Composite optical vortices in noncollinear Laguerre--Gaussian beams and their propagation in free space

Taking two Laguerre-Gaussian beams with topological charge 1 = ±1 as an example, this paper studies the composite optical vortices formed by two noncollinear Laguerre-Gaussian beams with different phases, amplitudes, waist widths, off-axis distances, and their propagation in free space. It is shown by detailed numerical illustrative examples that the number and location of composite vortices at the waist plane are variable by varying the relative phase β, amplitude ratio η, waist width ratio ξ, or off-axis distance ratio μ. The net topological charge lnet is not always equal to the sum lsum of charges of the two component beams. The motion, creation and annihilation of composite vortices take place in the free-space propagation, and the net charge during the propagation remains unchanged and equals to the net charge at the waist plane.     

Exploring structure–selectivity relationships of biogenic amine GPCR antagonists using similarity searching and dynamic compound mapping

We design and analyze compound selectivity sets of antagonists with differential selectivity against seven biogenic amine G-protein coupled receptors. The selectivity sets consist of a total of 267 antagonists and contain a spectrum of in part closely related molecular scaffolds. Each set represents a different selectivity profile. Using these com- pound sets, a systematic computational analysis of structure-selectivity relationships is carried out with different 2D similarity methods including fingerprints, recursive partitioning, clustering, and dynamic compound mapping. Screening calculations are performed in a background database containing nearly four million molecules. Fingerprint searching and compound mapping are found to enrich target-selective antagonists over family-selective ones. Dynamic compound mapping effectively discriminates database compounds from GPCR antagonists and consistently retains target-selective antagonists during the final dimension extension levels. Furthermore, the widely used MACCS key fingerprint displays a strong tendency to distinguish between target- and family-selective GPCR antagonists. Taken together, the results indicate that different types of 2D similarity methods are capable of distinguishing closely related molecules having different selectivity. The reported compound benchmark system is made freely available in order to enable selectivity-oriented analyses using other computational approaches.     

生长温度对纳米氧化锌场发射性能的影响

采用锌粉和银粉为蒸发源,用热蒸发法不同温度下制备了四针状纳米氧化锌,并以单独的锌粉做对照。采用扫描电子显微镜(SEM)观察其形貌,X射线衍射(XRD)谱表征其晶体结构。采用丝网印刷方法将其制备为场致电子发射阴极,将阴极与印刷有荧光粉的阳极板组装成二极结构场致发射显示屏,并进行了场致电子发射特性对比实验。结果表明较高温度制备的氧化锌具有较好的场致发射性能;掺杂银粉的蒸发源制备的样品的发射性能明显优于没有掺杂银粉的样品。实验证明ZnO是一种优良的场致发射冷阴极材料,在真空电子方面具有广阔的应用前景。     

Pd-Si binary bulk metallic glass

Pd_80+x Si_20−x (x = 0, 1, and 2) binary metallic glasses with the diameter ranging from 7 to 8 mm were prepared by a combination of fluxing and water quenching or air cooling. Thermal analysis results show that with increasing Si content, the glass transition temperature T _g, the initial crystallization temperature T _x and the onset crystallization temperature T _p of Pd-Si binary glassy alloys increase. Moreover, the supercooled liquid region reaches 61 K. It indicates that Pd-Si binary alloys possess large glass forming ability, which can be greatly improved by fluxing treatment. Supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2007CB613905) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 50671050 and 50431030)     

The Automorphism Group of a Simple Tracially AI Algebra

The structure of the automorphism group of a simple TAI algebra is studied. In particular, we show that is isomorphic (as a topological group) to an inverse limit of discrete abelian groups for a unital, simple, AH algebra with bounded dimension growth. Consequently, is totally disconnected. Another consequence of our results is the following: Suppose A is the transformation group C*-algebra of a minimal Furstenberg transformation with a unique invariant probability measure. Then the automorphism group of A is an extension of a simple topological group by the discrete group .     

Comparative study of different Schlieren diffracting elements

This paper presents an analysis of diffraction effects taking place at different Schlieren diffracting elements. Two types of diffraction effects are prominent in the Schlieren schemes. One is diffraction of direct light (source image) at the Schlieren element, which limits the sensitivity and resolution of Schlieren systems. The second type is the diffraction of light deflected from the test object at the Schlieren-diffracting element. This second type of diffraction degrades the quality of Schlieren results. Experimental results showing the effect of diffraction of light deflected from the test object at a phase knife-edge, corner of a square phase aperture and an optical fiber tip as Schlieren diffracting elements have been presented and discussed.      

Two-frequency mutual coherence function and its applications to pulse scattering by random rough surface

An analytic expression of the two-frequency mutual coherence function (MCF) was derived for a two-dimensional random rough surface. The scattered field was calculated by the Kirchhoff approximation, which is valid in the case that the radius of curvature of the surface is much larger than the incident wave length. The scattering problem of narrowband pulse was investigated to simplify the analytic expression of the two-frequency MCF. Numerical simulations show that the two-frequency MCF is greatly dependent on the root-mean-square (RMS) height, while less dependent on the correlation length. The analytic solutions were compared with the results of Monte Carlo simulation to assess the accuracy and computational efficiency. Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 60571058) and the National Defense Foundation of China (Grant No. 51403020505DZ0111)     

Synthesis and photoluminescent properties of silica-coated LaCeF<Subscript>3</Subscript>:Tb nanocrystals

La_0.45Ce_0.45F₃:Tb (10 mol% Tb) nanoparticles was synthesized via sonochemical method and then coated with silica (SiO₂) shells through a microemulsion process, resulting in the formation of core/shell structured LaCeF₃:Tb/SiO₂ nanoparticles. The obtained core/shell LaCeF₃:Tb/SiO₂ nanoparticles are spherical and uniform in size (average size about 60 nm), strongly fluorescent, and long fluorescence lifetime (1.87 ms). This kind of nanoparticles was water-soluble, which could be applied in biological labeling and other fields.     

Explicit cosmological coarse graining via spatial averaging

The present matter density of the Universe, while highly inhomogeneous on small scales, displays approximate homogeneity on large scales. We propose that whereas it is justified to use the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker (FLRW) line element (which describes an exactly homogeneous and isotropic universe) as a template to construct luminosity distances in order to compare observations with theory, the evolution of the scale factor in such a construction must be governed not by the standard Einstein equations for the FLRW metric, but by the modified Friedmann equations derived by Buchert (Gen Relat Gravit 32:105, 2000; 33:1381, 2001) in the context of spatial averaging in Cosmology. Furthermore, we argue that this scale factor, defined in the spatially averaged cosmology, will correspond to the effective FLRW metric provided the size of the averaging domain coincides with the scale at which cosmological homogeneity arises. This allows us, in principle, to compare predictions of a spatially averaged cosmology with observations, in the standard manner, for instance by computing the luminosity distance versus red-shift relation. The predictions of the spatially averaged cosmology would in general differ from standard FLRW cosmology, because the scale-factor now obeys the modified FLRW equations. This could help determine, by comparing with observations, whether or not cosmological inhomogeneities are an alternative explanation for the observed cosmic acceleration.     

Depth-adaptive regularized reconstruction for reflection diffuse optical tomography

We study reflection diffuse optical tomography using two-dimensional (2D) continuous-wave source-detector arrays on the surface of semi-infinite medium, aiming at imaging the perfusion and the hemoglobin oxygen saturation variation of human cerebral cortex with brain activation. We had previously formulated the inverse problem with Moore-Penrose inversion. When we use simple regularization in this inverse problem, the reconstruction sensitivity decreases markedly with the depth so that the signal in the deep range may be masked by an unwanted signal in the shallow range. In this paper, we propose a depth-adaptive regularized reconstruction, in which we assign a smaller regularization parameter with the depth. We demonstrate improvement of the three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction uniformity using the proposed scheme.