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2005

Subwavelength-diameter silica wires for microscale optical components, at SPIE Photonics West 2005 Conference (San Jose, CA), Monday, January 24, 2005:
talk_1080.pdf
Optical components built from structures that are tens of micrometers wide are playing a key role in current optical communication networks, optical sensors, and medical optical devices. The demand for improved performance, broader applications, and higher integration density, together with rapid advances in nanotechnology for electronics and optoelectronics, has spurred an effort to reduce the size of basic optical components. However, the miniaturization of optical components with subwavelength and nanometer-sized optical guiding structures through established fabrication methods is... Read more about Subwavelength-diameter silica wires for microscale optical components
An introduction to femtosecond laser techniques, at 2005 SPIE Photonics West Conference (San Jose, CA), Sunday, January 23, 2005:
talk_1091.pdf
General Course Description: This interactively taught half-day course provides basic knowledge of the measurements of and research with femtosecond laser pulses. Beginning with the basic principles of the interaction of light and matter, we'll discuss the interaction of intense short pulses with matter. Using worksheets we'll address a number of common conceptual misconceptions in an interactive and collaborative setting.

Benefits Learning outcomes:

This course will enable you to

  • Explain the basis for the electronic and optical properties of...
Read more about An introduction to femtosecond laser techniques
Sub-cellular nanosurgery in live cells using ultrashort laser pulses, at Photonics West (San Jose, CA), Friday, January 21, 2005:
talk_1175.pdf
We use femtosecond laser pulses to selectively disrupt the cytoskeleton of a living cell and probe its mechanical properties. The nanosurgery setup is based on a home-built two-photon microscope. To image, we use a 80-MHz, 100-pJ/pulse laser beam, which is scanned across the sample; to cut, we introduce a second, 250-kHz, 1 to 5-nJ/pulse, laser beam and locally ablate sub-cellular structures. Simultaneous cutting and imaging allows us to study immediate cellular response with several hundred-nanometer spatial and less than 500-ms time resolution. We severed single actin bundles inside live... Read more about Sub-cellular nanosurgery in live cells using ultrashort laser pulses
Visualizations and visual illusions: how the mind tricks us, at Center for Astrophysics Lecture, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA), Tuesday, January 11, 2005:
talk_1135.pdf
Neurobiology and cognitive psychology have made great progress in understanding how the mind processes information – in particular visual information. The knowledge we can gain from these fields has important implications for the presentation of visual information and student learning.
Ultrafast dynamics in highly excited semiconductors, at Seminar in the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL), Foundation for Reaserch and Technology - Hellas (FORTH) (Heraklion, Crete, Greece), Friday, January 7, 2005:
talk_1130.pdf
A pump-probe technique measuring the dielectric function is presented and applied in a series of experiments. An ultrafast semiconductor-to-metal phase transition is observed in highly excited GaAs. High amplitude coherent phonon dynamics in Te are resolved suggesting a THz-driven semiconductor-semimetal transition. Coherent control including both enhancement and cancellation of the lattice vibrations in Te is demonstrated revealing a departure from the low-excitation behavior of similar materials.
Wrapping light around a hair, at 35th Winter Colloquium on The Physics of Quantum Electronics (Snowbird, UT), Tuesday, January 4, 2005:
talk_1128.pdf
Can light be guided by a fiber whose diameter is much smaller than the wavelength of the light? Can we mold the flow of light on the micrometer scale so it wraps, say, around a hair? Until recently the answer to these questions was ‘no’. We developed a technique for drawing long, free-standing silica wires with diameters down to 50 nm that have a surface smoothness at the atomic level and a high uniformity of diameter. Light can be launched into these silica nanowires by optical evanescent coupling and the wires allow low-loss single-mode operation. They can be bent sharply, making it... Read more about Wrapping light around a hair

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