An apertureless optical near-field scanning microscope system has been created by combining a commercially available atomic force microscope and an ellipsometer without any prior changes in design of the respective devices. In preliminary experiments, an optical resolution of about 20 nm ~l/32! has been achieved using the combined microscope. The intensity of the measured optical signal has bee...

Since the photoacoustic effect relies only on the absorbed optical energy, the back-reflected photons from samples in optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy are usually discarded. By employing a 2 x 2 single-mode fiber optical coupler in a laser-scanning optical-resolution photoacoustic microscope for delivering the illuminating laser light and collecting the back reflected photons, a fibe...

Planar optical lenses are fundamental elements of miniaturized photonic devices. However, conventional planar optical lenses are constrained by the diffraction limit in the optical far-field due to the band-limited wavevectors supported by free-space and loss of high-spatial-frequency evanescent components. As inspired by Einstein's radiation 'needle stick', electromagnetic energy can be delive...

Single-crystal to single-crystal solid/gas reactivity and catalysis starting from the precursor sigma-alkane complex [Rh(Cy2PCH2CH2PCy2)(h h-NBA)][BAr4] (NBA 1⁄4 norbornane; Ar 1⁄4 3,5-(CF3)2C6H3) is reported. By adding ethene, propene and 1-butene to this precursor in solid/gas reactions the resulting alkene complexes [Rh(Cy2PCH2CH2PCy2)(alkene)x][BAr F 4] are formed. The ethene (x 1⁄4 2) comp...

In this thesis a new instrument, the all-optical scanning acoustic microscope (O-SAM) is presented, it is a non contact scanning acoustic microscope (SAM) which uses lasers to both generate and detect surface acoustics waves (SAWs) The non contact nature of the O-SAM overcomes some difficulties associated with conventional SAMs because of the couplant and surface contact involved. This O-SAM al...

We experimentally demonstrate the control of the light polarization emitted by a 1310 nm dilute nitride spin-Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) at room temperature. This is achieved by means of a combination of polarized optical pumping and polarized optical injection. Without external injection the polarization of the optical pump controls that of the spin-VCSEL. However, the addit...

Zeolite catalysts that could allow the efficient synthesis of n-butene, such as 1-butene, trans-2-butene, and cis-2-butene, in dimethyl ether (DME)-to-olefin (DTO) reaction were investigated using a fixed-bed flow reactor. The zeolites characterized by N2 adsorption desorption, X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetry (TG), NH3 temperature-programmed desorption (NH3-TPD). A screening ten avail...