The contribution of the propagating and the evanescent waves associated with freely propagating nonparaxial light fields whose transverse component is azimuthally polarized at some plane is investigated. Analytic expressions are derived for describing both the spatial shape and the relative weight of the propagating and the evanescent components integrated over the transverse plane. The analysi...

This paper analyses topological variants of mereological essentialism, the thesis that an object cannot have different parts than the ones it has. In particular, we examine de dicto and de re versions of two theses: (i) that an object cannot change its external connections (e.g., adjacent objects cannot be separated), and (ii) that an object cannot change its topological genus (e.g., a doughnut...

Extensive aortic valve endocarditis requires thorough debridement of the paravalvular tissue, and reconstruction of the destroyed aortic root can be technically difficult. In the present report, we describe a simple technique for aortic root reconstruction. In this technique, a doughnut-shaped bovine pericardial sheet (skirt) is attached to the proximal end of a valved conduit and then sewn ont...

We report on a conceptually new type of waveguide in glass by femtosecond laser direct writing, namely, photonic lattice-like (PLLW). The PLLW’s core consists well-distributed and densified tracks with sub-micron size 0.62 µm width. Specifically, PLLW inscribed as hexagonal-shape input ring-shape output side was implemented to converse Gaussian mode doughnut-like mode, high conversion efficienc...

Bimetallic core-shell gold nanorods (AuNRs) are promising multifunctional orientation probes that can be employed in biological and physical studies. This paper presents the optical properties of single AuNRs coated with palladium (Pd) and platinum (Pt) under scattering-based dark-field (DF) microscopy. Strong longitudinal plasmon damping was observed for the bimetallic AuNRs due to Pd and Pt m...

We present a new tool for the estimation of the age of bloodstains, which could probably be used during forensic casework. For this, we used atomic force microscopy (AFM) for high-resolution imaging of erythrocytes in a blood sample and the detection of elasticity changes on a nanometer scale. For the analytic procedure we applied a fresh blood spot on a glass slide and started the AFM detectio...