Biomedical subjects

Nir Davidson

Publications and source records attributed to Nir Davidson.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Generation of a hollow dark spherical spot by 4pi focusing of a radially polarized Laguerre-Gaussian beam.

The properties of the focal spot for 4pi focusing with radially polarized first-order Laguerre-Gaussian beams are calculated. It is shown that a focal spot that has an extremely sharp dark region at the center and an almost-perfect spherical symmetry can be achieved. When such a hollow dark spherical spot is used in 4pi fluorescence depletion microscopy, an axial FWHM spot size of approximately 39 nm and a transverse FWHM spot size of approximately 64 nm can be achieved simultaneously in a practical system.

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PubMed2004

Toward a spherical spot distribution with 4pi focusing of radially polarized light.

The properties of the focal spot for 4pi focusing with radially polarized light are presented for various apodization factors. With a focusing system satisfying the Herschel condition, sharp focal spots with almost-perfect spherical symmetry (leading to equal axial and transverse resolution) and extremely low sidelobes are achieved.

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PubMed2004

High-numerical-aperture focusing of radially polarized doughnut beams with a parabolic mirror and a flat diffractive lens.

Recently, Dorn et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 233901 (2003)] demonstrated the significance of radially polarized doughnut beams in obtaining very small focal spots (with an area of approximately 0.26 lambda2) with high-numerical-aperture (NA) aplanatic microscope objectives. We propose two simple alternative ways to focus such radially polarized beams: a parabolic mirror and a flat diffractive lens. Because of their large apodization factor for a high NA, a significant further reduction in spot area (up to a factor of 1.76 at a NA of 1) compared with the aplanatic system can be achieved.

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PubMed2004

Efficient mode transformations of degenerate Laguerre-Gaussian beams.

We present an approach for efficient conversion of a single-high-order-mode distribution from a laser to a nearly Gaussian distribution and vice versa. It is based on dividing the high-order mode distribution into equal parts that are then combined together coherently. We implement our approach with several optical arrangements that include a combination of discrete elements and some with single interferometric elements. These arrangements are analyzed and experimentally evaluated for converting the TEM01 mode distribution with Mx(2) = 3 to a nearly Gaussian beam with Mx(2) = 1.045 or Mx(2) = 1.15. The basic principle, design, and experimental results obtained with several conversion arrangements are presented. The results reveal that conversion efficiency is typically greater than 90%, compared with theoretical ones. In addition, some arrangement is exploited for converting the fundamental Gaussian-beam distribution into the TEM01 mode distribution.

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PubMed2004

Curved diffractive optical element for uniform concentration at the thermodynamic limit at finite distance.

A new type of diffractive optical instrument, the curved hologram, for which the spatial phase function and the hologram shape can be controlled independently, is investigated for finite distance concentration of diffuse (quasi-monochromatic) light. We show how a simple analytic design for given light source and target geometries yields spatially uniform concentrations of diffuse light at the thermodynamic limit of brightness conservation. Such diffractive elements may provide a useful alternative to reflective cavities for efficient and uniform side-pumping of solid-state lasers.

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PubMed2002

Laser operation with two orthogonally polarized transverse modes.

Laser resonator configurations, which enable laser operation with two orthogonally polarized transverse modes, are presented. The intensity distributions of these two modes can be chosen to be complementary, so the gain medium can be exploited more efficiently than with a single mode, leading to improved output power. Moreover, the two modes can be combined and efficiently transformed into a single high-quality beam. Basic principles and experimental results with Nd:YAG lasers are presented.

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PubMed2002

Direct observation of the phonon energy in a Bose-Einstein condensate by tomographic imaging.

The momentum and energy of phonons in a Bose-Einstein condensate are measured directly from a time-of-flight image by computerized tomography. We find that the same atoms that carry the momentum of the excitation also carry the excitation energy. The measured energy is in agreement with the Bogoliubov spectrum. Hydrodynamic simulations are performed which confirm our observation.

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PubMed2002

Light collimation, imaging, and concentration at the thermodynamic limit.

A new type of optical instrument, the curved hologram, is introduced that allows us the unique opportunity to independently control its spatial phase function and its shape (whereas in reflecting or refracting optical elements the shape uniquely determines the spatial phase function). We show how proper design of the hologram shape (using a simple analytic procedure) yields perfect uniform collimation and also collimation and concentration of diffuse (monochromatic) light at the thermodynamic limit of brightness conservation. The results of our experimental demonstration as well as those of our numerical ray-tracing simulations verify our design.

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