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Now showing 1 - 10 of 133
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    Background Reduction in STED-FCS Using a Bivortex Phase Mask
    (Washington, DC : ACS Publications, 2020) Barbotin, Aurélien; Urbančič, Iztok; Galiani, Silvia; Eggeling, Christian; Booth, Martin
    Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) is a valuable tool to study the molecular dynamics in living cells. When used together with a super-resolution stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscope, STED-FCS can measure diffusion processes on the nanoscale in living cells. In two-dimensional (2D) systems like the cellular plasma membrane, a ring-shaped depletion focus is most commonly used to increase the lateral resolution, leading to more than 25-fold decrease in the observation volume, reaching the relevant scale of supramolecular arrangements. However, STED-FCS faces severe limitations when measuring diffusion in three dimensions (3D), largely due to the spurious background contributions from undepleted areas of the excitation focus that reduce the signal quality and ultimately limit the resolution. In this paper, we investigate how different STED confinement modes can mitigate this issue. By simulations as well as experiments with fluorescent probes in solution and in cells, we demonstrate that the coherent-hybrid (CH) depletion pattern created by a bivortex phase mask reduces background most efficiently and thus provides superior signal quality under comparable reduction of the observation volume. Featuring also the highest robustness to common optical aberrations, CH-STED can be considered the method of choice for reliable STED-FCS-based investigations of 3D diffusion on the subdiffraction scale. Copyright © 2020 American Chemical Society.
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    1D p–n Junction Electronic and Optoelectronic Devices from Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Lateral Heterostructures Grown by One-Pot Chemical Vapor Deposition Synthesis
    (Weinheim : Wiley-VCH, 2021) Najafidehaghani, Emad; Gan, Ziyang; George, Antony; Lehnert, Tibor; Ngo, Gia Quyet; Neumann, Christof; Bucher, Tobias; Staude, Isabelle; Kaiser, David; Vogl, Tobias; Hübner, Uwe; Kaiser, Ute; Eilenberger, Falk; Turchanin, Andrey
    Lateral heterostructures of dissimilar monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides provide great opportunities to build 1D in-plane p–n junctions for sub-nanometer thin low-power electronic, optoelectronic, optical, and sensing devices. Electronic and optoelectronic applications of such p–n junction devices fabricated using a scalable one-pot chemical vapor deposition process yielding MoSe2-WSe2 lateral heterostructures are reported here. The growth of the monolayer lateral heterostructures is achieved by in situ controlling the partial pressures of the oxide precursors by a two-step heating protocol. The grown lateral heterostructures are characterized structurally and optically using optical microscopy, Raman spectroscopy/microscopy, and photoluminescence spectroscopy/microscopy. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy further confirms the high-quality 1D boundary between MoSe2 and WSe2 in the lateral heterostructure. p–n junction devices are fabricated from these lateral heterostructures and their applicability as rectifiers, solar cells, self-powered photovoltaic photodetectors, ambipolar transistors, and electroluminescent light emitters are demonstrated. © 2021 The Authors. Advanced Functional Materials published by Wiley-VCH GmbH
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    In-vivo Raman spectroscopy: from basics to applications
    (Bellingham, Wash. : SPIE, 2018) Cordero, Eliana; Latka, Ines; Matthäus, Christian; Schie, Iwan W.; Popp, Jürgen
    For more than two decades, Raman spectroscopy has found widespread use in biological and medical applications. The instrumentation and the statistical evaluation procedures have matured, enabling the lengthy transition from ex-vivo demonstration to in-vivo examinations. This transition goes hand-in-hand with many technological developments and tightly bound requirements for a successful implementation in a clinical environment, which are often difficult to assess for novice scientists in the field. This review outlines the required instrumentation and instrumentation parameters, designs, and developments of fiber optic probes for the in-vivo applications in a clinical setting. It aims at providing an overview of contemporary technology and clinical trials and attempts to identify future developments necessary to bring the emerging technology to the clinical end users. A comprehensive overview of in-vivo applications of fiber optic Raman probes to characterize different tissue and disease types is also given.
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    Side-view holographic endomicroscopy via a custom-terminated multimode fibre
    (Washington, DC : Soc., 2021) Silveira, Beatriz M.; Pikálek, Tomáš; Stibůrek, Miroslav; Ondráčková, Petra; Jákl, Petr; Leite, Ivo T.; Čižmár, Tomáš
    Microendoscopes based on optical fibres have recently come to the fore as promising candidates allowing in-vivo observations of otherwise inaccessible biological structures in animal models. Despite being still in its infancy, imaging can now be performed at the tip of a single multimode fibre, by relying on powerful holographic methods for light control. Fibre based endoscopy is commonly performed en face, resulting in possible damage of the specimen owing to the direct contact between the distal end of the probe and target. On this ground, we designed an all-fibre probe with an engineered termination that reduces compression and damage to the tissue under investigation upon probe insertion. The geometry of the termination brings the field of view to a plane parallel to the fibre’s longitudinal direction, conveying the probe with off-axis imaging capabilities. We show that its focusing ability also benefits from a higher numerical aperture, resulting in imaging with increased spatial resolution. The effect of probe insertion was investigated inside a tissue phantom comprising fluorescent particles suspended in agarose gel, and a comparison was established between the novel side-view probe and the standard en face fibre probe. This new concept paves the way to significantly less invasive deep-tissue imaging.
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    Stress-Induced 3D Chiral Fractal Metasurface for Enhanced and Stabilized Broadband Near-Field Optical Chirality
    (Weinheim : Wiley-VCH Verlag, 2019) Tseng M.L.; Lin Z.-H.; Kuo H.Y.; Huang T.-T.; Huang Y.-T.; Chung T.L.; Chu C.H.; Huang J.-S.; Tsai D.P.
    Metasurfaces comprising 3D chiral structures have shown great potential in chiroptical applications such as chiral optical components and sensing. So far, the main challenges lie in the nanofabrication and the limited operational bandwidth. Homogeneous and localized broadband near-field optical chirality enhancement has not been achieved. Here, an effective nanofabrication method to create a 3D chiral metasurface with far- and near-field broadband chiroptical properties is demonstrated. A focused ion beam is used to cut and stretch nanowires into 3D Archimedean spirals from stacked films. The 3D Archimedean spiral is a self-similar chiral fractal structure sensitive to the chirality of light. The spiral exhibits far- and near-field broadband chiroptical responses from 2 to 8 µm. With circularly polarized light (CPL), the spiral shows superior far-field transmission dissymmetry and handedness-dependent near-field localization. With linearly polarized excitation, homogeneous and highly enhanced broadband near-field optical chirality is generated at a stably localized position inside the spiral. The effective yet straightforward fabrication strategy allows easy fabrication of 3D chiral structures with superior broadband far-field chiroptical response as well as strongly enhanced and stably localized broadband near-field optical chirality. The reported method and chiral metasurface may find applications in broadband chiral optics and chiral sensing. © 2019 The Authors. Published by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
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    Observation of discrete, vortex light bullets
    (College Park : American Institute of Physics Inc., 2014) Eilenberger, F.; Prater, K.; Minardi, S.; Geiss, R.; Röpke, U.; Kobelke, J.; Schuster, K.; Bartelt, H.; Nolte, S.; Tünnermann, A.; Pertsch, T.
    We report the first experimental observation of vortex light bullets that are discrete, spatiotemporal, solitary waves with orbital angular momentum. We analyze conditions for their existence and investigate their rich properties and dynamics. Vortex light bullets are excited in fiber arrays with spatially shaped femtosecond pulses and analyzed with a spatiotemporal cross correlator. Most importantly, we find that they have entirely new stability properties, being robust against considerable degrees of perturbation in a limited range of energies. All experimental findings are backed up by rigorous simulations, giving further insight into the rich dynamics of vortex light bullets.
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    Driving plasmonic nanoantennas at perfect impedance matching using generalized coherent perfect absorption
    (Berlin : de Gruyter, 2021) Grimm, Philipp; Razinskas, Gary; Huang, Jer-Shing; Hecht, Bert
    Coherent perfect absorption (CPA) describes the absence of all outgoing modes from a lossy resonator, driven by lossless incoming modes. Here, we show that for nanoresonators that also exhibit radiative losses, e.g., plasmonic nanoantennas, a generalized version of CPA (gCPA) can be applied. In gCPA outgoing modes are suppressed only for a subset of (guided plasmonic) modes while other (radiative) modes are treated as additional loss channels - a situation typically referred to as perfect impedance matching. Here we make use of gCPA to show how to achieve perfect impedance matching between a single nanowire plasmonic waveguide and a plasmonic nanoantenna. Antennas with both radiant and subradiant characteristics are considered. We further demonstrate potential applications in background-free sensing.
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    Cryogenic time-domain multiplexer based on SQUID arrays and superconducting/normal conducting switches
    (Bristol : Institute of Physics Publishing, 2014) Beev, N.; Kiviranta, M.; Van Der Kuur, J.; Bruijn, M.; Brandel, O.; Linzen, S.; Fritzsch, L.; Ahoranta, J.; Penttilä, J.; Roschier, L.
    We have demonstrated the operation of a 12-channel Beyer-style SQUID-based time domain multiplexer. It was manufactured using a fabrication process that is cross-compatible between VTT and IPHT-Jena. The multiplexer consists of twelve 12-SQUID series arrays, each shunted by a Zappe-style interferometer array acting as a flux-controlled superconducting/normal conducting switch. By keeping all switches but one in the superconducting state, it is possible to select one active readout channel at a time. A flux feedback coil common to all SQUID arrays allows realization of a flux-locked loop. We present characteristics of the multiplexer and measurement data from experiments with a 25-pixel X-ray calorimeter array operated at T < 100 mK in a dilution refrigerator.
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    Observing distant objects with a multimode fiber-based holographic endoscope
    (Melville, NY : AIP Publishing, 2021) Leite, Ivo T.; Turtaev, Sergey; Boonzajer Flaes, Dirk E.; Čižmár, Tomáš
    Holographic wavefront manipulation enables converting hair-thin multimode optical fibers into minimally invasive lensless imaging instruments conveying much higher information densities than conventional endoscopes. Their most prominent applications focus on accessing delicate environments, including deep brain compartments, and recording micrometer-scale resolution images of structures in close proximity to the distal end of the instrument. Here, we introduce an alternative "far-field"endoscope capable of imaging macroscopic objects across a large depth of field. The endoscope shaft with dimensions of 0.2 × 0.4 mm2 consists of two parallel optical fibers: one for illumination and the other for signal collection. The system is optimized for speed, power efficiency, and signal quality, taking into account specific features of light transport through step-index multimode fibers. The characteristics of imaging quality are studied at distances between 20 mm and 400 mm. As a proof-of-concept, we provide imaging inside the cavities of a sweet pepper commonly used as a phantom for biomedically relevant conditions. Furthermore, we test the performance on a functioning mechanical clock, thus verifying its applicability in dynamically changing environments. With the performance reaching the standard definition of video endoscopes, this work paves the way toward the exploitation of minimally invasive holographic micro-endoscopes in clinical and diagnostics applications. © 2021 Author(s).
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    On-chip fluorescence detection using photonic bandgap guiding optofluidic hollow-core light cage
    (Melville, NY : AIP Publishing, 2022) Kim, Jisoo; Jang, Bumjoon; Wieduwilt, Torsten; Warren-Smith, Stephen C.; Bürger, Johannes; Maier, Stefan A.; Schmidt, Markus A.
    The on-chip detection of fluorescent light is essential for many bioanalytical and life-science related applications. Here, the optofluidic light cage consisting of a sparse array of micrometer encircling a hollow core represents an innovative concept, particularly for on-chip waveguide-based spectroscopy. In the present work, we demonstrate the potential of the optofluidic light cage concept in the context of integrated on-chip fluorescence spectroscopy. Specifically, we show that fluorescent light from a dye-doped aqueous solution generated in the core of a nanoprinted dual-ring light cage can be efficiently captured and guided to the waveguide ports. Notably, the fluorescence collection occurs predominantly in the fundamental mode, a property that distinguishes it from evanescent field-based waveguide detection schemes that favor collection in higher-order modes. Through exploiting the flexibility of waveguide design and 3D nanoprinting, both excitation and emission have been localized in the high transmission domains of the fundamental core mode. Fast diffusion, detection limits comparable to bulk measurements, and the potential of this approach in terms of device integration were demonstrated. Together with previous results on absorption spectroscopy, the achievements presented here suggest that the optofluidic light cage concept defines a novel photonic platform for integrated on-chip spectroscopic devices and real-time sensors compatible with both the fiber circuitry and microfluidics. Applications in areas such as bioanalytics and environmental sciences are conceivable, while more sophisticated applications such as nanoparticle tracking analysis and integrated Raman spectroscopy could be envisioned,