Immunotherapy: A new target for cancer cure (Review).

Cancer is the leading cause of death globally and there is a worldwide cancer epidemic. Immunotherapy has emerged as a promising anticancer therapy. In particular, oncolytic viruses destroy cancer cells without destroying normal tissue via viral self­replication and anti­tumor immune responses, showing potential for cancer therapy. The present review discusses the role of the immune system in the treatment of tumor. The strategies for treating tumors are briefly introduced from aspects of active immunization and passive immunotherapy and the dendritic cell vaccines and oncolytic viruses are highlighted, as well as use of blood group A antigen in the treatment of solid tumors.

Highly efficient second harmonic generation of thin film lithium niobate nanograting near bound states in the continuum.

Bound states in the continuum (BICs) are ubiquitous physical phenomena where such states occur due to strong coupling between leaky modes in side lossy systems. BICs in meta-optics and nanophotonics enable optical mode confinement to strengthen local field enhancement in nonlinear optics. In this study, we numerically investigate second-harmonic generation (SHG) in the vicinity of BICs with a photonic structure comprising one-dimensional nanogratings and a slab waveguide made of lithium niobate (LiNbO3, LN). By breaking the symmetry of LN nanogratings, BICs transition to quasi-BICs, which enable strong local field confinement inside LN slab waveguide to be supported, thereby resulting in improving SHG conversion with lower pump power of fundamental frequency (FW). With a peak intensity of 1.33 GW cm-2at the FW, our structure features a second-harmonic conversion efficiency up to 8.13 × 10-5at quasi-BICs. We believe that our results will facilitate the application of LN in integrated nonlinear nanophotonic.

Plasmonic Helical Nanoantenna As a Converter between Longitudinal Fields and Circularly Polarized Waves.

A wide variety of optical applications and techniques require control of light polarization. So far, the manipulation of light polarization relies on components capable of interchanging two polarization states of the transverse field of a propagating wave (e.g., linear to circular polarizations, and vice versa). Here, we demonstrate that an individual helical nanoantenna is capable of locally converting longitudinally oriented confined near-fields into a circularly polarized freely propagating wave, and vice versa. To this end, the nanoantenna is coupled to cylindrical surface plasmons bound to the top interface of a thin gold layer. Helices of constant and varying pitch lengths are experimentally investigated. The reciprocal conversion of an incoming circularly wave into diverging cylindrical surface plasmons is demonstrated as well. Interconnecting circularly polarized optical waves (carrying spin angular momentum) and longitudinal near-fields provides a new degree of freedom in light polarization control.

Electron-plasmon interaction on lithium niobate with gold nanolayer and its field distribution dependent modulation.

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) enables strong field confinement, opening thereby new avenues for device miniaturization and reducing energy consumption. Plasmonic devices with electrical tunability attract tremendous interest for various applications. Most of the current researches achieved SPR modulation with relatively large driving voltages, or by other relatively low-speed tuning approaches, such as thermo-optic, magneto-optic, acousto-optic etc. In this paper, we propose and demonstrate an efficiently electrical SPR modulation based on lithium niobate (LN) with gold nanolayer (~81 nm) via electron-plasmon interaction. Efficient intensity modulation and wavelength shift (in visible band) of ~5.7 dB/V and ~36.3 nm/V are respectively obtained with low DC current. More importantly, modulation phenomenon of field distribution dependent is also observed and experimentally unveiled. Further performance is analyzed in terms of AC modulation and polarization characteristics. This key achievement opens up opportunities for applications such as optical interconnection, electric field sensing, electrically plasmonic modulation, etc.

Broadband all-light-control with WS2 coated microfibers.

All-optical light amplitude tuning functionality is demonstrated in a layered tungsten disulfide (WS2) nanosheets coated microfiber (MF) structure. Due to the strong light-matter interactions between WS2 nanosheets and the evanescent field around the MF, a large variation in the transmitted power can be observed under both external and internal pump light excitations over a broadband spectrum (~100 nm). A power variation rate of ~0.3744 dB/mW is obtained under external violet pump light excitation, whereas the power variation rate of similar devices in the state of the art are usually less than 0.3 dB/mW. In terms of the response time, a moderate rise/fall time of ∼20.5/19.6 ms is achieved, which is mainly limited by the employed structure fabrication methods. These results indicate that the optical transmitted power of the WS2 coated MF can be modulated by different pump light with the power in the order of mW, thus the proposed device might have potential applications in all optical controllable devices and sensors, etc.

Fano Resonance on Nanostructured Lithium Niobate for Highly Efficient and Tunable Second Harmonic Generation.

Second harmonic generation (SHG) is an important nonlinear process which is critical for applications, such as optical integrated circuit, nonlinear microscopy, laser, etc. Many challenges remain in the improvement of nonlinear conversion efficiency, since the typical value is of only 10-5 in nanostructures. Here, we theoretically demonstrate a periodic structure consisting of a lithium niobate (LN) bar and an LN disk, on a nanoscale (~300 nm) thin-film platform, which is proposed for a highly efficient SHG. By breaking the structure symmetry, a Fano resonance with a high Q, up to 2350 and a strong optical field enhancement reaching forty-two folds is achieved, which yields a high conversion efficiency, up to 3.165 × 10-4. In addition to its strong second harmonic (SH) signal, we also demonstrate that by applying only 0.444 V on the planar electrode configurations of the nanostructured LN, the wavelength of SH can be tuned within a 1 nm range, while keeping its relatively high conversion efficiency. The proposed structure with the high nonlinear conversion efficiency can be potentially applied for a single-molecule fluorescence imaging, high-resolution nonlinear microscopy and active compact optical device.

[HPLC fingerprint of ethyl acetate extraction of Saxifraga stolonifera].

OBJECTIVE: To establish an HPLC fingerprint of ethyl acetate extraction of Saxifraga stolonifera. METHOD: The HPLC analysis was performed on a Diamonsil C18 (4.6 mm x 250 mm, 5 microm) column with isocratic elution of acetonitrile-0.05% phosphoric acid at a flow rate of 1.0 mL x min(-1). The detection wavelength was set at 256 nm and the column temperature was set at 30 degrees C. RESULT: The HPLC fingerprint of ethyl acetate extraction of S. stolonifera has been established. There were fifteen common peaks, seven of which were identified by reference substances. The RSD of relative retention time was less than 3% in the precision and repeated tests. Eleven samples from different area can be distinguished from their fingerprints. CONCLUSION: This method is reasonable and reliable and can be used for quality control of S. stolonifera.