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We present two alternative complete sets of static modes of a homogeneous dielectric sphere, for their use in the resonant-state expansion (RSE), a rigorous perturbative method in electrodynamics. Physically, these modes are needed to correctly describe the static electric field of a charge redistribution within the optical system due to a perturbation of the permittivity. We demonstrate the convergence of the RSE towards the exact result for a perturbation describing a size reduction of the basis sphere. We then revisit the quarter-sphere perturbation treated in [Doost {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. A {\bf 90}, 013834 (2014)], where only a single static mode per each angular momentum was introduced, and show that using a complete set of static modes leads to a small, though non-negligible correction of the RSE result, improving the agreement with finite-element simulations. As another example of applying the RSE with a complete set of static modes, we calculate the resonant states of a dielectric cylinder, also comparing the result with a finite-element simulation., Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures

A rigorous method of calculating the electromagnetic field, the scattering matrix, and scattering cross-sections of an arbitrary finite three-dimensional optical system described by its permittivity distribution is presented. The method is based on the expansion of the Green's function into the resonant states of the system. These can be calculated by any means, including the popular finite element and finite-difference time-domain methods. However, using the resonant-state expansion with a spherically-symmetric analytical basis, such as that of a homogeneous sphere, allows to determine a complete set of the resonant states of the system within a given frequency range. Furthermore, it enables to take full advantage of the expansion of the field outside the system into vector spherical harmonics, resulting in simple analytic expressions. We verify and illustrate the developed approach on an example of a dielectric sphere in vacuum, which has an exact analytic solution known as Mie scattering.

Vibrational micro-spectroscopy is a powerful optical tool, providing a non-invasive label-free chemically specific imaging for many chemical and biomedical applications. However, hyperspectral image produced by Raman micro-spectroscopy typically consists of thousands discrete pixel points, each having individual Raman spectrum at thousand wavenumbers, and therefore requires appropriate image unmixing computational methods to retrieve non-negative spatial concentration and corresponding non-negative spectra of the image biochemical constituents. In this article, we present a new efficient Quantitative Hyperspectral Image Unmixing (Q-HIU) method for large-scale Raman micro-spectroscopy data analysis. This method enables to simultaneously analyse multi-set Raman hyperspectral images in three steps: (i) Singular Value Decomposition with innovative Automatic Divisive Correlation (SVD-ADC) which autonomously filters spatially and spectrally uncorrelated noise from data; (ii) a robust subtraction of fluorescent background from the data using a newly developed algorithm called Bottom Gaussian Fitting (BGF); (iii) an efficient Quantitative Unsupervised/Partially Supervised Non-negative Matrix Factorization method (Q-US/PS-NMF), which rigorously retrieves non-negative spatial concentration maps and spectral profiles of the samples' biochemical constituents with no a priori information and with great operation speed. Alternatively, the Q-US/PS-NMF is capable to work as a partially supervised method, when one or several samples' constituents are known, which significantly widens chemical and biomedical applications of the method. We apply the Q-HIU to the analysis of real large-scale Raman hyperspectral images of human atherosclerotic aortic tissues and our results show a proof-of-principle for the proposed method to retrieve the biochemical composition of the tissues.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder and the most common cause of dementia in the elderly. The extracellular accumulation of amyloid-$\beta$ (A$\beta$) in senile plaques is a principal event in the pathogenesis and there is growing evidence that the dysregulation of lipid pathways is implicated in the disease, however the link between these two is still under study. In this work, we investigated human brain samples, from 11 AD patients and a control cohort of age-matched subjects without AD, using label-free chemically-specific Raman micro-spectroscopy. The collected image data were quantitatively analysed using an efficient quantitative unsupervised/partially supervised non-negative matrix factorization method, to retrieve the concentration maps and spectra of the samples' chemical constituents. Significant changes in lipid composition as well as increased concentrations of oxidative stress bio-markers were observed in AD tissues compared to the control. In particular, the analysis revealed accumulations of cholesteryl esters with saturated long-chain fatty acids (FAs), A$\beta$ fibrils, arachidic acid, fibrin, collagen-like amyloidogenic component (CLAC), $\beta$-carotene and magnetite, co-localising in A$\beta$ plaques of AD human brains and exhibiting concentrations highest at the fibrillar core and lowest at the rim. This finding opens perspectives for new anti-inflammatory and antioxidant drug strategies, designed to restore brain homeostasis as potential therapeutics of AD. We also demonstrate by the means of spatial concentration histograms that these identified species separate AD from non-demented control brains, beneficial for AD diagnosis.

We propose a light emitting device with voltage controlled degree of linear polarization of emission. The device combines the ability of metasurfaces to control light with an energy-tunable light source based on indirect excitons in coupled quantum well heterostructures.

A new rigorous approach for precise and efficient calculation of light propagation along non-uniform waveguides is presented. Resonant states of a uniform waveguide, which satisfy outgoing-wave boundary conditions, form a natural basis for expansion of the local electromagnetic field. Using such an expansion at fixed frequency, we convert the wave equation for light propagation in a non-uniform waveguide into an ordinary second-order matrix differential equation for the expansion coefficients depending on the coordinate along the waveguide. We illustrate the method on several examples of non-uniform planar waveguides and evaluate its efficiency compared to the aperiodic Fourier modal method and the finite element method, showing improvements of one to four orders of magnitude. A similar improvement can be expected also for applications in other fields of physics showing wave phenomena, such as acoustics and quantum mechanics.

We present theoretical studies of condensation of indirect excitons in a trap. Our model quantifies the effect of screening of the trap potential by indirect excitons on exciton condensation. The theoretical studies are applied to a system of indirect excitons in a GaAs/AlGaAs coupled quantum well structure in a diamond-shaped electrostatic trap where exciton condensation was studied in earlier experiments. The estimated condensation temperature of the indirect excitons in the trap reaches hundreds of milliKelvin.

We report the elliptically, close to circularly polarized lasing at $\hbar\omega = 1.473$ and 1.522 eV from an AlAs/AlGaAs Bragg microcavity with 12 GaAs quantum wells in the active region and chiral-etched upper distributed Bragg refractor under optical pump at room temperature. The advantage of using the chiral photonic crystal with a large contrast of dielectric permittivities is its giant optical activity, allowing to fabricate a very thin half-wave plate, with a thickness of the order of the emitted light wavelength, and to realize the monolithic control of circular polarization.

We study the polarization properties of light emitted by quantum dots that are embedded in chiral photonic crystal structures made of achiral planar GaAs waveguides. A modification of the electromagnetic mode structure due to the chiral grating fabricated by partial etching of the wave\-guide layer has been shown to result in a high circular polarization degree $\rho_c$ of the quantum dot emission in the absence of external magnetic field. The physical nature of the phenomenon can be understood in terms of the reciprocity principle taking into account the structural symmetry. At the resonance wavelength, the magnitude of $|\rho_c|$ is predicted to exceed 98%. The experimentally achieved value of $|\rho_c|=81$% is smaller, which is due to the contribution of unpolarized light scattered by grating defects, thus breaking its periodicity. The achieved polarization degree estimated removing the unpolarized nonresonant background from the emission spectra can be estimated to be as high as 96%, close to the theoretical prediction.

Optical and synchrotron x-ray diffraction diamond anvil cell experiments have been combined with first principles theoretical structure predictions to investigate mixed N2 and H2 up to 55 GPa. We found the formation of oligomeric NxH (x>1) compounds using mechano- and photochemistry at pressures above 47 and 10 GPa, respectively, and room temperature. These compounds can be recovered to ambient pressure at T<130 K, whereas at room temperature, they can be metastable down to 3.5 GPa. Our results suggest new pathways for synthesis of environmentally benign high energy-density materials and alternative planetary ice., Comment: 26 pages, 12 figures, I table

We investigate numerically the interaction of an oscillating point dipole with a periodic array of optical Yagi-Uda nanoantennas in the weak coupling limit. A very strong near-field enhancement of the dipole emission by the resonant plasmon mode in the feed element is predicted in this structure. It is shown that the enhancement strength depends strongly on the dipole position, the direction of the dipole moment, and the oscillation frequency. The radiative intensity of the point dipole from appropriate places next to one feed element may exceed the radiative intensity of an equivalent dipole in free-space by a factor of hundred. In spite of only one director used in each nanoantenna of the array, the far-field emission pattern is highly directed. The radiative efficiency (the ratio of the radiative to the full emission) appears to be around 20%., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

Lithium thioindate (LiInS$_{2}$) is a new nonlinear chalcogenide biaxial material transparent from 0.4 to 12 $\mu$m, that has been successfully grown in large sizes and good optical quality. We report on new physical properties that are relevant for laser and nonlinear optics applications. With respect to AgGaS(e)$_2$ ternary chalcopyrite materials, LiInS$_{2}$ displays a nearly-isotropic thermal expansion behavior, a 5-times larger thermal conductivity associated with high optical damage thresholds, and an extremely low intensity-dependent absorption allowing direct high-power downconversion from the near-IR to the deep mid-IR. Continuous-wave difference-frequency generation (5-11$ \mu$m) of Ti:sapphire laser sources is reported for the first time., Comment: 27 pages, 21 figures. Replaces the previous preprint (physics/0307082) with the final version as it will be published in J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 21(11) (Nov. 2004 issue)