An efficient optical fiber-to-waveguide coupling technique is described, using a novel transcision cut, alignment ways, and D-shaped fibers. Fiber-to-waveguide coupling efficiencies as high as 96% have been achieved with multimode graded-index fibers and ridge polymer optical waveguides. Advantages of using this new coupling technique include ease of fiber-to-waveguide alignment interior to the...

Full field strain measurements of biological tissue during loading are often limited to the quantification of fiduciary marker displacements on the tissue surface. These marker measurements can lack the necessary spatial resolution to characterize non-uniform deformation and may not represent the deformation of the load-bearing collagen microstructure. To overcome these potential limitations, a...

The cytoplasmic linker protein (CLIP)-170, an outer kinetochore protein, has a role in kinetochore-microtubule attachment and chromosome alignment during mitosis. However, the mechanism by which CLIP-170 is involved in chromosome alignment is not known. Here, we show that CLIP-170 colocalizes with Polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1) at kinetochores during early mitosis. Depletion of CLIP-170 results in a...

A recent study (Lake et al., 2009); reported the properties of human supraspinatus tendon (SST) tested along the predominant fiber direction. The SST was found to have a relatively disperse distribution of collagen fibers, which may represent an adaptation to multiaxial loads imposed by the complex loading environment of the rotator cuff. However, the multiaxial mechanical properties of human S...

We present a method for low loss coupling of multiple fibers to optical waveguides. Simultaneous alignment of multiple fibers is done by placing the fibers in a V-groove array. Coupling efficiency can be enhanced by placing a high numerical aperture (HNA) fiber (MFD 4 μm) between the standard telecom fiber and a horizontal tapered waveguide. The splicing loss between the standard telecom fiber ...

BACKGROUND Cells within tissues are subjected to mechanical forces caused by extracellular matrix deformation. Cells sense and dynamically respond to stretching of the matrix by reorienting their actin stress fibers and by activating intracellular signaling proteins, including focal adhesion kinase (FAK) and the mitogen-activated proteins kinases (MAPKs). Theoretical analyses predict that stres...

A compact, lightweight precision alignment system and package for an endomicroscope was designed and fabricated. The endomicroscope will consist of a millimeter-scale fiber resonator and a two-axis silicon optical bench. The alignment system provided five degrees of freedom and was designed to align the fiber resonator with the microchip with a resolution of one micron. The alignment system con...

Spatially resolved spectral interferometry is used to measure the mode content of a Yb-doped photonic-crystal fiber rod amplifier with a 2300 μm(2) mode area. The technique, known as S(2) imaging, was adapted for the short fiber amplifier at full power and revealed a small amount of a copolarized LP(11) mode. Simulations illustrate the potential for weak mode suppression in this fiber and agree...