抗原变异可使得多种致病微生物易于逃避宿主免疫应答。表达在感染红细胞表面的恶性疟原虫红细胞表面蛋白1（PfPMP1）与感染红细胞、内皮细胞、树突状细胞以及胎盘的单个或多个受体作用，在黏附及免疫逃避中起关键的作用。每个单倍体基因组var基因家族编码约60种成员，通过启动转录不同的var基因变异体为抗原变异提供了分子基础。

疟原虫var基因转换速率变化导致抗原变异[英]／Paul H, Robert P, Christodoulou Z, et al//Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

Surface plasmons are waves that propagate along the surface of a conductor. By altering the structure of a metal's surface, the properties of surface plasmons--in particular their interaction with light--can be tailored, which offers the potential for developing new types of photonic device. This could lead to miniaturized photonic circuits with length scales that are much smaller than those currently achieved. Surface plasmons are being explored for their potential in subwavelength optics, data storage, light generation, microscopy and bio-photonics.

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Surface plasmon subwavelength optics

We present experimental scattering data at microwave frequencies on a structured metamaterial that exhibits a frequency band where the effective index of refraction (n) is negative. The material consists of a two-dimensional array of repeated unit cells of copper strips and split ring resonators on interlocking strips of standard circuit board material. By measuring the scattering angle of the transmitted beam through a prism fabricated from this material, we determine the effective n, appropriate to Snell's law. These experiments directly confirm the predictions of Maxwell's equations that n is given by the negative square root of epsilon.mu for the frequencies where both the permittivity (epsilon) and the permeability (mu) are negative. Configurations of geometrical optical designs are now possible that could not be realized by positive index materials.

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Experimental Verification of a Negative Index of Refraction

We show that microstructures built from nonmagnetic conducting sheets exhibit an effective magnetic permeability /spl mu//sub eff/, which can be tuned to values not accessible in naturally occurring materials, including large imaginary components of /spl mu//sub eff/. The microstructure is on a scale much less than the wavelength of radiation, is not resolved by incident microwaves, and uses a very low density of metal so that structures can be extremely lightweight. Most of the structures are resonant due to internal capacitance and inductance, and resonant enhancement combined with compression of electrical energy into a very small volume greatly enhances the energy density at critical locations in the structure, easily by factors of a million and possibly by much more. Weakly nonlinear materials placed at these critical locations will show greatly enhanced effects raising the possibility of manufacturing active structures whose properties can be switched at will between many states.

/pdf/magnetism-from-conductors-and-enhanced-nonlinear-phenomena-2fpnoamwae.pdf

Magnetism from conductors and enhanced nonlinear phenomena

The emerging field of plasmonics has yielded methods for guiding and localizing light at the nanoscale, well below the scale of the wavelength of light in free space. Now plasmonics researchers are turning their attention to photovoltaics, where design approaches based on plasmonics can be used to improve absorption in photovoltaic devices, permitting a considerable reduction in the physical thickness of solar photovoltaic absorber layers, and yielding new options for solar-cell design. In this review, we survey recent advances at the intersection of plasmonics and photovoltaics and offer an outlook on the future of solar cells based on these principles.

Plasmonics for improved photovoltaic devices

We investigate numerically the limits of the resonant magnetic response with a negative effective permeabilityeff for single-ring multicut split-ring resonator (SRR) designs up to optical frequencies We find the breakdown of linear scaling due to the free electron kinetic energy for frequencies above � 100 THz Above the linear scaling regime, the resonance frequency saturates, while the amplitude of the resonant permeability decreases, ultimately ceasing to reach negative value The highest resonance frequency at whicheff < 0 increases with the number of cuts in the SRR A LC circuit model provides explanation of the numerical data

http://esperia.iesl.forth.gr/~ppm/DALHM/publications/papers/PRLv95p223902.pdf

Saturation of the Magnetic Response of Split-Ring Resonators at Optical Frequencies

The current generation of photon scattering experiments requires a fast, accurate, general technique for calculation of transmission coefficients and of photonic band structure. A new methodology, which has significant advantages of speed and convenience, enables the band structure and, for the first time, transmission coefficients of complex dielectric materials to be calculated. Excellent agreement with experiment is found.

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Calculation of photon dispersion relations.

Over the past several years, metamaterials have been introduced and rapidly been adopted as a means of achieving unique electromagnetic material response. In metamaterials, artificially structured—often periodically positioned—inclusions replace the atoms and molecules of conventional materials. The scale of these inclusions is smaller than that of the electromagnetic wavelength of interest, so that a homogenized description applies. We present a homogenization technique in which macroscopic fields are determined via averaging the local fields obtained from a full-wave electromagnetic simulation or analytical calculation. The field-averaging method can be applied to homogenize any periodic structure with unit cells having inclusions of arbitrary geometry and material. By analyzing the dispersion diagrams and retrieved parameters found by field averaging, we review the properties of several basic metamaterial structures. © 2006 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 160.0160, 160.1190, 260.2110, 350.5500.

Homogenization of metamaterials by field averaging (invited paper)

We examine some of the optical properties of a metamaterial consisting of thin layers of alternating metal and dielectric. We can model this material as a homogeneous effective medium with anisotropic dielectric permittivity. When the components of this permittivity have different signs, the behavior of the system becomes very interesting: the normally evanescent parts of a $P$-polarized incident field are now transmitted, and there is a preferred direction of propagation. We show that a slab of this material can form an image with subwavelength details, at a position which depends on the frequency of light used. The quality of the image is affected by absorption and by the finite width of the layers; we go beyond the effective-medium approximation to predict how thin the layers need to be in order to obtain subwavelength resolution.

Directed subwavelength imaging using a layered metal-dielectric system

Metamaterials have a tremendous potential for applications from biophotonics to optical circuits, although progress has been hampered by intrinsic metal losses. This Review discusses the progress in countering such losses through the use of gain media to realize devices such as nanoplasmonic lasers or improved metamaterials for imaging and nonlinear optical applications.

John B. Pendry

Papers

Saturation of the Magnetic Response of Split-Ring Resonators at Optical Frequencies

Calculation of photon dispersion relations.

Homogenization of metamaterials by field averaging (invited paper)

Directed subwavelength imaging using a layered metal-dielectric system

Active nanoplasmonic metamaterials