Optical Disk Research Articles

Well-posedness and exponential stability of nonlinear Maxwell equations for dispersive materials with interface

In this paper we consider an abstract Cauchy problem for a Maxwell system modeling electromagnetic fields in the presence of an interface between optical media. The electric polarization is in general time-delayed and nonlinear, turning the macroscopic Maxwell equations into a system of nonlinear integro-differential equations. Within the framework of evolutionary equations, we obtain well-posedness in function spaces exponentially weighted in time and of different spatial regularity and formulate various conditions on the material functions, leading to exponential stability on a bounded domain.

Characterization of directional and anisotropic scattering dependency of emissivity for fibrous heat shields under non-isothermal conditions

The spectral and directional dependence of emissivity along with radiative emissions of scattering media has been characterized as functions of the optical thickness, scattering albedo, and anisotropic scattering phase function. Emissivity is found to be a strong function of the scattering albedo and the anisotropic scattering phase function of the medium, and a generalized relation between spectral emissivity and scattering behavior for thick optical media is developed through the use of Bézier curves. A comparison of the newly developed relation with the spectral emissivities of silica- and carbon-based fibrous media demonstrated excellent agreement, with a root mean square error of 0.19%. The characterization of directional emissivity through scattering media indicates that directional emissivity is higher than hemispherical emissivity in directions normal to the surface, but drops at polar angles greater than 50° because of increased reflection. A novel model is also developed to capture emissions from a medium with a non-uniform temperature distribution using the same emissivities derived under isothermal conditions, but with an effective blackbody temperature, which differs from the surface temperature of the medium. The new emission model exhibited excellent agreement compared to the true emissions under various conditions, with a root mean square error of 1.27%. This new approach offers a practical computationally tractable solution for the radiation energy balance at surfaces that can be used in current state-of-the-art computational fluid dynamics and thermal response simulations.

Visualization of the optical spin Hall effect in out-of-plane refraction

The traditional law of refraction defines the incidence plane as the plane including the incident beam wavevector and the surface normal vector at the interface of two different optical media. The optical spin Hall effect (OSHE) refers to the spin-dependent transverse shift of the refracted beam perpendicular to the incidence plane. In this Letter, we demonstrate that OSHE in out-of-plane refraction can be detected and visualized in the far-field, even at small and normal incidence angles. The extent of spin-dependent photon spatial separation induced by anomalous refraction can be customized by manipulating the 2D additive momentum from the metasurface. Experimental visualization of the OSHE confirms the existence of a new, to the best of our knowledge, plane to describe the OSHE of the refracted beam outside the incidence plane.

Formation and properties of spatially inhomogeneous plasma density gratings.

Volume plasma density gratings receive increasing interest since, compared to solid-state optical media, they posses significantly higher damage thresholds. The gratings are produced by counterpropagating laser pulses in underdense plasma. When analyzing their optical properties, usually they are assumed to be homogeneous in space. The latter assumption, however, breaks down, especially when the gratings are produced by short high-power laser pump pulses. Then, generically the plasma grating posses an inhomogeneous envelope which results from the superposition of the pump pulses envelopes. The present paper discusses the effect of grating inhomogeneity on reflection and transmission of probe pulses. A Gaussian plasma density grating becomes an apodized grating which offers significant improvement over homogeneous gratings due to side-lobe suppression while maintaining reflectivity and a narrow bandwidth. On the other hand, the reflected probe pulses receive a chirp which depends on the spatial scale. For a Gaussian grating a cubic spectral phase appears. Numerical particle-in-cell simulations are supported by theoretical analysis based on coupled mode equationsas well as an effective medium approach.

Broadband directional invisibility

The discovery of unidirectional invisibility and its broadband realization in optical media satisfying spatial Kramers–Kronig relations are important landmarks of non-Hermitian photonics. We offer a precise characterization of a higher-dimensional generalization of this effect and find sufficient conditions for its realization in the scattering of scalar waves in two and three dimensions and electromagnetic waves in three dimensions. More specifically, given a positive real number α and a continuum of unit vectors Ω, we provide explicit conditions on the interaction potential (or the permittivity and permeability tensors of the scattering medium in the case of electromagnetic scattering) under which it displays perfect (non-approximate) invisibility whenever the incident wavenumber k does not exceed α (i.e., k∈(0,α]) and the direction of the incident wave vector ranges over Ω. A distinctive feature of our approach is that it allows for the construction of potentials and linear dielectric media that display perfect directional invisibility in a finite frequency domain.

Application of Lorentz geometry to refractive optical systems

Lorentz geometry represents the mathematical foundation of Einstein’s general relativity. From the concept of the cone of edge rays, it was introduced successfully in the study of homogeneous media nonimaging optics, Gutiérrez et al. (1996), Winston et al. (2005). In this paper we present a new Lorentzian geometry formalism to analyze optical systems with refractive elements. We have obtained the general system of partial differential equations and the integrability conditions to be fulfilled. This new mathematical formalism is the basis for a new optical technique to analyze the irradiance pattern produced by refractive optical systems. We apply this Lorentzian formalism to an optical media with exponential refraction index. Comparisons between irradiance patterns obtained by this formalism and by raytrace simulations are also presented.

Room temperature amplified spontaneous emissions in a sub-centimeter sized CsPbBr3 bulk single crystal.

All inorganic perovskite CsPbBr3 shows great potential in laser device because of its excellent luminescence characteristics, while the room temperature amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) in a large size CsPbBr3 bulk single crystal is still quite difficult. Herein, we have obtained the room temperature ASE in a sub-centimeter size CsPbBr3 bulk single crystal pumped with the single-photon excitation. Based on the reproducible light path within the CsPbBr3 bulk single crystal, the photonic feedback between the bottom and top facets naturally enhances the population inversion, which exhibits an amplified spontaneous emission threshold of ∼320 µJ/cm2. The blue shift of the ASE peak along with the increased pumping intensity is also observed and ascribed to the reduction of the refractive index and the energy band filling effect. These findings demonstrate the sub-centimeter size CsPbBr3 bulk single crystal to be an excellent candidate as an optical gain media for crystal lasers.

Replicated biopolymer pattern on PLLA-Ag basis with an excellent antibacterial response

The design of functional micro or nanostructured surfaces is undergoing extensive research for their intriguing multifunctional properties and for large variety of potential applications in biomedical field (tissue engineering or cell adhesion), electronics, optics or microfluidics. Such nanosized topographies can be easily fabricated by various lithography techniques and can be also further reinforced by synergic effect by combining aforementioned structures along materials with already outstanding antibacterial properties. In this work we fabricated novel micro/nanostructured substrates using soft lithography replication method and subsequent thermal nanoimprint lithography method, creating nanostructured films based on poly (l-lactic acid) (PLLA) fortified by thin silver films deposited by PVD. Main nanoscale patterns were fabricated by replicating surface patterns of optical discs (CDs and DVDs), which proved to be easy, fast and inexpensive method for creating relatively large area patterned surfaces. Their antimicrobial activity was examined in vitro against the bacteria Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus epidermidis strains. The results demonstrated that nanopatterned films actually improved the conditions for bacterial growth compared to pristine PLLA films, the novelty is based on formation of Ag nanoparticles on the surface/and in bulk, while silver nanoparticle enhanced and nanopatterned films exhibited excellent antibacterial activity against both bacterial strains, with circa 80 % efficacy in 4 h and complete bactericidal effect in span of 24 h.

A multidomain bio-inspired feature extraction and selection model for diabetic retinopathy severity classification: an ensemble learning approach

Diabetes retinopathy (DR) is one of the leading causes of blindness globally. Early detection of this condition is essential for preventing patients' loss of eyesight caused by diabetes mellitus being untreated for an extended period. This paper proposes the design of an augmented bioinspired multidomain feature extraction and selection model for diabetic retinopathy severity estimation using an ensemble learning process. The proposed approach initiates by identifying DR severity levels from retinal images that segment the optical disc, macula, blood vessels, exudates, and hemorrhages using an adaptive thresholding process. Once the images are segmented, multidomain features are extracted from the retinal images, including frequency, entropy, cosine, gabor, and wavelet components. These data were fed into a novel Modified Moth Flame Optimization-based feature selection method that assisted in optimal feature selection. Finally, an ensemble model using various ML (machine learning) algorithms, which included Naive Bayes, K-Nearest Neighbours, Support Vector Machine, Multilayer Perceptron, Random Forests, and Logistic Regression were used to identify the various severity complications of DR. The experiments on different openly accessible data sources have shown that the proposed method outperformed conventional methods and achieved an Accuracy of 96.5% in identifying DR severity levels.

Rotating frame as an optical medium

Rotating frame as an optical medium

Хирургическое лечение первичных дистрофий роговицы

Primary corneal dystrophies management should be aimed at eliminating the main complaints of the patient and be based on the correct diagnosis of the type of dystrophy, assessment of the volume of stromal tissue lesions, as well as the risk of disease recurrence. Among modern methods of surgical treatment of corneal dystrophies, phototherapeutic keratectomy, lamellar and penetrating keratoplasty are most widely used. The main goal of surgical treatment is to maintain the transparency of optical media, increase visual functions and improve the quality of life of patients, and the volume and type of surgery should be minimized and be sparing. The choice of surgical approach and volume of surgical intervention is determined depending on the severity of corneal opacity and the type of dystrophy. The article presents an assessment of the effectiveness of various surgical approaches to treatment on two clinical cases in patients with some forms of anterior corneal dystrophies, in particular, granular stromal dystrophy types I and II. Key words: primary corneal dystrophies, granular dystrophy, surgical treatment, phototherapeutic keratectomy, anterior lamellar keratoplasty

Ram-pressure stripped radio tail and two ULXs in the spiral galaxy HCG 97b

ABSTRACT We report LOFAR and Very Large Array (VLA) detections of extended radio emission in the spiral galaxy HCG 97b, hosted by an X-ray bright galaxy group. The extended radio emission detected at 144 MHz, 1.4 GHz, and 4.86 GHz is elongated along the optical disc and has a tail that extends 27 kpc in projection towards the centre of the group at GHz frequencies or 60 kpc at 144 MHz. Chandra X-ray data show two off-nuclear ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs), with the farther one being a plausible candidate for an accreting intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH). The asymmetry observed in both CO emission morphology and kinematics indicates that HCG 97b is undergoing ram-pressure stripping, with the leading side at the south-eastern edge of the disc. Moreover, the VLA 4.86 GHz image reveals two bright radio blobs near one ULX, aligning with the disc and tail, respectively. The spectral indices in the disc and tail are comparable and flat (α > −1), suggesting the presence of recent outflows potentially linked to ULX feedback. This hypothesis gains support from estimates showing that the bulk velocity of the relativistic electrons needed for transport from the disc to the tail is approximately ${\sim}1300\, \rm km~s^{-1}$. This velocity is much higher than those observed in ram-pressure stripped galaxies ($100{-}600\, \rm km~s^{-1}$), implying an alternative mechanism aiding the stripping process. Therefore, we conclude that HCG 97b is subject to ram pressure, with the formation of its stripped radio tail likely influenced by the putative IMBH activities.

Surface and guided waves near the interface between the media with an abruptly change in the dielectric constant and a parabolic permittivity profile

The waveguide features of the planar interface separating the different optical media with a parabolic permittivity profile and with an abrupt change in the dielectric constant with growing the electric field are studied. A new form of the dielectric permittivity consisting of a parabolic spatial distribution and an intensity-dependent nonlinear part is proposed. Exact solutions to the wave equation with proposed complicated permittivity describing the new types of surface and guided transverse electric (TE) waves are found in the case of both continuous and discrete spectrum of the effective refractive index. The influence of the optical parameters of the contacting media on the wave distribution profiles and their properties are analyzed. A growing width of graded-index layer makes it possible to enlarge the penetration depth of the surface wave existing in the discrete spectrum and to reduce it in the continuous spectrum.

Forward Light Scattering of First to Third Generation Vitreous Body Replacement Hydrogels after Surgical Application Compared to Conventional Silicone Oils and Vitreous Body.

To treat certain vitreoretinal diseases, the vitreous body, a hydrogel composed of mostly collagen and hyaluronic acid, must be removed. After vitrectomy surgery, the vitreous cavity is filled with an endotamponade. Previously, pre-clinical hydrogel-based vitreous body substitutes either made from uncrosslinked monomers (1st generation), preformed crosslinked polymers (2nd generation), or in situ gelating polymers (3rd generation) have been developed. Forward light scattering is a measure of Stray light induced by optical media, when increased, causing visual disturbance and glare. During pinhole surgery, the hydrogels are injected into the vitreous cavity through a small 23G-cannula. The aim of this study was to assess if and to what extent forward light scattering is induced by vitreous body replacement hydrogels and if Stray light differs between different generations of vitreous body hydrogel replacements due to the different gelation mechanisms and fragmentation during injection. A modified C-Quant setup was used to objectively determine forward light scattering. In this study, we found that the 1st and 3rd generation vitreous body replacements show very low stray light levels even after injection (2.8 +/- 0.4 deg2/sr and 0.2 +/- 0.2 deg2/sr, respectively) as gel fragmentation and generation of interfaces is circumvented. The 2nd generation preformed hydrogels showed a permanent increase in stray light after injection that will most likely lead to symptoms such as glare when used in patients (11.9 +/- 0.9 deg2/sr). Stray light of the 2nd generation hydrogels was 3- and 2-fold increased compared to juvenile and aged vitreous bodies, respectively. In conclusion, this significant downside in the forward light scattering of the 2nd generation hydrogels should be kept in mind when developing vitreous body replacement strategies, as any source of stray light should be minimized in patients with retinal comorbidities.

Dispersion-dependent superluminal propagation and photon drag in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dot molecule

Controlling the basic properties of light such as polarization, angular momentum, and speed through various optical media leads to interesting phenomena in various fields such as quantum optics, photonics, plasmonics, and quantum information technology. Few of the phenomenon include, for instance, light storage, ultra-slow and ultra-fast propagation, optical transparency, and quantum entanglement via quantum coherence or superposition. The understanding of these phenomenon of milestone implications paved the way for the invention of novel classical and quantum technology. In this article, we present detailed theoretical and numerical demonstration on the dispersion-dependent phenomenon of slow and fast light, optically induced transparency, and photon drag. For this, we employ a three-level scheme of an ensemble of GaAs\\AlGaAs double quantum dot molecule in cascade configuration. In particular, by tuning the medium dispersion we predict interesting interplay between ultra-slow and ultra-fast light propagation with vanishing, infinite, ultra-positive and ultra-negative group velocities, and optical-assisted quantum transparency. The quantum coherence of the dressed states modifies considerably the optical properties of the system in view of dispersion, absorption, electron energy loss, transmission, and photon drag. An interesting interplay between ultra-slow to ultra-fast propagation is found by tuning various optical parameters. The calculated superluminal value of group velocity is m s−1. We also predict light propagation at vanishing and infinite group velocity. The calculated light drag is rad/m.

Neural network execution using nicked DNA and microfluidics.

DNA has been discussed as a potential medium for data storage. Potentially it could be denser, could consume less energy, and could be more durable than conventional storage media such as hard drives, solid-state storage, and optical media. However, performing computations on the data stored in DNA is a largely unexplored challenge. This paper proposes an integrated circuit (IC) based on microfluidics that can perform complex operations such as artificial neural network (ANN) computation on data stored in DNA. We envision such a system to be suitable for highly dense, throughput-demanding bio-compatible applications such as an intelligent Organ-on-Chip or other biomedical applications that may not be latency-critical. It computes entirely in the molecular domain without converting data to electrical form, making it a form of in-memory computing on DNA. The computation is achieved by topologically modifying DNA strands through the use of enzymes called nickases. A novel scheme is proposed for representing data stochastically through the concentration of the DNA molecules that are nicked at specific sites. The paper provides details of the biochemical design, as well as the design, layout, and operation of the microfluidics device. Benchmarks are reported on the performance of neural network computation.

Photochromic 3D Optical Storage: Laser‐Induced Regulation of Localized Optical Basicity of Glass

Abstract3D optical storage, spatially expanding storage capacity, is regarded as an effective and economical way to break the diffraction limit of the conventional 2D optical storage. In this study, a new kind of 3D optical storage medium, i.e., vanadium ions (V5+) doped sodium borate glass, is developed, showing intriguing spatially‐selected photochromism (PC) upon laser driven excitation. Significantly, a brand‐new PC mechanism of V5+‐aggregation regulated by localized optical basicity (OB) of glass is proposed and demonstrated. The developed PC glass is responsive to a low‐price desktop‐level mini‐laser to encode optical information, yields unique twofold decoding modes in bright‐ and dark‐fields, and shows good data erasibility. 3D volumetric optical storage with a memory density of ≈480 Mbit cm−3 is realized with the aid of an advanced femtosecond laser micro‐machining system. The findings suggest a novel design approach to fabricate 3D PC glass in terms of manipulating the scale of optical basicity in glass, hopefully stimulating the development of new multi‐dimensional PC optical storage media.

Multiplex Quantification of Exosomes via Multiple Types of Nanobeads Labeling Combined with Laser Scanning Detection.

In recent years, exosomes have attracted attention in many aspects from basic research to clinical application, including therapeutic reagents or biomarkers for liquid biopsy. The increasing understanding of exosome's heterogeneous properties is expected to lead to more advanced exosome research, and there is therefore a need for a multiplex system that can easily classify and analyze exosomes in complex biological samples according to their properties. In this study, we developed a simple and sensitive multiplexed exosome quantification system based on ExoCounter, an exosome quantification system utilizing optical disk technology, by introducing nanobeads made of different materials as exosome labeling substances. The refractive indices suitable for nanobead materials were analyzed by computer simulation of optical diffraction generated by nanobeads. The results showed that polymer (FG), Au, and Ag nanobeads exhibited superior discrimination capability in terms of the amplitude and polarity of detection pulses generated by each nanobead. The specificity and detection sensitivity of three types of nanobeads were confirmed by detecting HER2-positive exosomes with anti-HER2 antibody-conjugated nanobeads. Furthermore, CD147-positive, HER2-positive, and CD81-positive exosomes in 12.5 μL of serum were simultaneously quantified with high discrimination performance using the anti-CD147 antibody, anti-HER2 antibody, or anti-CD81 antibody conjugated for FG beads, Au nanobeads, or Ag nanobeads, respectively. A limit of detection was also evaluated as low as 210 exosomes/μL. This system is a promising tool for advanced exosome research because it enables multiplexed detection of heterogeneous exosomes in serum with high specificity, accuracy, and sensitivity without purification.

Analytical solutions of the generalized Kaup–Newell equation

The generalized Kaup–Newell equation for describing the pulse propagation in a nonlinear optical medium is considered. The traveling wave reduction of this equation is taken into account. The method of direct transformations is used to construct a general solution of a nonlinear ordinary differential equation. Analytical solutions are found, expressed in terms of elliptic integrals in canonical form. The implicit function method is applied to find some degenerate solutions under constraints on the model parameters. Among the solutions obtained there are doubly periodic solutions on the complex plane, as well as optical solitons.

Filamentation of a Hollow Gaussian Beam in a Nonlinear Optical Medium

Filamentation of a Hollow Gaussian Beam in a Nonlinear Optical Medium