Category: Uncategorized

TRPA1, A BEAUTIFUL MOLECULE. https://lnkd.in/evAgKPd View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT IN NATURE continues from last weekend with the molecule called TRPA1. A great deal is known about its structure, function and mechanism, and it is an exemplar of the enormous creativity in nature, using a single molecular motif to achieve a phenomenal range of biological functions, many of which are key for survival. View in LinkedIn

"PERIODIC STRUCTURES can block sound waves in certain frequency ranges and directions when interference effects lead to the formation of phononic band gaps. Phononic crystals with diamond symmetry, like this artificial 3D structure, have the largest band gaps." https://lnkd.in/ehwDYhR View in LinkedIn

90 GHz SWITCHING. "Able to flip on and off 90 billion times a second, a new plasmonic light emitter could form the basis of optical computing. The eventual goal is to integrate our technology into a device that can be excited either optically or electrically. That's something that I think everyone, including funding agencies, is pushing pretty hard for." https://lnkd.in/eQXi_8T View in LinkedIn

SOUND VS LIGHT. "Acoustic waves are mechanical, which means that they cannot travel through a vacuum, whereas light waves are electromagnetic and can travel through a vacuum. Whereas a light wave can have two independent polarizations, an elastic wave in a homogeneous solid has three independent polarizations." The key difference between sound and light waves. https://lnkd.in/ehwDYhR View in LinkedIn

"IN A PHONIC CRYSTAL the density and/or elastic constants of the structure change periodically. This changes the speed of sound in the crystal, which, in turn, leads to the formation of a phononic band gap." Analogy of sound and light waves. https://lnkd.in/ehwDYhR View in LinkedIn

PHOTONIC CRYSTALS. "The field of phononic crystals is only about 10 years old and many important questions are just being raised. Phononic crystals will provide researchers in acoustics and ultrasonics with new components that offer the same level of control over sound that mirrors and lenses provide over light." https://lnkd.in/ehwDYhR View in LinkedIn

FUTURE DIRECTIONS. "The major applications of hyperbolic media: subwavelength imaging and photonic density of states engineering. The major future work in this area will be about engineering the coherent, thermal and quantum state of light. Another major direction will be the fluctuational and macroscopic quantum electrodynamics of metamaterials." https://lnkd.in/ePrzn3K View in LinkedIn

A PHOTONIC HYPER-CRYSTAL "which combines the most interesting features of hyperbolic metamaterials and photonic crystals. Similar to hyperbolic metamaterials, photonic hyper-crystals exhibit broadband divergence in their photonic density of states due to the lack of usual diffraction limit on the photon wave vector." https://lnkd.in/euPD3KU View in LinkedIn

"THE BAND GAP in a photonic crystal is caused by a periodic variation in the refractive index of an artificially structured material." But remember that these structures have arisen many times independently in nature. https://lnkd.in/ehwDYhR View in LinkedIn