We present the analytical solution of a maser shaped like a spherical shell. We determine the general condition on the size of the central cavity at which a sphere becomes a shell maser, and derive the intensity, beaming angle and observed size of both unsaturated and saturated shells.

A set of vectors all of which have a constant (non-zero) norm value in an Euclidean lattice is called a shell of the lattice. Venkov classified strongly perfect lattices of minimum 3 (Réseaux et “designs” sphérique, 2001), whose minimal shell is a spherical 5-design. This note considers the classification of integral lattices whose shells of norm 3 are 5-designs.

A set of vectors all of which have a constant (non-zero) norm value in a Euclidean lattice is called a shell of the lattice. Venkov classified strongly perfect lattices of minimum 3 (Rèseuaux et “designs” sphérique, 2001), whose minimal shell is a spherical 5-design. This note considers the classification of integral lattices whose shells of norm 3 are 5-designs.

We find out for which t shells of selfdual lattices and of theirs shadows are spherical t-designs. The method uses theta series of lattices, which are modular forms. We analyse fully cubic and Witt lattices, as well as all selfdual lattices of rank at most 24.

We report on optical transmission studies of three-dimensionally ordered photonic crystals of close-packed spherical shells. These samples are fabricated using a double-template method, which allows for extensive control over shell thickness. The transmission spectra exhibit an optical stop band, whose spectral position and width depend on the thickness of the shell and on the overlap between a...

We show that the icosahedral packings of protein capsomeres proposed by Caspar and Klug for spherical viruses become unstable to faceting for sufficiently large virus size, in analogy with the buckling instability of disclinations in two-dimensional crystals. Our model, based on the nonlinear physics of thin elastic shells, produces excellent one-parameter fits in real space to the full three-d...

We study the self-force acting on static electric or scalar charges inside or outside a spherical, massive, thin shell. The regularization of the self-force is done using the recently proposed mode sum regularization prescription. In all cases the self-force acting on the charge is repulsive. We find that in the scalar case the force is quadratic in the mass of the shell, and is a second post-N...

The formation of quasi-spherical cages from protein building blocks is a remarkable self-assembly process in many natural systems, where a small number of elementary building blocks are assembled to build a highly symmetric icosahedral cage. In turn, this has inspired synthetic biologists to design de novo protein cages. We use simple models, on multiple scales, to investigate the self-assembly...

The shells of various poly(dl-lactide)-b-poly(acrylic acid) (PDLLA-b-PAA) spherical micelles and poly(l-lactide)-b-poly(acrylic acid) (PLLA-b-PAA) cylindrical micelles were functionalized with mannose to yield glyco-nanoparticles (GNPs) with different shapes and dimensions. All of these GNPs were shown to have good biocompatibility (up to 1 mg/mL). Cellular uptake experiments using RAW 264.7 ha...