Phys.org January 31, 2024 While the geometry of photonic integrated circuits can be characterized by existing means, their optimal and accurate performance requires detailed characterization of the light propagating within them. Researchers in Israel demonstrated the direct visualization of the light as it travels inside photonic integrated circuits. They used the natural nonlinear optical properties of silicon to directly map the electric field of the waves guided inside the integrated circuits, characterized waveguides and multimode splitters while extracting various parameters of the device. According to the researchers their work may be crucial component for the characterization of photonic circuitry, design […]
Tag Archives: S&T Israel
Atomic-scale spin-optical laser: new horizon of optoelectronic devices
Nanowerk August 7, 2023 Researchers in Israel developed a spin-optical monolayer laser by incorporating a WS2 monolayer into a heterostructure microcavity supporting high-Q photonic spin-valley resonances. They generated the spin-valley modes from a photonic Rashba-type spin splitting of a bound state in the continuum, which gave rise to opposite spin-polarized ±K valleys due to emergent photonic spin–orbit interaction under inversion symmetry breaking. The laser showed intrinsic spin polarizations, high spatial and temporal coherence, and inherent symmetry-enabled robustness features, enabling valley coherence in the WS2 monolayer upon arbitrary pump polarizations at room temperature. According to the researchers their work on monolayer-integrated […]
Researchers induce cancer cells to ‘commit suicide’ with a self-produced bacterial toxin
Phys.org July 4, 2023 Suicide gene therapies and immunotoxins have been investigated for the treatment of tumors by direct cancer cell cytotoxicity. Recent advances in mRNA delivery also demonstrated the potential of mRNA-based vaccines and immune-modulators for cancer therapeutics by utilizing nanocarriers for mRNA delivery. Researchers in Israel designed a bacterial toxin-encoding modified mRNA, delivered by lipid nanoparticles into a B16-melanoma mouse model. They showed that local administration of LNPs entrapping a modified mRNA that encodes for a bacterial toxin, induced significant anti-tumor effects and improved overall survival of treated mice. They proposed mmRNA-loaded LNPs as a new class of […]
New approach for understanding temperature effects on photovoltaic device performance
Phys.org June 14, 2023 Little is known about the operational temperature which is critical in a solar cell’s ability to convert sunlight to free energy. Researchers in Israel analyzed the photovoltaic effect while assuming a fixed ambient temperature and a varying system temperature rather than using the standard fixed system temperature–based approaches. They studied the potential-dependent current and temperature of solar cells and thermoradiative power generators and showed that the optimal band gap of a solar cell depends on its heat-transfer coefficient and that its efficiency may rise or fall as solar concentration increases, depending on its ability to dissipate […]
This Incredible Tiny Robot Can Locate And Capture Individual Cells
Science Alert April 8, 2023 While dielectrophoretic (DEP)-based cargo manipulation can be achieved at high-solution conductivity, electrical propulsion of these micromotors becomes ineffective at solution conductivities. Researchers in Israel found that combination of a rotating magnetic field and electric field results in enhanced micromotor mobility and steering control through tuning of the electric field frequency. They demonstrated the micromotor’s ability of identifying apoptotic cell among viable and necrotic cells based on their dielectrophoretic difference. This enabled analysis of apoptotic status in the single-cell samples for drug discovery, cell therapeutics, and immunotherapy. According to the researcher’s hybrid micromotor approach for label-free […]
New method for fast, efficient and scalable cloud tomography
Phys.org March 28, 2023 One way to study clouds is to use spaceborne imagers, but these imagers still face challenges of efficiency and scalability. Researchers in Israel have developed an effective inverse rendering framework for recovering the 3D distribution of clouds. They focused on clouds which have a key role in the climate system and require efficient analysis at a huge scale. Data for such reconstruction are multiview images of each cloud taken simultaneously. This acquisition mode is expected by upcoming future spaceborne imagers, such as Cloud Computed Tomography (CT). Prior art showed that scattering CT can rely on Monte–Carlo […]
A diamond-based quantum amplifier
Phys.org December 16, 2022 Artificial quantum systems, based on superconducting circuits, can now amplify and detect even single microwave photons. However, this requires operating at millikelvin temperatures. Natural quantum systems can also be used for low-noise microwave amplification using stimulated emission effects; but they generate a higher noise, especially when operating above ~1 K. Researchers in Israel have demonstrated the use of electron spins in diamond as a quantum microwave amplifier operating with quantum-limited internal noise, even above liquid nitrogen temperatures. They reported on the amplifier’s design, gain, bandwidth, saturation power, and noise. According to the researchers this capability can […]
Producing ‘green’ energy — literally — from living plant ‘bio-solar cells’
Science Daily December 13, 2022 Harvesting an electrical current from biological photosynthetic systems is typically achieved by immersion of the system into an electrolyte solution. Researchers in Israel used the thick water-preserving outer cuticle of the succulent Corpuscularia lehmannii serves as the electrochemical container, the inner water content as the electrolyte into which an iron anode and platinum cathode were introduced. They produced up to 20 μA/cm2 bias-free photocurrent. When 0.5 V bias was added to the iron anode, the current density increased ∼10-fold, and evolved hydrogen gas could be collected with a Faradaic efficiency of 2.1 and 3.5% in […]
Researchers fabricate tiny multi-component beam shaper directly onto optical fiber
Phys.org October 3, 2022 Researchers in Israel have shown that by using 3D-direct laser writing, high-quality optical devices could be fabricated directly on top of the fiber’s facet by the two-photon absorption process. They demonstrated how a high-order Bessel beam carrying orbital angular momentum could be generated by using this lithography process. The beam is shaped using an integrated micro-optical system that consists of a twisted axicon and parabolic lens in an adapted fiber configuration. They provided the analysis and measurements of the generated beam, along with simulated predictions. They found that the size of the central ring remained nearly […]
Researchers fabricate complex optical components from fluids
Nanowerk November 18, 2021 Based on controlling the minimum energy state of the interface between a curable optical liquid and an immersion liquid and dictating a geometrical boundary constraint a team of researchers in Israel has developed a method to shape liquid volumes and solidify them into desired freeform components. They provided an analytical solution for the resulting topography given a predefined boundary and demonstrated the fabrication of freeform components with sub-nanometer surface roughness within minutes. The process allows for rapid prototyping of high-quality components, has the potential to answer an unmet need in the optical design industry and allowing […]