The Effect of Background Gas on the Excitation Temperature and Electron Number Density of Basalt Plasma Induced by 10.6 Micron Laser Radiation

Plasma Chemistry and Plasma Processing - Time-integrated optical emission spectroscopy was applied for the analysis of emission spectra, and determination of electron densities and excitation...     

Numerical parametric study of chiral effects and group delays in Ω element based terahertz metamaterial

In this work, we have systematically studied the impact of geometric parameters on chiral effects which occur in metamaterial made of Ω elements. The analysis of group delays and electric field enhancements indicate stronger interaction between the structure and right circularly polarized waves. Calculations of optical activity and circular dichroism for different values of geometric parameters, allow us to deduce that the thickness of the wire and the gap size have large influence on these effects. On the other hand, the radius of the wire affects mainly the resonant frequency position which enables frequency tunability. The results indicate that multi-functional design of this chiral metamaterial offers great flexibility for various devices: enantiomeric sensors, circular polarizers and light modulators.     

Designing local orthogonal bases on finite groups I: Abelian case

We extend to general finite groups a well-known relation used for checking the orthogonality of a system of vectors as well as for orthogonalizing a nonorthogonal one. This, in turn, is used for designing local orthogonal bases obtained by unitary transformations of a single prototype filter. The first part of this work considers abelian groups. The second part considers nonabelian groups where, as an example, we show how to build such bases where the group of unitary transformations consists of modulations and rotations. These bases are useful for building systems for evaluating image quality.     

An Adaptive Fast Interface Tracking Method

An adaptive numerical scheme is developed for the propagation of an interface in a velocity field based on the fast interface tracking method proposed in [2]. A multiresolution stategy to represent the interface instead of point values, allows local grid refinement while controlling the approximation error on the interface. For time integration, we use an explicit Runge-Kutta scheme of second-order with a multiscale time step, which takes longer time steps for finer spatial scales. The implementation of the algorithm uses a dynamic tree data structure to represent data in the computer memory. We briefly review first the main algorithm, describe the essential data structures, highlight the adaptive scheme, and illustrate the computational efficiency by some numerical examples.     

Open, cyclic, and bicyclic compounds of double silylated phosphorus and boron

Salt elimination reactions of tris(trimethylsilyl)silyl potassium (1), and two 1,4-dipotassiooligosilanes (3, 5) with 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidinodichloroborane and diethylaminodichlorophosphane have generated open (2), cyclic (4) and bicyclic (6) bora- and phosphaoligosilanes. A monosilylated phosphane and the two five-membered cyclosilanes have been subjected to single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis.     

Entanglement formation and violation of Bell's inequality with a semiconductor single photon source

We report the generation of polarization-entangled photons, using a quantum dot single photon source, linear optics, and photodetectors. Two photons created independently are observed to violate Bell's inequality. The density matrix describing the polarization state of the postselected photon pairs is reconstructed and agrees well with a simple model predicting the quality of entanglement from the known parameters of the single photon source. Our scheme provides a method to create no more than one entangled photon pair per cycle after postselection, a feature useful to enhance quantum cryptography protocols based on shared entanglement.     

Controlling the spontaneous emission rate of single quantum dots in a two-dimensional photonic crystal

We observe large spontaneous emission rate modification of individual InAs quantum dots (QDs) in a 2D photonic crystal with a modified, high-Q single-defect cavity. Compared to QDs in a bulk semiconductor, QDs that are resonant with the cavity show an emission rate increase of up to a factor of 8. In contrast, off-resonant QDs indicate up to fivefold rate quenching as the local density of optical states is diminished in the photonic crystal. In both cases, we demonstrate photon antibunching, showing that the structure represents an on-demand single photon source with a pulse duration from 210 ps to 8 ns. We explain the suppression of QD emission rate using finite difference time domain simulations and find good agreement with experiment.     

Columnar AlGaN/GaN nanocavities with AlN/GaN Bragg reflectors grown by molecular beam epitaxy on Si(111)

Self-assembled columnar AlGaN/GaN nanocavities, with an active region of GaN quantum disks embedded in an AlGaN nanocolumn and cladded by top and bottom AlN/GaN Bragg mirrors, were grown. The nanocavity has no cracks or extended defects, due to the relaxation at the Si interface and to the nanocolumn free-surface to volume ratio. The emission from the active region matched the peak reflectivity by tuning the Al content and the GaN disks thickness. Quantum confinement effects that depend on both the disk thickness and the inhomogeneous strain distribution within the disks are clearly observed.     

DNA binding and antitumor activities of platinum(IV) and zinc(II) complexes with some S-alkyl derivatives of thiosalicylic acid

A series of complexes of platinum(IV) (C1–C5) and zinc(II) (C6–C10) with S-alkyl derivatives of thiosalicylic acid were prepared and characterized. The interactions of the complexes with calf thymus DNA were analyzed by absorption (UV–Vis) and emission spectral studies (ethidium bromide displacement studies). The cytotoxic activities of complexes C1–C10 were determined against mouse B cell lymphocytic leukemia cells (BCL1), human B-prolymphocytic leukemia (JVM-13), mouse mammary carcinoma cells (4T1), and human mammary carcinoma cells (MDA-MB-468) and compared to the activities of the free ligand precursors and cisplatin. The cytotoxicities of the platinum(IV) and zinc(II) complexes toward mouse tumor cell lines were higher compared with their effects on human tumor cell lines. The zinc(II) complex C9 showed the highest antitumor activity toward the tested human cell lines, while the platinum(IV) complex C4 exhibited the highest antitumor activity toward mouse BCL1 and 4T1 cells. Both C4 and C9 have ligands derived from S-propyl thiosalicylic acid.     

Mahonia aquifolium Extracts Promote Doxorubicin Effects against Lung Adenocarcinoma Cells In Vitro

Mahonia aquifolium and its secondary metabolites have been shown to have anticancer potential. We performed MTT, scratch, and colony formation assays; analyzed cell cycle phase distribution and doxorubicin uptake and retention with flow cytometry; and detected alterations in the expression of genes involved in the formation of cell–cell interactions and migration using quantitative real-time PCR following treatment of lung adenocarcinoma cells with doxorubicin, M. aquifolium extracts, or their combination. MTT assay results suggested strong synergistic effects of the combined treatments, and their application led to an increase in cell numbers in the subG1 phase of the cell cycle. Both extracts were shown to prolong doxorubicin retention time in cancer cells, while the application of doxorubicin/extract combination led to a decrease in MMP9 expression. Furthermore, cells treated with doxorubicin/extract combinations were shown to have lower migratory and colony formation potentials than untreated cells or cells treated with doxorubicin alone. The obtained results suggest that nontoxic M. aquifolium extracts can enhance the activity of doxorubicin, thus potentially allowing the application of lower doxorubicin doses in vivo, which may decrease its toxic effects in normal tissues.