Intra‐laser‐cavity microparticle sensing with a dual‐wavelength distributed‐feedback laser

An integrated intra‐laser‐cavity microparticle sensor based on a dual‐wavelength distributed‐feedback channel waveguide laser in ytterbium‐doped amorphous aluminum oxide on a silicon substrate is demonstrated. Real‐time detection and accurate size measurement of single micro‐particles with diameters ranging between 1 µm and 20 µm are achieved, which represent the typical sizes of many fungal and bacterial pathogens as well as a large variety of human cells. A limit of detection of ∼500 nm is deduced. The sensing principle relies on measuring changes in the frequency difference between the two longitudinal laser modes as the evanescent field of the dual‐wavelength laser interacts with micro‐sized particles on the surface of the waveguide. Improvement in sensitivity far down to the nanometer range can be expected upon stabilizing the pump power, minimizing back reflections, and optimizing the grating geometry to increase the evanescent fraction of the guided modes.     

On gradient field theories: gradient magnetostatics and gradient elasticity

In this work, the fundamentals of gradient field theories are presented and reviewed. In particular, the theories of gradient magnetostatics and gradient elasticity are investigated and compared. For gradient magnetostatics, non-singular expressions for the magnetic vector gauge potential, the Biot–Savart law, the Lorentz force and the mutual interaction energy of two electric current loops are derived and discussed. For gradient elasticity, non-singular forms of all dislocation key formulas (Burgers equation, Mura equation, Peach–Koehler stress equation, Peach–Koehler force equation, and mutual interaction energy of two dislocation loops) are presented. In addition, similarities between an electric current loop and a dislocation loop are pointed out. The obtained fields for both gradient theories are non-singular due to a straightforward and self-consistent regularization.     

Matter-wave interferometer for large molecules

We demonstrate a near-field Talbot-Lau interferometer for C70 fullerene molecules. Such interferometers are particularly suitable for larger masses. Using three free-standing gold gratings of 1 microm period and a transversally incoherent but velocity-selected molecular beam, we achieve an interference fringe visibility of 40% with high count rate. Both the high visibility and its velocity dependence are in good agreement with a quantum simulation that takes into account the van der Waals interaction of the molecules with the gratings and are in striking contrast to a classical moiré model.     

Deterministic single-photon source for distributed quantum networking

A sequence of single photons is emitted on demand from a single three-level atom strongly coupled to a high-finesse optical cavity. The photons are generated by an adiabatically driven stimulated Raman transition between two atomic ground states, with the vacuum field of the cavity stimulating one branch of the transition, and laser pulses deterministically driving the other branch. This process is unitary and therefore intrinsically reversible, which is essential for quantum communication and networking, and the photons should be appropriate for all-optical quantum information processing.     

Metastability and Low Lying Spectra¶in Reversible Markov Chains

We study a large class of reversible Markov chains with discrete state space and transition matrix P _N . We define the notion of a set of metastable points as a subset of the state space Γ _N such that (i) this set is reached from any point x∈Γ _N without return to x with probability at least b _N , while (ii) for any two points x, y in the metastable set, the probability T ^{− 1} _{x , y} to reach y from x without return to x is smaller than a _{N − 1}< b _N . Under some additional non-degeneracy assumption, we show that in such a situation: (i) To each metastable point corresponds a metastable state, whose mean exit time can be computed precisely. (ii) To each metastable point corresponds one simple eigenvalue of 1 −P _N which is essentially equal to the inverse mean exit time from this state. Moreover, these results imply very sharp uniform control of the deviation of the probability distribution of metastable exit times from the exponential distribution. Received: 1 August 2000 / Accepted: 19 November 2001     

Blocked-micropores,surface functionalized,bio-compatible and silica-coated iron oxide nanocomposites as advanced MRI contrast agent

Quasi-critical fluctuations occur close to critical points or close to continuous phase transitions. In three-dimensional systems, precision tuning is required to access the fluctuation regime. Lowering the dimensionality enhances the parameter space for quasi-critical fluctuations considerably. This enables one to make use of novel properties emerging in fluctuating systems, such as giant susceptibilities, Casimir forces or novel quasi-particle interactions. Examples are discussed ranging from simple metal–adsorbate systems to unconventional superconductivity in iron-based superconductors.     

Optimized absorption imaging of mesoscopic atomic clouds

We report on the optimization of high-intensity absorption imaging for small Bose–Einstein condensates. The imaging calibration exploits the linear scaling of the quantum projection noise with the mean number of atoms for a coherent spin state. After optimization for atomic clouds containing up to 300 atoms, we find an atom number resolution of $\varDelta_{\rm det}= 3.7$ atoms, mainly limited by photon shot noise and radiation pressure.