BACKGROUND Animal vision spans a great range of complexity, with systems evolving to detect variations in light intensity, distribution, colour, and polarisation. Polarisation vision systems studied to date detect one to four channels of linear polarisation, combining them in opponent pairs to provide intensity-independent operation. Circular polarisation vision has never been seen, and is wide...

Polarisation control is demonstrated in circular gainguided top-surface emitting vertical cavity lasers by etching a narrow trench near the cavity aperture. An optimum etch depth exists for which all modes are pinned in a single polarisation. The etch orientation determines the dominant polarisation state of emission by modifying the spontaneous emission coupling into each polarisation state. P...

Microbial anodes were formed from compost leachate on carbon cloth electrodes. The biofilms formed at the surface of electrodes kept at open circuit contained microorganisms that switched their metabolism towards electrode respiration in response to a few minutes of polarisation. When polarisation at -0.2 V/SCE (+0.04 V/SHE) was applied to a pre-established biofilm formed at open circuit (delay...

Linear polarisation in gamma-ray burst prompt emission is an important diagnostic with the potential to significantly constrain models. The spectrometer aboard INTEGRAL, SPI, has the capability to detect the signature of polarised emission from a bright γ–ray source. GRB 041219a is the most intense burst localised by INTEGRAL with a fluence of 5.7 ×10−4 ergs cm−2 over the energy range 20 keV–8 ...

The justification for doing the work presented in this paper lies in the recent and disturbing rumours regarding the reflectivity of the current SCIAMACHY Level 1b product. The reflectivity was claimed to show an overall 20-percent loss in magnitude compared to GOME. We will show that the reported discrepancy in the reflectivity is indeed not a fictional one, but that it is certainly not caused...

In recent years there has been much discussion of the difference between inequality and polarisation. The vast literature on inequality is held to miss out key features of distributional change, which are better described as changes in polarisation. Axioms have been proposed which capture some of these differences, and measures of polarisation, as distinct from inequality, have been suggested. ...

We have used the University of Tasmania Mt Pleasant 26-m radio telescope to investigate the polarisation characteristics of a sample of strong 6.7GHz methanol masers, the first spectral line polarisation observations to be undertaken with this instrument. As part of this process we have developed a new technique for calibrating linear polarisation spectral line observations. This calibration me...

We present the rst imaging circular polarimetry of the Orion Molecular Cloud, OMC-1. The observations, taken in the J , H , K n and nbL bands, reveal a complex pattern of circular polarisation. Globally, there is a background circular polarisation of the order of 2 percent in the K n band, conforming to the typical quadrupolar patterns that have been observed in other outtow sources. Overlaying...

We report the first demonstration of polarisation insensitive all-optical wavelength conversion (AOWC) for single wavelength channel 640 Gbit/s return-to-zero differential-phase-shift-keying (RZ-DPSK) signal and 1.28 Tbit/s polarisation multiplexed (Pol-Mux) RZ-DPSK signals using a 100-m polarisation-maintaining highly nonlinear fiber (PM-HNLF) in a polarisation diversity loop configuration. Th...

Recently, many people have found polarisation features in the SCIAMACHY Level-1c spectrum, in the form of jumps. The jumps are found to be caused by the polarisation correction algorithm, which is evidenced by the fact that the jumps occur only when the polarisation correction is switched on, and only at cluster transitions where the integration time changes. We explain the origin of the jumps,...