularities. Moreover, we find for the two-hole system that C-points are created in multiples of eight. This can be explained using symmetry arguments and conservation laws. We are able to predict where these singularities are created, their index and the topology of the field surrounding them. These results demonstrate the promise of this plasmonic platform as a tool for studying and controlling fundamental properties of light fields and may be important to applications where control over these properties is required at the nanoscale
The dutch FOm/f approach to gender balance in physics
Almost 20 years ago, the Dutch Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) launched the FOm/f programme to encourage women to continue a career in physics after finishing their PhDs. As of 2016, 86% of the FOm/f laureates hold permanent positions in academic research, while 11 laureates have become full-time physics professors. Key to the success of the FOm/f programme is a customised personal approach. Since September 2015, FOM has been a partner in the European Horizon 2020 GENERA project, which aims to implement Gender Equality Plans customized for physics. The positive experience with the personal approach of the FOm/f programme and dedicated tenure-track programmes for women will be paramount for a future Gender Equality Plan for improving the gender balance in the physics community
GENERA gender in physics days in Europe
The GENERA European Horizon 2020 project aims at designing and implementing gender equality plans customised for physics. The three-year project started in September 2015. GENERA's activities include the national Gender in Physics Day in each European country participating in the GENERA project. Typically, at these days, national physics managers, human resources managers, and gender equality policy officers meet with senior and early-career physicists to review the status quo and formulate recommendations for improving the gender balance in the national physics community. We will report on the recommendations of the first GENERA Gender in Physics Day organised in 2016 in the Netherlands
Harmonics Generation by Surface Plasmon Polaritons on Single Nanowires
We present experimental
observations of visible wavelength second-
and third-harmonic generation on single plasmonic nanowires of variable
widths. We identify that near-infrared surface plasmon polaritons,
which are guided along the nanowire, act as the source of the harmonics
generation. We discuss the underlying mechanism of this nonlinear
process, using a combination of spatially resolved measurements and
numerical simulations to show that the visible harmonics are generated
via a combination of both local and propagating plasmonic modes. Our
results provide the first demonstration of nanoscale nonlinear optics
with guided, propagating plasmonic modes on a lithographically defined
chip, opening up new routes toward integrated optical circuits for
information processing
Core-Shell Plasmonic Nanohelices
We introduce core-shell plasmonic nanohelices, highly tunable structures that have a different response in the visible for circularly polarized light of opposite handedness. The glass core of the helices is fabricated using electron beam induced deposition and the pure gold shell is subsequently sputter coated. Optical measurements allow us to explore the chiral nature of the nanohelices, where differences in the response to circularly polarized light of opposite handedness result in a dissymmetry factor of 0.86, more than twice of what has been previously reported. Both experiments and subsequent numerical simulations demonstrate the extreme tunability of the core-shell structures, where nanometer changes to the geometry can lead to drastic changes of the optical responses. This tunability, combined with the large differential transmission, make core-shell plasmonic nanohelices a powerful nanophotonic tool for, for example, (bio)sensing applications.QN/Kuipers LabQN/Quantum Nanoscienc
Core–Shell Plasmonic Nanohelices
We introduce core–shell plasmonic
nanohelices, highly tunable
structures that have a different response in the visible for circularly
polarized light of opposite handedness. The glass core of the helices
is fabricated using electron beam induced deposition and the pure
gold shell is subsequently sputter coated. Optical measurements allow
us to explore the chiral nature of the nanohelices, where differences
in the response to circularly polarized light of opposite handedness
result in a dissymmetry factor of 0.86, more than twice of what has
been previously reported. Both experiments and subsequent numerical
simulations demonstrate the extreme tunability of the core–shell
structures, where nanometer changes to the geometry can lead to drastic
changes of the optical responses. This tunability, combined with the
large differential transmission, make core–shell plasmonic
nanohelices a powerful nanophotonic tool for, for example, (bio)Âsensing
applications