Ag Nanoparticles/α-Ag2WO4 Composite Formed by Electron Beam and Femtosecond Irradiation as Potent Antifungal and Antitumor Agents.

The ability to manipulate the structure and function of promising systems via external stimuli is emerging with the development of reconfigurable and programmable multifunctional materials. Increasing antifungal and antitumor activity requires novel, effective treatments to be diligently sought. In this work, the synthesis, characterization, and in vitro biological screening of pure α-Ag2WO4, irradiated with electrons and with non-focused and focused femtosecond laser beams are reported. We demonstrate, for the first time, that Ag nanoparticles/α-Ag2WO4 composite displays potent antifungal and antitumor activity. This composite had an extreme low inhibition concentration against Candida albicans, cause the modulation of α-Ag2WO4 perform the fungicidal activity more efficient. For tumor activity, it was found that the composite showed a high selectivity against the cancer cells (MB49), thus depleting the populations of cancer cells by necrosis and apoptosis, without the healthy cells (BALB/3T3) being affected.

Parallel laser micromachining based on diffractive optical elements with dispersion compensated femtosecond pulses.

We experimentally demonstrate multi-beam high spatial resolution laser micromachining with femtosecond pulses. The effects of chromatic aberrations as well as pulse stretching on the material processed due to diffraction were significantly mitigated by using a suited dispersion compensated module (DCM). This permits to increase the area of processing in a factor 3 in comparison with a conventional setup. Specifically, 52 blind holes have been drilled simultaneously onto a stainless steel sample with a 30 fs laser pulse in a parallel processing configuration.

Wavelength tuning of femtosecond pulses generated in nonlinear crystals by using diffractive lenses.

We demonstrate that diffractive lenses (DLs) can be used as a simple method to tune the central wavelength of femtosecond pulses generated from second-order nonlinear optical processes in birefringent crystals. The wavelength tunability is achieved by changing the relative distance between the nonlinear crystal and the DL, which acts in a focusing configuration. Besides the many practical applications of the so-generated pulses, the proposed method might be extended to other wavelength ranges by demonstrated similar effects on other nonlinear processes, such as high-order harmonic generation.

Chromatic compensation in the near-field region: shape and size tunability.

We report a diffractive-lens triplet with which to achieve wavelength compensation in the near field diffracted by any aperture. On the one hand, the all-diffractive triplet allows us to tune, in a sequential way, the Fresnel-irradiance shape to be achromatized by changing the focal length of one diffractive lens. On the other hand, we can adjust the scale of the chromatically compensated Fresnel diffraction field by shifting the aperture along the optical axis. Within this framework, we present an extremely flexible white-light Fresnel-plane array illuminator based on the kinoform sampling filter. A variable compression ratio and continuous selection of the output pitch are the most appealing features of this novel application.

A programmable Fresnel transform pulse shaper.

We demonstrate the first reprogrammable Fresnel transform pulse shaper based on a modified direct space-to-time pulse shaping apparatus. In our approach, the pulse shaping lens and mask are implemented by a dual-layer liquid crystal spatial light modulator. The input mask subsequently undergoes a free-space Fresnel transform which causes quadratic dispersion of the output temporal waveform. When used as a spectrometer, we demonstrate that the passband function of the apparatus (determined by the Fourier transform of the input spatial mask) may be chosen to exhibit a user-defined scale. Here we present the theory of operation, as well as experimental verification in both the time- and frequency-domains.

High-contrast white-light Lau fringes.

We present a new optical assembly with which to achieve Lau fringes with totally incoherent illumination. Gratinglike codification of the spatially incoherent source combined with an achromatic Fresnel diffraction setup allows us to achieve Lau fringe-pattern visibility of almost 100% with broadband light. The white-light character to our proposed setup is in stark contrast to previous monochromatic implementations. Potential implications of this fact are identified.

Wavelength-compensated Fourier and Fresnel transformers: a unified approach.

We recognize that one can adapt any dispersion-compensated broadband optical Fourier transformer to achieve wavelength compensation in the Fresnel diffraction region just by inserting a diffractive lens at the input plane and vice versa. This unification procedure is employed in a second stage in the design of a novel hybrid (diffractive-refractive) optical setup that provides, in a sequential way, nearly wavelength-independent Fresnel diffraction patterns in the irradiance of the object transmittance.

Broadband space-variant Fresnel processor.

We present a radically new class of optical setup working with white-light illumination, namely, a chromatically compensated processor operating in the Fresnel domain. The optical configuration is a hybrid (diffractive-refractive) three-lens system that exhibits an intermediate achromatic Fresnel plane and an output image plane without chromatic distortion. As a first application of this optical arrangement we develop a parallel space-variant color pattern-recognition experiment with white light.

Scale-tunable optical correlation with natural light.

We describe two different scale-tunable optical correlators working under totally incoherent light. They behave as spatially incoherent wavelength-independent imaging systems with an achromatic point-spread function (PSF). In both cases it is possible to adapt the scale of the achromatic PSF, i.e., to modify the scaling factor of the PSF and preserve the chromatic compensation, by one's shifting the input along the optical axis. The remarkable properties of these systems allow us to carry out a scale-tunable color pattern-recognition experiment with natural light.

All-incoherent dispersion-compensated optical correlator.

We report on a simple, spatially incoherent, wavelength-independent imaging system that, in contrast to the conventional case, exhibits a dispersion-compensated point-spread function. Our hybrid (diffractive-refractive) three-lens imaging configuration thus acts as an all-incoherent dispersion-compensated optical irradiance correlator. So the optical arrangement is well adapted to processing color information (both spatially and temporally incoherent) under natural illumination.