Critical coupling in cavity-resonant integrated-grating filters (CRIGFs).

We experimentally demonstrate critical coupling in miniature grating-coupled resonators known as cavity-resonant integrated-grating filters (CRIGFs). Using previously proposed asymmetric grating coupler designs for non-linear CRIGFs, and introducing a dedicated variant of a coupled-modes theory model to estimate physical properties out of the measured reflection and transmission characteristics of these resonators, we demonstrate fine control over the in-and out-coupling rate to the resonator while keeping constant both the internal losses and the resonant wavelength. Furthermore, the critical coupling condition is also observed to coincide with the maximum enhancement of the second harmonic generation signal.

Changes in the Human Gut Microbiome Caused by the Short-Term Impact of Lactic Acid Bacteria Consumption in Healthy People.

The gut microbiome is one of the main factors affecting human health. It has been proven that probiotics can regulate the metabolism in the host body. A large number of people use probiotics not as medicines, but as a prophylactic supplement. The aim of our study was to evaluate the effect of lactic acid bacteria on the gut microbiome of healthy people using the V3 region of the 16S rRNA gene. Our study showed changes in the generic composition in the gut of healthy people when taking the supplement. There was an increase in the members responsible for the production of short-chain fatty acids in the gut of the host (Blautia, Fusicatenibacter, Eubacterium hallii group, Ruminococcus), as well as bacteria that improve intestinal homeostasis (Dorea and Barnesiella). There was also a decrease in the abundance of bacteria in the genera Catenibacterium, Hungatella, Escherichia-Shigella, and Pseudomonas, associated with an unhealthy profile of the human gut microbiome. An increase in members of the phylum Actinobacteriota was also observed, which has a positive effect on the host organism. Our results indicate that short-term prophylactic use of lactic acid bacteria-based supplements can be effective, as it contributes to a beneficial effect on the gut microbiome of healthy people.

Extreme enhancement of the quality (Q)-factor and mode field intensity in cavity-resonator gratings.

In this paper, dielectric Cavity-Resonant Integrated-Grating Filters (CRIGFs) are numerically optimized to achieve extremely high-quality factors, by optimizing the cavity in/out-coupling rate and by introducing apodizing mode-matching sections to reduce scattering losses. Q-factors ranging between 0.1 and 50 million are obtained and two different domains are distinguished, as a function of the perturbation parameter which controls the cavity in/out-coupling rate. When the cavity coupling Q-factor is lower than the Q-factor of the uncoupled Fabry-Perot cavity, corresponding to the over-coupling regime, the reflectivity response exhibits a high resonance maximum. On the contrary, in the under-coupling regime the resonant reflectivity maximum is much weaker since the scattering losses of the uncoupled cavity dominate. Between these two domains, the so-called critical coupling condition leads to very strong field enhancement inside the device, reaching up to 104 times the incident field amplitude. This theoretical work paves the way towards the practical implementation of CRIGFs with much higher Q-factors than currently demonstrated, potentially reaching performance on a par with other resonators such as photonic crystal cavities or whispering gallery mode resonators. These results can serve to optimize the design of narrow-band planar grating filters, particularly for application in non-linear optics.

Radiomic phenotype of epicardial adipose tissue in the prognosis of atrial fibrillation recurrence after catheter ablation in patients with lone atrial fibrillation.

Background: Epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) has been considered as one of the probable triggers of atrial fibrillation (AF). CT-rediomics is a perspective noninvasive method of assessment of EAT. We evaluate the radiomic phenotype of EAT in patients with lone AF in the prognosis of AF recurrence after catheter ablation. Methods: A total of 43 patients with lone AF referred for CA and 20 out-hospital patients without arrhythmia underwent multidetector computed tomography coronary angiography. Segmentation of EAT and extraction radiomic features were performed on calcium scoring series using by 3D-Slicer. Clinical follow-up was performed for 12 months period after the CA. Results: EAT in patients with lone AF had a distinct radiomic phenotype. Thus, 45 of 93 calculated radiomic features, volume and attenuation of EAT were significantly different between patients with lone AF and persons without any arrhythmia. In addition, 17 radiomic features were significantly different in subgroups with and without AF recurrence. Multivariate regression analysis demonstrated that only gray level nonuniformity normalized (GLSZM) was an independent predictor of AF recurrence (OR 1.0027, 95%CI 1.0009-1.0044, p = 0.002). ROC analysis data showed that GLSZM >1227.4 indicates high probability of AF recurrence during 12 months (sensitivity 89.4%, specificity 70.8%, AUC: 0.809; p = 0.001). Conclusion: The radiomic parameter GLSZM is associated with late AF recurrence after CA in patients with lone AF. In current study GLSZM was a stronger predictor of lone AF recurrence in multivariate analysis comparing with other established risk factors and EAT volume and attenuation.

The Effect of Short-Term Consumption of Lactic Acid Bacteria on the Gut Microbiota in Obese People.

Obesity is a problem of modern health care that causes the occurrence of many concomitant diseases: arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and cardiovascular diseases. New strategies for the treatment and prevention of obesity are being developed that are based on using probiotics for modulation of the gut microbiota. Our study aimed to evaluate the bacterial composition of the gut of obese patients before and after two weeks of lactic acid bacteria (Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, Limosilactobacillus fermentum, and Lactobacillus delbrueckii) intake. The results obtained showed an increase in the number of members of the phylum Actinobacteriota in the group taking nutritional supplements, while the number of phylum Bacteroidota decreased in comparison with the control group. There has also been an increase in potentially beneficial groups: Bifidobacterium, Blautia, Eubacterium, Anaerostipes, Lactococcus, Lachnospiraceae ND3007, Streptococcus, Escherichia-Shigella, and Lachnoclostridium. Along with this, a decrease in the genera was demonstrated: Faecalibacterium, Pseudobutyrivibrio, Subdoligranulum, Faecalibacterium, Clostridium sensu stricto 1 and 2, Catenibacterium, Megasphaera, Phascolarctobacterium, and the Oscillospiraceae NK4A214 group, which contribute to the development of various metabolic disorders. Modulation of the gut microbiota by lactic acid bacteria may be one of the ways to treat obesity.

Dynamics of Changes in the Gut Microbiota of Healthy Mice Fed with Lactic Acid Bacteria and Bifidobacteria.

Probiotics are living microorganisms that provide numerous health benefits for their host. Probiotics have various effects on the body; for example, they change gut microbiota, improve the integrity of the epithelial barrier and have anti-inflammatory effects. The use of probiotic supplements that are based on lactic acid bacteria and bifidobacteria is one of the approaches that are used to balance gut microflora. In our study, we evaluated the effects of supplements, which were based on members of the Lactobacillaceae family and bifidobacteria, on the gut microbiome of healthy mice using the 16S rRNA sequencing method. The data that were obtained demonstrated that when mice received the probiotic supplements, statistically significant changes occurred in the composition of the microbiome at the phylum level, which were characterized by an increase in the number of Actinobacteriota, Bacteroidota, Verrucomicrobia and Proteobacteria, all of which have potentially positive effects on health. At the generic level, a decrease in the abundance of members of the Nocardioides, Helicobacter and Mucispirillum genus, which are involved in inflammatory processes, was observed for the group of mice that was fed with lactic acid bacteria. For the group of mice that was fed with bifidobacteria, a decrease was seen in the number of members of the Tyzzerella and Akkermansia genus. The results of our study contribute to the understanding of changes in the gut microbiota of healthy mice under the influence of probiotics. It was shown that probiotics that are based on members of the Lactobacillaceae family have a more positive effect on the gut microbiome than probiotics that are based on bifidobacteria.

High-Throughput 16S rRNA Gene Sequencing of Butter Microbiota Reveals a Variety of Opportunistic Pathogens.

Microbial contamination of dairy products with a high fat content (e.g., butter) has been studied insufficiently. No studies using modern molecular methods to investigate microbial communities in butter have been conducted so far. In this work, we used high-throughput sequencing and Sanger sequencing of individual bacterial colonies to analyze microbial content of commercially available butter brands. A total of 21 samples of commercially available butter brands were analyzed. We identified a total of 94 amplicon sequence variants corresponding to different microbial taxa. The most abundant lactic acid bacteria in butter were Lactobacillus kefiri, Lactobacillus parakefiri, Lactococcus taiwanensis and Lactococcus raffinolactis. A large amount of Streptococcus spp. bacteria (87.9% of all identified bacteria) was found in one of the butter samples. Opportunistic pathogens such as Bacillus cereus group, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Cronobacter spp., Escherichia coli, Listeria innocua, Citrobacter spp., Enterococcus spp., Klebsiella pneumonia were detected. The analyzed butter samples were most strongly contaminated with bacteria from the Bacillus cereus group, and to a lesser extent - with Cronobacter spp. and Enterococcus spp. The plating and Sanger sequencing of individual colonies revealed the presence of Enterobacter cloacae and Staphylococcus epidermidis. The Sanger sequencing also showed the presence of Cronobacter sakazakii in butter which can be dangerous for children under the age of 1 year. We demonstrated that butter is a good growth medium for opportunistic pathogenic bacteria. Our data indicate that despite the fact that butter is a dairy product with a long shelf life, it should be subjected to quality control for the presence of opportunistic bacteria.

Second-harmonic-generation enhancement in cavity resonator integrated grating filters.

We demonstrate numerically and experimentally second-harmonic generation (SHG) in a cavity resonator integrated grating filter (CRIGF, a planar cavity resonator made of Bragg grating reflectors) around 1550 nm. SHG is modeled numerically for several different systems, including a thin plane layer of LiNbO3 without and with a grating coupler to excite a waveguide mode. We demonstrate that when the waveguide mode is confined to a CRIGF, designed to work with focused incident beams, the SHG power is increased more than 30 times, compared to the case of a single grating coupler used with an almost collimated pump beam.

Semi-phenomenological effective permittivity approach to metallic periodic structures.

A detailed review of the theory of effective permittivity for one- and two-dimensional periodic structures shows its limited validity for metal-dielectric structures in the visible and near infra-red if the feature dimensions are comparable with the metal skin depth. We propose a phenomenological correction to the static formulae using a realistic assumption for the electric field behavior inside the metal features. This approach allows us to obtain analytical expressions for the effective permittivity in the case when the electric field is not sufficiently homogeneous within the unit cell of the gratings. A comparison with the numerical results of the Fourier modal method demonstrates the validity of the analytical formulae. Additional study is made on the impedance approximation at the outer boundaries of the periodical structure in order to propose analytical formulae for the reflection coefficient that permits better correspondence with the numerical results. The link between the values of effective permittivity and permeability defined as the ratios between the averaged fields, and the metamaterial permittivity and permeability is discussed.

Time-resolved study of laser initiated shock wave propagation in superfluid 4He.

Intense shock waves in superfluid 4He between 1.7 and 2.1 K are generated by rapidly expanding confined plasma from laser ablation of a metal target immersed in the liquid. The resulting shock fronts in the liquid with initial velocities up to ca. Mach 10 are visualized by time-resolved shadowgraph photography. These high intensity shocks decay within 500 ns into less energetic shock waves traveling at Mach 2, which have their lifetime in the microsecond time scale. Based on the analysis using the classical Rankine-Hugoniot theory, the shock fronts created remain in the solid phase up to 1 µs and the associated thermodynamic state appears outside the previously studied region. The extrapolated initial shock pressure of 0.5 GPa is comparable to typical plasma pressures produced during liquid phase laser ablation. A secondary shock originating from fast heat propagation on the metal surface is also observed and a lower limit estimate for the heat propagation velocity is measured as 7 × 104 m/s. In the long-time limit, the high intensity shocks turn into liquid state waves that propagate near the speed of sound.

Ejection of Metal Particles into Superfluid 4He by Laser Ablation.

The dynamics of laser ablation of a metal target immersed in superfluid 4He is studied through time-resolved shadowgraph photography. Delayed ejection of hot micrometer-sized particles from the target surface into the liquid was indirectly observed by monitoring the formation and growth of gaseous bubbles around the particles. The experimentally determined particle average velocity distribution appears to be similar to that previously measured in vacuum but exhibits a sharp cutoff at the speed of sound in the liquid. The propagation of the subsonic particles terminates in slightly elongated nonspherical gas bubbles residing near the target, whereas faster particles reveal an unusual hydrodynamic response in the liquid. On the basis of the previously established semiempirical model developed for macroscopic objects, the ejected transonic particles exhibit a supercavitating flow to reduce their hydrodynamic drag. Supersonic particles appear to follow a completely different propagation mechanism as they leave discrete and semicontinuous bubble trails in the liquid. The relatively low number density of the observed nonspherical gas bubbles indicates that only large micron-sized particles are visualized in the experiments. Although the unique properties of superfluid helium allow detailed characterization of these processes, the developed technique can be used to study the hydrodynamic response of any liquid to fast-propagating objects on the micrometer scale.

Two-dimensional grating for narrow-band filtering with large angular tolerances.

A two-dimensional periodic sub-wavelength array of vertical dielectric cylinders on a glass substrate is studied numerically using three different electromagnetic approaches. It is shown that such structure can present a narrow-band spectral resonance characterized by large angular tolerances and 100% maximum in reflection. In particular, in a two-nanometer spectral bandwidth the reflectivity stays above 90% within angles of incidence exceeding 10 degrees for unpolarized light. Bloch modal analysis shows that these properties are due to the excitation of a hybrid mode that is created in the structure by a guided-like mode and a localized cavity mode. The first one is due to the collective effect of the array, while the second one comes from the mode(s) of a single step-index fiber.

Almost-total absorption of light in thin, biperiodic, weakly-absorbing semiconductor gratings.

We consider the design of optical systems capable of providing near 100% absorption of visible light, consisting of a structured thin layer of a weakly absorbing semiconductor placed on top of a dielectric spacer layer and a metallic mirror layer. We generalise a system recently studied semi-analytically and experimentally by Stürmberg et al [Optica 3, 556 2016] which incorporated a grating layer of antimony sulphide and delivered high, narrow-band absorptance of normally-incident light for a single polarisation. We demonstrate that bi-periodic gratings can be optimised to deliver near-perfect absorptance of unpolarised light in the system, and comment on the wavelength and angular ranges over which the absorptance remains near 100%. We show that the properties of the systems studied depend on the interaction of multiple modes, and cannot be accurately modelled within the quasistatic approximation.

Laser-Assisted Detection of Metal Nanoparticles in Liquid He-II.

The formation of gas bubbles surrounding laser heated copper nanoparticles in superfluid helium at 1.7 K is observed. Because of the effective light capture by these plasmonic particles and the subsequent heat transfer into the liquid, such bubbles grow within 3 µs to tens of micrometers in size. The Schlieren imaging technique is used to determine the spatial distribution of the nanoparticles in the liquid, and the gas bubble radii are related to the parent nanoparticle size. The presented liquid-phase particle size analysis is validated against atomic force microscopy measurements of nanoparticles deposited from the liquid onto a solid substrate.

Copper dimer interactions on a thermomechanical superfluid (4)He fountain.

Laser induced fluorescence imaging and frequency domain excitation spectroscopy of the copper dimer (B(1)Σg (+) ←X(1)Σu (+)) in thermomechanical helium fountain at 1.7 K are demonstrated. The dimers penetrate into the fountain provided that their average propagation velocity is ca. 15 m/s. This energy threshold is interpreted in terms of an imperfect fountain liquid-gas interface, which acts as a trap for low velocity dimers. Orsay-Trento density functional theory calculations for superfluid (4)He are used to characterize the dynamics of the dimer solvation process into the fountain. The dimers first accelerate towards the fountain surface and once the surface layer is crossed, they penetrate into the liquid and further slow down to Landau critical velocity by creating a vortex ring. Theoretical lineshape calculations support the assignment of the experimentally observed bands to Cu2 solvated in the bulk liquid. The vibronic progressions are decomposed of a zero-phonon line and two types of phonon bands, which correlate with solvent cavity interface compression (t < 200 fs) and expansion (200 < t < 500 fs) driven by the electronic excitation. The presented experimental method allows to perform molecular spectroscopy in bulk superfluid helium where the temperature and pressure can be varied.

Surface plasmon hurdles leading to a strongly localized giant field enhancement on two-dimensional (2D) metallic diffraction gratings.

An extensive numerical study of diffraction of a plane monochromatic wave by a single gold cone on a plane gold substrate and by a periodical array of such cones shows formation of curls in the map of the Poynting vector. They result from the interference between the incident wave, the wave reflected by the substrate, and the field scattered by the cone(s). In case of a single cone, when going away from its base along the surface, the main contribution in the scattered field is given by the plasmon surface wave (PSW) excited on the surface. As expected, it has a predominant direction of propagation, determined by the incident wave polarization. Two particular cones with height approximately 1/6 and 1/3 of the wavelength are studied in detail, as they present the strongest absorption and field enhancement when arranged in a periodic array. While the PSW excited by the smaller single cone shows an energy flux globally directed along the substrate surface, we show that curls of the Poynting vector generated with the larger cone touch the diopter surface. At this point, their direction is opposite to the energy flow of the PSW, which is then forced to jump over the vortex regions. Arranging the cones in a two-dimensional subwavelength periodic array (diffraction grating), supporting a specular reflected order only, resonantly strengthens the field intensity at the tip of cones and leads to a field intensity enhancement of the order of 10 000 with respect to the incident wave intensity. The enhanced field is strongly localized on the rounded top of the cones. It is accompanied by a total absorption of the incident light exhibiting large angular tolerances. This strongly localized giant field enhancement can be of much interest in many applications, including fluorescence spectroscopy, label-free biosensing, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), nonlinear optical effects and photovoltaics.

Strong three-dimensional field localization and enhancement on deep sinusoidal gratings with two-dimensional periodicity.

The study of total light absorption due to excitation of localized surface plasmons on deep metallic crossed gratings having a sinusoidal profile with a two-dimensional periodicity shows a very strong increase in the electric field intensity, reaching 800 times the incident intensity. The region with high intensity is strongly localized at the groove top and is characterized by a volume much smaller than the diffraction limit, both in transverse direction along the grating plane, and in longitudinal direction when going away from the grating surface. The field enhancement and its localization are much more pronounced than in shallow gratings.

Dynamics of vortex assisted metal condensation in superfluid helium.

Laser ablation of copper and silver targets immersed in bulk normal and superfluid (4)He was studied through time-resolved shadowgraph photography. In normal fluid, only a sub-millimeter cavitation bubble is created and immediate formation of metal clusters is observed within a few hundred microseconds. The metal clusters remain spatially tightly focused up to 15 ms, and it is proposed that this observation may find applications in particle image velocimetry. In superfluid helium, the cavitation bubble formation process is distinctly different from the normal fluid. Due to the high thermal conductivity and an apparent lag in the breakdown of superfluidity, about 20% of the laser pulse energy was transferred directly into the liquid and a large gas bubble, up to several millimeters depending on laser pulse energy, is created. The internal temperature of the gas bubble is estimated to exceed 9 K and the following bubble cool down period therefore includes two separate phase transitions: gas-normal liquid and normal liquid-superfluid. The last stage of the cool down process was assigned to the superfluid lambda transition where a sudden formation of large metal clusters is observed. This is attributed to high vorticity created in the volume where the gas bubble previously resided. As shown by theoretical bosonic density functional theory calculations, quantized vortices can trap atoms and dimers efficiently, exhibiting static binding energies up to 22 K. This, combined with hydrodynamic Bernoulli attraction, yields total binding energies as high as 35 K. For larger clusters, the static binding energy increases as a function of the volume occupied in the liquid to minimize the surface tension energy. For heliophobic species an energy barrier develops as a function of the cluster size, whereas heliophilics show barrierless entry into vortices. The present theoretical and experimental observations are used to rationalize the previously reported metal nanowire assembly in both superfluid bulk liquid helium and helium droplets, both of which share the common element of a rapid passage through the lambda point. The origin of vorticity is tentatively assigned to the Zurek-Kibble mechanism. Implications of the large gas bubble formation by laser ablation to previous experiments aimed at implanting atomic and dimeric species in bulk superfluid helium are also discussed, and it is proposed that the developed visualization method should be used as a diagnostic tool in such experiments to avoid measurements in dense gaseous environments.

Comparative study of total absorption of light by two-dimensional channel and hole array gratings.

A detailed study of light absorption by silver gratings having two-dimensional periodicity is presented for structures constructed either of channels or of holes with subwavelength dimensions. Rigorous numerical modelling shows a systematic difference between the two structures: hole (cavity) gratings can strongly absorb light provided the cavity is sufficiently deep, when compared to the wavelength, whereas very thin channel gratings can induce total absorption. A detailed analysis is given in the limit when the period tends towards zero, and an explanation of the differences in behavior is presented using the properties of effective optical index of the metamaterial layer that substitutes the periodical structure in the limit when the period tend to zero.

Bright unidirectional fluorescence emission of molecules in a nanoaperture with plasmonic corrugations.

Controlling the fluorescence emission from nanoscale quantum emitters is a key element for a wide range of applications, from efficient analytical sensing to quantum information processing. Enhancing the fluorescence intensity and narrowing the emission directivity are both essential features to achieve a full control of fluorescence, yet this is rarely obtained simultaneously with optical nanoantennas. Here we report that gold nanoapertures surrounded by periodic corrugations transform standard fluorescent molecules into bright unidirectional sources. We obtain enhancement factors of the fluorescence count rate per molecule up to 120 fold simultaneously with a directional emission of the fluorescence into a narrow angular cone in the direction normal to the sample plane. The bright emission and narrow directionality enable the detection of single molecules with a low numerical aperture objective, and improve the effectiveness of fluorescence-based applications. We thoroughly quantify the increased light-matter coupling as well as the radiation pattern intensity. These results are highly relevant for the development of single molecule sensing, single-photon sources, and light emitting devices.