Construction of an optical tweezer for nanometer scale rheology

The optical tweezer is a versatile set-up that can be employed in a wide variety of studies investigating the microscopic properties of materials. In particular, this set-up has in recent times been gainfully employed in probing rheological properties of materials that exhibit viscoelasticity. These measurements can provide data at the micro and nanometer scales, not normally accessible by rheometers that are used for measurements on bulk samples. In this work we describe a single laser beam optical tweezer set-up, which is built around an inverted open microscope. The trapped polystyrene particle bead’s deviation from the trap potential minimum is monitored by laser backscattering technique and the bead position measured by a quadrant photodiode detector. Additionally, a provision is made for video microscopic studies on dispersed beads using a CCD camera. A single particle microrheological experiment that can be performed using the set-up is described with relevant calculations.     

Propagation of electric fields induced by optical phonons in semiconductor heterostructures

The penetration of electric fields accompanying long-wavelength optical phonos from one region of a semiconductor heterostructure to another is investigated. It is proposed to determine the penetration depth of such fields from the relaxation caused by these fields in quantum dots. By the example of a cylindrical Ge quantum dot embedded in a GaP/GaAs heterostructure, it is shown that the electric fields induced by longitudinal optical phonons can penetrate through the interface between semiconductors at distances of about 100 nm.     

Anisotropic optical absorption in quantum well wires induced by high-frequency laser fields

The subband structure and optical properties of a cylindrical quantum well wire under intense non-resonant laser field are investigated by taking into account the correct dressing effect for the confinement potential. The energy levels and wave functions are calculated within the effective mass- approximation using a finite element method. It is found that the absorption coefficient and the saturation intensity are strongly affected by the laser amplitude and frequency as well as by the incident light polarization. As a key result, a large anisotropy in the linear and nonlinear optical absorptions for very intense laser field is predicted. These effects can be useful for the design of polarization sensitive devices.     

导电聚合物自组装纳米器件

导电聚合物自20世纪70年代以来得到了广泛的研究.然而,关于聚合物纳米器件的研究则鲜有报导.从纳米尺度上研究导电聚合物,不仅有利于从更小的尺度上解析聚合物的光电性能、电荷传输机理,也可以将导电聚合物和纳米电子学有机地结合起来,发展聚合物纳米电子学的研究.文章介绍了最近由胡文平等［1,2］采用自组装的方法构筑的聚合物纳米器件和在纳米器件中观察到的一些有趣的现象.     

Stick-slip transition at the nanometer scale

We report the first observation of a stick-slip transition of surfactant solution flow through nanopores. From the experimental data, we were able to determine both the slip length and the critical wall shear stress from which slip occurs. Whereas the latter is found to increase linearly with the concentration, the former remains constant and approximately equal to 20 nm over the studied range of concentrations. We model slip to occur in the surfactant bilayer adsorbed at the nanopore wall. The stick-slip transition is then related to a reorganization of the surfactant bilayer from an entangled structure into independent layers flowing past one another, as evidenced by independent surface plasmon resonance experiments. We conclude from our analysis that surfactant solutions are always slipping in larger tubes. However, the larger the tube diameter, the smaller the relative slip contribution to the total flow.     

Towards X-ray induced transient grating methods for nanometer scale dynamics: Diffraction on transient structures induced by extreme ultraviolet radiation from FLASH

Using the high brilliance femtosecond soft X-ray pulses from the Free-Electron LASer at Hamburg (FLASH) the X-ray induced transient optical reflectivity change of GaAs has been established as a versatile method for femtosecond X-ray/optical cross-correlation [1]. As the underlying physical mechanism is the X-ray induced dynamics within solids, we present in this work a feasibility study how transient grating methods could be used to study nanometer scale dynamics in materials, such as the radical diffusion parameters in photoresist materials for EUV lithography.     

Contact angle hysteresis at the nanometer scale

Using atomic force microscopy with nonconventional carbon tips, the pinning of a liquid contact line on individual nanometric defects was studied. This mechanism is responsible for the occurrence of the contact angle hysteresis. The presence of weak defects which do not contribute to the hysteresis is evidenced for the first time. The dissipated energy associated with strong defects is also measured down to values in the range of kT, which correspond to defect sizes in the order of 1 nm.     

Spin wave dispersion on the nanometer scale

Hot electrons injected into antiferromagnetic Mn layers from the tip of a low temperature scanning tunneling microscope have been used to determine the energies, lifetimes, and momenta of antiferromagnetic spin waves on the nanometer scale. The spin waves show a linear dispersion with a velocity of 160+/-10 meV A and lifetimes that scale linearly with energy in agreement with neutron scattering and theory. It is shown that the method is sensitive enough to detect the influence of surface anisotropies on the spin wave dispersion.     

Simultaneous estimation of optical nonlinear refractive and absorptive parameters by solvent induced changes in optical density

With picosecond pulses at the wavelength of 532 nm, we have determined the optical nonlinear refractive and absorptive parameters of the dye N,N′-bis(2,5-di-tert-butylphenyl)-3,4,9,10-perylenedicarboximide (DBPI) by a single closed-aperture (CA) Z-scan technique. This technique uses a theoretical model that elucidates the refractive and absorptive optical nonlinearity present simultaneously in the CA Z-scan profile. The observed remarkable red shift in the absorption spectrum of the dye in the acidic medium as compared to that in the polar medium has been used to vary the optical density at a single frequency. We find that the effect of saturable absorption (SA) is complete at higher concentrations. The effect of reverse saturable absorption (RSA) is dominating in dilute concentrations. The observed variations in the excited state refractive cross-section (σ_r) with the concentration and the energy have been attributed to the contributions of higher order nonlinearity along with the existing third-order nonlinearity.     

Detection of non-paraxial optical fields by optical fiber tip probes

The optical response of a single-mode uncoated fiber tip to a 3D polarized field, including longitudinal components, is investigated. The 3D field is produced by an opportune superposition of TE and TM plane waves. The contribution of the different field components to the detected signals was discriminated by integrating the scanning probe microscope with a multi-heterodyne detection technique. A simple coupling model for the tip is introduced. The longitudinal field component was assumed to couple to the transverse fiber modes through complex coupling coefficients. Coupling coefficients were obtained by fitting the parameters of the model to the experimental data. These results demonstrate that the longitudinal components of the field are coupled by this probe with an efficiency approximately equal to that of the transverse polarization components.     

Molecular scale structure formation by folding

A conception of a structure formation suitable for nano-technology is proposed, which is programmable and suitable for mass production-like lithography. This conception utilizes the controlled folding of chains like the scan-lines of television. Its possibility and property were studied theoretically using the modeled chains consist of beads. By adopting the interaction among the beads which can distinguish the kind of the partner by its polarity and is chiral to break the chiral symmetry of the folded state, the special chains which have the unique ground states could be designed. In these ground states, the chains are folded like the scan-lines of television. The thermodynamic properties of the suggested chains were studied by the Monte Carlo simulations and the suggested chains showed the phase-transition-like behavior which is distinct compared to both the random chains and the chain that has only the non-specific attraction. The size dependence and the effects of adding the non-specific attraction and modifying the border of the folded conformation were also studied.     

Modelling of nanometer scale dust grains in tokamak

Dust poses a serious threat to tokamak operation and safety. It is important to study the behaviour of dust grains under tokamak's discharge conditions, which depends heavily on their size and charge. Existing simulations mainly address issues on dust grains with radii larger than 1 μm, in which case, the drift effect due to electromagnetic fields can be safely ignored. For nanometer scale dust grains, however, the drift effect becomes significant and a new model based on guiding-centre system needs to be established. In this work, the NDS has been done under BOUT++ framework. The simulation contains two parts. Part one, NDS evaluates the charging and ablation processes of the dust grains. In the second part, the guiding-centre orbits of dust particles are tracked in tokamak plasmas, whose parameters are obtained from BOUT++, a highly desirable C++ code package for performing parallel plasma fluid simulations with an arbitrary number of equations in 3D curvilinear coordinates. The orbit of nanodust dynamics is described by guiding centre equations for simplicity, and these equations are numerically solved by conventional fourth-order Runge Kutta method. Simulations provide results such as trajectories and evolutions of dust particles with different sizes and velocities for different tokamak geometries. Results show tungsten dust grains with a radius of a few nanometers launched from outer midplane will oscillate before totally ablated in C-Mod. The oscillation in this case is driven by the ion drag force. Larger Nanodust with a radius of 100 nm, on the contrary, cannot be completely constrained by the electromagnetic field. The high plasma temperature and density in the seperatrix region causes severe dust ablation, resulting in total ablation within several ms.     

Monitoring statistical magnetic fluctuations on the nanometer scale

Statistical fluctuations of the magnetization are measured on the nanometer scale. As the experimental monitor we use the characteristic photoluminescence signal of a single electron-hole pair confined in one magnetic semiconductor quantum dot, which sensitively depends on the alignment of the magnetic ion spins. Quantitative access to statistical magnetic fluctuations is obtained by analyzing the linewidth broadening of the single dot emission. Our all-optical technique allows us to address a magnetic moment of only approximately equal 100 micro(B) and to resolve statistical changes on the order of a few micro(B).     

Quantum correlations of two optical fields close to electromagnetically induced transparency

We show that three-level atoms excited by two cavity modes in a Lambda configuration close to electromagnetically induced transparency can produce strongly squeezed bright beams or correlated beams which can be used for quantum nondemolition measurements. The input intensity is the experimental "knob" for tuning the system into a squeezer or a quantum nondemolition device. The quantum correlations become ideal at a critical point characterized by the appearance of a switching behavior in the mean fields intensities. Our predictions, based on a realistic fully quantum three-level model including cavity losses and spontaneous emission, allow direct comparison with future experiments.     

Qubit entanglement driven by remote optical fields

We examine the entanglement between two qubits, supposed to be remotely located and driven by independent quantized optical fields. No interaction is allowed between the qubits, but their degree of entanglement changes as a function of time. We report a collapse and revival of entanglement that is similar to the collapse and revival of single-atom properties in cavity QED.     

Deformation and collapse of microtubules on the nanometer scale

We probe the local mechanical properties of microtubules at the nanometer scale by radial indentation with a scanning force microscope tip. We find a linear elastic regime that can be described by both thin-shell theory and finite element methods, in which microtubules are modeled as hollow tubes. We also find a nonlinear regime and catastrophic collapse of the microtubules under large loads. The main physics of protein shells at the nanometer scale shows simultaneously aspects of continuum elasticity in their linear response, as well as molecular graininess in their nonlinear behavior.     

Step-profile measurement by backpropagation of multiple-wavelength optical fields

Multiple-wavelength optical fields on a detecting plane of an interferometer are generated from the interference signals detected for an object surface. The generated optical fields are backpropagated along the optical axis. An optical field along the optical axis is reconstructed by summing the backpropagated fields over the multiple wavelengths. The intensity and phase distributions of the reconstructed optical field provide the position of the object surface with an accuracy of a few nanometers.     

Simulation of scattering of optical radiation by a metal surface with nanometer irregularity

Within the framework of the model of a limited electron free path, the scattering indicatrix for spherical nanoparticles was calculated. The calculations were made by an example of silver and supersmooth surfaces, which were modulated by a monolayer of spherical nanoparticles taking into account the correlation in the distribution of particles and the size effect within the framework of the interference approximation. As follows from the calculations, the inclusion of the size effect into consideration leads to a noticeable change of the scattering intensity, both for separate particles and a surface, near the plasma resonance wavelength. Because of this, the spectral dependences of the refractive index calculated with and without allowance for the size dependence of optical constants differ in the resonant region by more than an order of magnitude.     

Noninterferometric wide-field optical profilometry with nanometer depth resolution

Applying the principle of differential confocal microscopy to wide-field optically sectioning microscopy, we develop a noninterferometric optical profilometer without scanning mechanisms. Depth resolution of 2 nm is achieved with a power-regulated tungsten-halogen lamp as the light source and a 14-bit CCD camera as the detector. The effects of inhomogeneous surface reflectivity are removed from topographic measurements by arithmetic division. The whole system can be constructed on a single silicon chip for use as a miniaturized optical profiler.