When designing power supplies and converters, a high switching frequency is greatly appreciated. The most important reason for this is to be able to reduce the passive components (inductors and capacitors). One of the problems that become more important at higher switching frequencies is the fact that semiconductor components are higher stressed electrically. Higher frequencies imply that the c...

In relation to expectation and delivery of reward, pyramidal neurons of the prefrontal cortex either switch from a single spiking mode to transient phasic bursting, or gradually increase their sustained tonic activity. Here, we examined how switching between firing modes affects information processing at the corticoaccumbens synapse. We report that increasing presynaptic firing frequency in a t...

Electrowetting-on-Dielectrics (EWOD) can be used to build a device, where a polar fluid droplet gets actuated between two EWOD electrodes. In our setup, each electrode is located between a laser diode and an oppositely arranged photo diode. In that manner, the presence of a fluid droplet located above one certain electrode can be optically detected by means of this transmission setup. The dropl...

For several years, more and more people are joining the Internet and various kind of packets (so called transaction-, block-, and stream-types) have been transmitted in the same network, so that poor network conditions cause loss of the stream-type data packets, such as voices, which request smaller transmission delay time than others. We consider a switching node (router) in a network as an N-...

We developed a robust nanosecond photonic crystal switching material by using poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) nanogel colloidal particles that self-assemble into crystalline colloidal arrays (CCAs). The CCA was polymerized into a loose-knit hydrogel which permits the individual embedded nanogel PNIPAM particles to coherently and synchronously undergo their thermally induced volume phase tr...

The strategy of antigenic variation is to present a constantly changing population phenotype that enhances parasite transmission, through evasion of immunity arising within, or existing between, host animals. Trypanosome antigenic variation occurs through spontaneous switching among members of a silent archive of many hundreds of variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) antigen genes. As with such co...

We demonstrate the manipulation of transmitted light through an optical Fabry-Pérot cavity, built around a spectroscopy cell containing enriched rubidium vapor. Light resonant with the RbD2 (F = 2,F = 1) ↔ F ′ manifold is controlled by the transverse intersection of the cavity mode by another resonant light beam. The cavity transmission can be suppressed or enhanced depending on the coupling of...

Nanoscale resistive switching devices, sometimes termed memristors, have recently generated significant interest for memory, logic and neuromorphic applications. Resistive switching effects in dielectric-based devices are normally assumed to be caused by conducting filament formation across the electrodes, but the nature of the filaments and their growth dynamics remain controversial. Here we r...

All-optical signal processing enables modulation and transmission speeds not achievable using electronics alone. However, its practical applications are limited by the inherently weak nonlinear effects that govern photon-photon interactions in conventional materials, particularly at high switching rates. Here, we show that the recently discovered nonlocal optical behaviour of plasmonic nanorod ...

With the aim of supporting and enhancing high-capacity communication networks, such as telephony, Internet and others, this work has investigated: • transmission gains with time-slotted optical communication, • performance of optical add/drop multiplexers (OADMs) and optical crossconnects (OXCs), • OXC networks serving Internet Protocol (IP)-routers, • packet hop reductions in IP-controlled opt...