Consider the following utterances (and their interpretations): John is a shark (‘he is very aggressive’), She spilled the beans (‘she revealed the secret’), I’d like a rose OR a book (‘just one of them’), My soup is too cold to eat (‘bring me another one’), The lights have been on since last night. The car doesn’t start (‘because the battery is dead’). Such phenomena are known as metaphor, idio...

We review the design and fabrication of thin-film composite optical waveguides (OWG) with high refractive index for sensor applications. A highly sensitive optical sensor device has been developed on the basis of thin-film, composite OWG. The thin-film OWG was deposited onto the surface of a potassium-ion-exchanged (K(+)) glass OWG by sputtering or spin coating (5-9mm wide, and with tapers at b...

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is recognized as one of the most sensitive spectroscopic tools offering highly sensitive chemical and biological detection. The fact that particle plasmon allows direct coupling of light to resonant electron plasmon oscillation has spurred tremendous efforts in the design and fabrication of highly SERS-active substrates in nanostructured films and metall...

Porphyrins are a family of highly conjugated molecules that strongly absorb visible light and fluoresce intensely. These molecules are sensitive to changes in their immediate environment and have been widely described for optical detection applications. Surfactant-templated organosilicate materials have been described for the semi-selective adsorption of small molecule contaminants. These struc...

Semiconductor-based ultraviolet (UV) photodiodes have been continuously developed that can be widely used in various commercial, civilian areas, and military applications, such as optical communications, missile launching detection, flame detection, UV radiation calibra‐ tion and monitoring, chemical and biological analysis, optical communications, and astro‐ nomical studies, etc. [1-2]. All th...

We illustrate the possibility of light trapping and funneling in periodic arrays of metallic nanoparticles. A controllable minimum in the transmission spectra of such constructs arises from a collective plasmon resonance phenomenon, where an incident plane wave sharply localizes in the vertical direction, remaining delocalized in the direction parallel to the crystal plane. Using hybrid arrays ...

Nifedipine (NIF), a 1,4-dihydropyridine calcium channel antagonist, undergoes photo-degradation to dehydro-nifedipine (DNIF) upon exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light and to the nitroso analogue of dehydro-nifedipine (NDNIF) when exposed to sunlight or some kinds of artificial lights. NIF photo-degradation products do not contribute to clinical activity, thus prevention of photo-degradation of NI...

The aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) has emerged as a key tool for atomic resolution characterization of materials, allowing the use of imaging modes such as Z-contrast and spectroscopic mapping. The STEM has not been regarded as optimal for the phase-contrast imaging necessary for efficient imaging of light materials. Here, recent developments in fast elect...