a negative index of refraction over a band of microwave frequencies1. This demonstration of a previously unexploited electromagnetic (EM) property proved the importance of engineered materials and has resulted in an extraordinary amount of continued development by scientists working in optics, electromagnetism, physics, engineering, and materials science. Experimental results revealing new phen...

Ultrasonic computed tomography (UCT) is one of the methods capable of tissue characterization. It is expected to provide not only a quantitative image but also diagnostic information. As in X-ray CT, UCT requires a projection data to reconstruct a cross-sectional image. In UCT such projection data are derived from the received broadband ultrasonic signal. In this paper, two methods for deriving...

The central focal masking ("dispersion staining") technique is convenient and effective for determining the refractive index of a microfragment by the immersion method and for distinguishing between minerals in an immersion mount. For most microscopes the only modification needed is the installation of a small opaque dot at or near the focal point of the medium power objective. White light illu...

We report a sensitive single-beam technique for measuring both the nonlinear refractive index and nonlinear absorption coefficient for a wide variety of materials. We describe the experimental details and present a comprehensive theoretical analysis including cases where nonlinear refraction is accompanied by nonlinear absorption. In these experiments, the transmittance of a sample is measured ...

This paper studies the formulation of dark and singular stationary optical solitons that stem from quadratic-cubic generalized forms nonlinear refractive index coupled with chromatic dispersion. The temporal evolution is taken to be both kinds, namely linear generalized. enhanced Kudryashov’s approach enables this retrieval possible.

We present the spectral and nonlinear optical properties of ZnO-SiO2 nanocomposites prepared by colloidal chemical synthesis. Obvious enhancement of ultraviolet (UV) emission of the samples is observed, and the strongest UV emission of a typical ZnO-SiO2 nanocomposite is over three times stronger than that of pure ZnO. The nonlinearity of the silica colloid is low, and its nonlinear response ca...

Anna Demming Publishing Editor, IOP Publishing, Bristol, UK Refractive index effects using nanoscale systems are frequently applied in new imaging, sensing and even visibility cloaking technology. In this issue, researchers in Japan use simulations and experiments to describe the confinement of optical vortices in nanoscale fin structures and the sensitivity of these systems to the refractive i...