Photo-induced thermal radiation of optical interference coatings submitted to a spatio-temporal illumination.

We present an electromagnetic model for photo-induced thermal radiation in multi-layer interference filters subjected to arbitrary pulsed illumination with limited beam size. Numerical calculation is used to analyze various structures affecting thermal radiation, such as multi-dielectric mirrors in the mid-infrared range. Other zero-admittance structures are shown to strongly confine and enhance the thermal radiation with an emissivity close to unity at pre-defined frequencies (wavelength and angles). Calculation tools are chosen that encourage the use of techniques for synthesizing thin-film multilayers able to control thermal radiation.

Photo-induced temperature in optical interference coatings.

The photo-induced temperature in multilayer systems is calculated using an original analytical model based on optical/thermal analogies. Various illumination regimes are considered, ranging from ps pulses to a continuous regime, while taking into account a variable repetition rate. The temporal and spatial (3D) resolutions are quantified, and the distributions of temperature and stationary optical field are compared. The temperature spectra are given as a function of the illumination wavelength. Thermal and electromagnetic damage thresholds are compared. Lastly, the thermal fringes resulting from structured optical illumination are studied.

Semi-automated method for the determination of the all-optical monitoring strategy of complex thin-film filters.

One of the critical steps in the fabrication of complex optical interference filters is the precise control of the thickness of the layers during the fabrication process. However, the definition of the optimal optical monitoring strategy remains a challenge as it relies on user experience and there is no reliable automatic determination of this strategy. Here, we propose a semi-automated method that allows the determination of the optimal strategy. It is based on the combination of trinary mappings to select spectral regions that are compatible with optical monitoring and the use of the reflected phase error at a single wavelength versus optical monitoring wavelength. We show how this procedure can be used for the determination of either a single optical monitoring wavelength or a multi-wavelength procedure of a complex filter and confirm these theoretical results with an experimental demonstration.

In situ optical monitoring of Fabry-Perot multilayer structures: analysis of current techniques and optimized procedures.

Single cavity Fabry-Perot filters are one of the most popular designs for the production of narrow bandpass filters. The usual deposition strategy to create such filters based on optical monitoring at the filter central wavelength is well-known and has proven its strength over decades. We review in this paper the possible optical methods to monitor such a filter during production and analyze their strengths and weaknesses. Then, we discuss a new monitoring procedure, mixing different methods, to minimize the production errors of this filter while maintaining a precise filter centering. This strategy is applied on different bandpass filter designs.

Response of S. thermophilus LMD-9 to bacitracin: involvement of a BceRS/AB-like module and of the rhamnose-glucose polysaccharide synthesis pathway.

Streptococcus thermophilus is a lactic acid bacterium of major importance to the dairy industry as it is found in numerous cheeses and is one of the two bacterial species involved in the fermentation of yogurt. Bacterial two-component signal transduction systems (TCSs) play important roles in the process of bacterial environmental adaptation. S. thermophilus LMD-9 possesses eight such TCS systems; however, their functions have thus far been only poorly investigated. Here, we focused on two of the TCSs in LMD-9, TCS06 and TCS07, whose encoding genes are located close to each other on the chromosome, and are associated with those of ABC transporters. TCS06 homologs are frequently found in Lactobacillales, but their function has not yet been determined, while TCS07 and its upstream potential ABC transporter are homologous to the BceRS/AB system, which is involved in bacitracin resistance in Bacillus and Streptococcus species. To investigate the function(s) of TCS06 and TCS07, we constructed and characterized deletion mutants and performed transcriptional analysis in the presence and absence of bacitracin. We show here that both TCS06 and TCS07 regulate the genes in their close vicinity, in particular those encoding ABC transporters. We propose that the response of S. thermophilus to bacitracin includes i) a bacitracin export system, regulated by TCS07 and constituting a BceRS/AB-like detoxification module, and ii) the modification of cell-envelope properties via modulation of rhamnose-glucose polysaccharide synthesis, at least partially regulated by TCS06.

Rgg proteins associated with internalized small hydrophobic peptides: a new quorum-sensing mechanism in streptococci.

We identified a genetic context encoding a transcriptional regulator of the Rgg family and a small hydrophobic peptide (SHP) in nearly all streptococci and suggested that it may be involved in a new quorum-sensing mechanism, with SHP playing the role of a pheromone. Here, we provide further support for this hypothesis by constructing a phylogenetic tree of the Rgg and Rgg-like proteins from Gram-positive bacteria and by studying the shp/rgg1358 locus of Streptococcus thermophilus LMD-9. We identified the shp1358 gene as a target of Rgg1358, and used it to confirm the existence of the steps of a quorum-sensing mechanism including secretion, maturation and reimportation of the pheromone into the cell. We used surface plasmon resonance to demonstrate interaction between the pheromone and the regulatory protein and performed electrophoretic mobility shift assays to assess binding of the transcriptional regulator to the promoter regions of its target genes. The active form of the pheromone was identified by mass spectrometry. Our findings demonstrate that the shp/rgg1358 locus encodes two components of a novel quorum-sensing mechanism involving a transcriptional regulator of the Rgg family and a SHP pheromone that is detected and reimported into the cell by the Ami oligopeptide transporter.

The role of aminopeptidase PepS in the growth of Streptococcus thermophilus is not restricted to nitrogen nutrition.

AIMS: To investigate the effect of an absence of aminopeptidase PepS on the growth of Streptococcus thermophilus on different media and at different temperatures. METHODS AND RESULTS: Using gene interruption, a negative mutant of the Strep. thermophilus CNRZ385 strain was constructed for the aminopeptidase PepS (strain DeltapepS). Checks were first of all made using biochemical assays that the DeltapepS strain lacks the peptide hydrolase activity of aminopeptidase PepS. It was demonstrated that the absence of the aminopeptidase PepS exerted a negative effect on growth whatever the culture medium (M17, chemically defined medium, milk). The role of aminopeptidase PepS in growth was enhanced at a high temperature (45 degrees C vs 37 degrees C). The DeltapepS strain was more resistant to lysozyme than the wild-type strain. CONCLUSIONS: We were able to demonstrate that aminopeptidase PepS probably plays a pleiotropic role through its involvement in growth via nitrogen nutrition, as well as via other cellular functions/metabolisms (such as peptidoglycane metabolism). SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: This study constitutes the first report on the role of a member of the M29 MEROPS family of metallopeptidases (http://merops.sanger.ac.uk/).

Comparison of surface and bulk scattering in optical multilayers.

Electromagnetic theories provide a tool to detect the origin of scattering in optical multilayers. Illumination and observation conditions that cause surface and bulk scatterings to have different behaviors are pointed out. Angular, wavelength, and polarization dependences are investigated for the location of structural irregularities at interfaces or in the bulk of a multilayer. Specific experiments can be designed.

Synthesis and research of the optimum conditions for the optical monitoring of non-quarter-wave multilayers.

Many optical filtering problems require the use of assemblies of layers with thicknesses that bear no obvious relationship to each other. Here we present the results obtained for a number of examples in which optical monitoring is performed with a change of control wavelengths for each layer of the stack. For this, it is necessary to determine for each layer the different wavelengths that provide an extremum of transmittance when the required thickness is achieved. We show that this leads, in some cases, to making the benefit of error compensation analogous to the well-known method used in the production of quarter-wave stacks. Because ion-assisted deposition and ion-plating techniques are suitable from the point of view of refractive-index reproducibility, optical monitoring can be used at a good level of performance. However, the production of high-quality optical thin films needs more than just the choice of a monitoring process. In particular, problems of uniformity are critical for high-performance coatings. Here we show how uniformity can be determined for each material involved.

Nd:MgO:LiNbO(3) waveguide laser and amplifier.

We report efficient operation of a channel waveguide laser and a channel waveguide amplifier in Nd:MgO:LiNbO(3). For the laser a cw output power of 2.9 mW was obtained for 23.6 mW of absorbed pump power. The absorbed pump power at threshold was 1.5 mW, and a slope efficiency of 13% was achieved. For the amplifier a small-signal gain of 7.5 dB was achieved for 22 mW of coupled pump power.

Description of a scattering apparatus: application to the problems of characterization of opaque surfaces.

We show how the complexity of a micropolished optical surface can be investigated in detail by measurement of the distribution of scattered light. We deal with problems of roughness anisotropy and uniformity together with cleaning problems. Experimental results concern numerous black glasses from different polishing shops and allow a determination of the polish inhomogeneity in a same glass set. After that, we present a detailed study of the apparatus function of the scatterometer, and we determine the limits of validity of our optical characterization method.

Layer uniformity obtained by vacuum evaporation: application to Fabry-Perot filters.

We show how we can measure with accuracy the distribution law of thicknesses deposited inside a vacuum chamber. These measurement techniques are applied to the simultaneous production of high rejection narrowband multiple halfwave Fabry-Perot filters. To prevent any alteration of the filters' optical properties, we must control the variations vs time of the evaporant distribution.