Broadband optical limiting optimisation by combination of carbon nanotubes and two-photon absorbing chromophores in liquids

International audienceWe report here on the optical limiting studies performed with nanosecond laser pulses on several families of multiphoton absorbers in chloroform, with carbon nanotubes suspended in solutions. Performances of these samples are compared with those of simple multiphoton absorber solutions and carbon nanotube suspensions, and the differences observed are interpreted in terms of cumulative NLO effects and adverse aggregation phenomenon

Chemical analysis of trace elements at the nanoscale in samples recovered from laser-heated diamond anvil cell experiments

Abstract: High pressure and high temperature experiments performed with laser-heated diamond anvil cells (LH-DAC) are being extensively used in geosciences to study matter at conditions prevailing in planetary interiors. Due to the size of the apparatus itself, the samples that are produced are extremely small, on the order of few tens of micrometers. There are several ways to analyze the samples and extract physical, chemical or structural information, using either in situ or ex situ methods. In this paper, we compare two nanoprobe techniques, namely nano-XRF and NanoSIMS, that can be used to analyze recovered samples synthetized in a LH-DAC. With these techniques, it is possible to extract the spatial distribution of chemical elements in the samples. We show the results for several standards and discuss the importance of proper calibration for the acquisition of quantifiable results. We used these two nanoprobe techniques to retrieve elemental ratios of dilute species (few tens of ppm) in quenched experimental molten samples relevant for the formation of the iron-rich core of the Earth. We finally discuss the applications of such probes to constrain the partitioning of trace elements between metal and silicate phases, with a focus on moderately siderophile elements, tungsten and molybdenum

Comparison of Drought and Heat Resistance Strategies among Six Populations of Solanum chilense and Two Cultivars of Solanum lycopersicum

Within the tomato clade, Solanum chilense is considered one of the most promising sources of genes for tomato (S. lycopersicum) selection to biotic and abiotic stresses. In this study, we compared the effects of drought, high temperature, and their combination in two cultivars of S. lycopersicum and six populations of S. chilense, differing in their local habitat. Plants were grown at 21/19 °C or 28/26 °C under well-watered and water-stressed conditions. Plant growth, physiological responses, and expression of stress-responsive genes were investigated. Our results demonstrated strong variability among accessions. Differences in plant growth parameters were even higher among S. chilense populations than between species. The effects of water stress, high temperature, and their combination also differed according to the accession, suggesting differences in stress resistance between species and populations. Overall, water stress affected plants more negatively than temperature from a morpho-physiological point of view, while the expression of stress-responsive genes was more affected by temperature than by water stress. Accessions clustered in two groups regarding resistance to water stress and high temperature. The sensitive group included the S. lycopersicum cultivars and the S. chilense populations LA2931 and LA1930, and the resistant group included the S. chilense populations LA1958, LA2880, LA2765, and LA4107. Our results suggested that resistance traits were not particularly related to the environmental conditions in the natural habitat of the populations. The expression of stress-responsive genes was more stable in resistant accessions than in sensitive ones in response to water stress and high temperature. Altogether, our results suggest that water stress and high temperature resistance in S. chilense did not depend on single traits but on a combination of morphological, physiological, and genetic traits

Evaluation of trawling disturbance on macrobenthic invertebrate communities in the Bay of Biscay, France: Abundance Biomass Comparison (ABC method)

The necessity to move from a traditional fishery management to an ecosystem approach is now acknowledged. Indicators are required to support the development of this approach. For example, community indicators have been proposed to assess the impact of fishing. We tested here the applicability of one such community indicator, the abundance-biomass comparison (ABC method), as a measure of the impact of bottom trawling (years of sampling: 2001 and 2003) on the benthic invertebrates – typically starfishes, crabs, squat lobsters, shrimps and large hard-shelled molluscs- of “Grande Vasière”, a major French fishing zone, in the Bay of Biscay. The ABC method is generally used as an impact indicator for different types of physical, biological and anthropogenic disturbances on benthic communities. This method is based on the assumption that increasing disturbance shifts communities from dominance by large-bodied species with low turnover rates toward dominance by small-bodied species with high turnover rates. At less disturbed areas the average biomass of individuals is greater than at more heavily disturbed areas. The ABC method measures this effect by comparing the ranked distributions of abundance and biomass within a given community. We applied the ABC method and compared the size structure and the species diversity at two areas exposed to moderate and high bottom trawl effort. Species diversity was lower in the most exploited area. The highly trawled area was dominated by opportunistic organisms, mainly one species of swimming crab Liocarcinus depurator, one species of squat lobster Munida rugosa and Norway lobsters Nephrops norvegicus, which are large-bodied species. Consequently, the results of the ABC method were inconsistent with the theoretical expectation for these particular macrofaunal communities and the measured levels of fishing intensity.

Spikes super-resolution with random Fourier sampling

International audienceWe leverage recent results from machine learning to show theoretically and practically that it is possible to stably recover a signal made of few spikes (in the gridless setting) from few random weighted Fourier measurements. Given a free choice of frequencies, a number of measurements lower than with the traditional low-pass filter (uniform sampling of low frequencies) guarantees stable recovery