Thermal nonlinear effects in hybrid silica/polymer microdisks

The linear and thermal nonlinear spectral responses of silica and hybrid silica/polymer microdisk resonators are investigated. Both types of resonators can be fabricated using the same technological procedure with only slight modification. An extra polymer layer results in opposite sign of the nonlinear thermal optical response of the hybrid microdisks compared to the pure silica ones, which can be explained by the different thermorefractive coefficients of silica and polymer. A full compensation of eigen frequency shift, caused by thermal nonlinearity, has been demonstrated experimentally.     

New recursions for genus-zero Gromov-Witten invariants

New relations among the genus-zero Gromov-Witten invariants of a complex projective manifold X are exhibited. When the cohomology of X is generated by divisor classes and classes “with vanishing one-point invariants,” the relations determine many-point invariants in terms of one-point invariants.     

Iterative calculation, manufacture and investigation of DOE forming unimodal complex distribution

We present results of iterative calculation, manufacture and experimental as well as theoretical investigations of a novel diffractive optical element (DOE) which transforms a Gaussian TEM₀₀ input beam into a unimodal Gauss–Hermite (1, 0) complex distribution. The iterative calculation procedure is based on the application of the method of generalized projections. The projection operator onto a set of modal functions is implemented through partition of the focal plane into a ‘useful’ and an ‘auxiliary’ domain. This element is manufactured as a 16 level surface profile by (variable dose) electron-beam direct-writing into a PMMA resist film, and a subsequent development procedure of the resist. The final element consists of a fused-silica substrate coated with the structured PMMA film. Both computational and experimental results are presented and demonstrate a good conformity with each other. The achieved results show good prospects of such an approach for the formation of unimodal distributions.     

Ein Beitrag zur Analyse der Alkaloide

Ohne ZusammenfassungMitteilung aus dem mikrochemischen Laboratorium in Delft.     

Analysing the isotopic life history of the alpine ungulates Capra ibex and Rupicapra rupicapra rupicapra through their horns

The horn of ungulate grazers offers a valuable isotopic record of their diet and environment. However, there have been no reports of the spatio‐temporal variation of the isotopic composition of horns. We investigated patterns of carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) isotopic composition along and perpendicular to the horn axis in Capra ibex and Rupicapra rupicapra rupicapra to assess the effects of animal age, within‐year (seasonal) and inter‐annual variation, natural contamination and sampling position on horn isotope composition. Horns of male C. ibex (n = 23) and R. r. rupicapra (n = 1) were sampled longitudinally on the front (only R. r. rupicapra) and back side and on the surface and sub‐surface. The sides of the R. r. rupicapra horn did not differ in δ¹³C. In both species, the horn surface had a 0.15‰ lower δ¹³C and a higher carbon‐to‐nitrogen (C/N) ratio than the sub‐surface. Washing the horn with water and organic solvents removed material that caused these differences. With age, the δ¹⁵N of C. ibex horns increased (+0.1‰ year^?1), C/N ratio increased, and ¹³C discrimination relative to atmospheric CO₂ (¹³Δ) increased slightly (+0.03‰ year^?1). Geostatistical analysis of one C. ibex horn revealed systematic patterns of inter‐annual and seasonal ¹³C changes, but ¹⁵N changed only seasonally. The work demonstrates that isotopic signals in horns are influenced by natural contamination (δ¹³C), age effects (¹³Δ and δ¹⁵N), and seasonal (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N) and inter‐annual variation (δ¹³C). The methods presented allow us to distinguish between these effects and thus allow the use of horns as isotopic archives of the ecology of these species and their habitat. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Corrugated neat thin-film conjugated polymer distributed-feedback lasers

Wave-guided thin-film distributed-feedback (DFB) polymer lasers are fabricated by spin coating a PPV-derived semiconducting polymer, thianthrene-DOO-PPV, onto oxidised silicon wafers with corrugated second-order periodic gratings. The gratings are written by reactive ion beam etching. Laser action is achieved by transverse pumping with picosecond laser pulses (wavelength 347.15 nm, duration 35 ps). The DFB-laser surface emission and edge emission are analysed. Outside the grating region the polymer film is used for comparative wave-guided travelling wave laser (amplified spontaneous emission (ASE)) studies. The pump pulse threshold energy density for wave-guided DFB-laser action (4–9 μJ cm^-2) is found to be approximately a factor of two lower than the threshold for wave-guided travelling wave laser action. The spectral width of the DFB laser (down to Δλ_DFB≈0.07 nm) is considerably narrower than that of the travelling wave laser (Δλ_TWL≈14 nm). The DFB-laser emission is highly linearly polarised transverse to the grating axis (TE mode). Only at high pump pulse energy densities does an additional weak TM mode build up. The surface-emitted DFB-laser radiation has a low divergence along the grating direction. For both the DFB lasers and the travelling wave lasers, gain saturation occurs at high excitation energy densities. Received: 7 January 2002 / Revised version: 15 February 2002 / Published online: 14 March 2002     

Comparison of femtosecond laser-induced damage on unstructured vs. nano-structured Au-targets

The combination of high-field physics with nano-plasmonics has proven to be feasible in producing high harmonics of intense laser radiation from noble gases, assisted by the field-enhancement effect in the proximity of metallic nano-antennas. However, the intensity region where harmonics can be generated without irreversible damage to these delicate structures is rather narrow. We explore the damage threshold of gold targets that exhibit regular structures on a nanoscopic scale, either explicitly resonant to the used laser frequency, or off-resonance. These are compared to values for bulk material in order to gain insight into the role of plasmonic resonances in the response of solid targets on intense laser radiation. We find that the presence of such a resonance lowers the threshold fluence (J/cm²) where global structural damage sets in by about an order of magnitude. Statistical deviations either in local pulse energy of the damage inducing laser radiation or in the exact resonance behaviour of singular structures prove to be limited. These results should serve as a guideline for future experiments working near the damage threshold of more sophisticated antenna designs.     

Kuelbs–Li Inequalities and Metric Entropy of Convex Hulls

Let T be a precompact subset of a Hilbert space. We make use of a precise link between the absolutely convex hull $\operatorname{aco}(T)$ and the reproducing kernel Hilbert space of a Gaussian random variable constructed from T. Firstly, we avail ourselves of it for optimality considerations concerning the well-known Kuelbs–Li inequalities. Secondly, this enables us to apply small deviation results to the problem of estimating the metric entropy of $\operatorname{aco}(T)$ in dependence of the metric entropy of T.