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

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

Using the freedom of design that metamaterials provide, we show how electromagnetic fields can be redirected at will and propose a design strategy. The conserved fields-electric displacement field D, magnetic induction field B, and Poynting vector B-are all displaced in a consistent manner. A simple illustration is given of the cloaking of a proscribed volume of space to exclude completely all electromagnetic fields. Our work has relevance to exotic lens design and to the cloaking of objects from electromagnetic fields.

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Controlling Electromagnetic Fields

Fundamentals of Plasmonics.- Electromagnetics of Metals.- Surface Plasmon Polaritons at Metal / Insulator Interfaces.- Excitation of Surface Plasmon Polaritons at Planar Interfaces.- Imaging Surface Plasmon Polariton Propagation.- Localized Surface Plasmons.- Electromagnetic Surface Modes at Low Frequencies.- Applications.- Plasmon Waveguides.- Transmission of Radiation Through Apertures and Films.- Enhancement of Emissive Processes and Nonlinearities.- Spectroscopy and Sensing.- Metamaterials and Imaging with Surface Plasmon Polaritons.- Concluding Remarks.

/pdf/plasmonics-fundamentals-and-applications-4syb9877sr.pdf

Plasmonics: Fundamentals and Applications

We present the design for an absorbing metamaterial (MM) with near unity absorbance A(omega). Our structure consists of two MM resonators that couple separately to electric and magnetic fields so as to absorb all incident radiation within a single unit cell layer. We fabricate, characterize, and analyze a MM absorber with a slightly lower predicted A(omega) of 96%. Unlike conventional absorbers, our MM consists solely of metallic elements. The substrate can therefore be optimized for other parameters of interest. We experimentally demonstrate a peak A(omega) greater than 88% at 11.5 GHz.

Perfect metamaterial absorber.

Switching on and off acoustic waves through metamaterials has potential in noise canceling, underwater detection, and communication. However, traditional acoustic designs are challenging in manipulating underwater acoustic waves when the device thickness is less than wavelength. Here we report an alternative design of an underwater metasurface-based acoustic switcher to achieve this goal. The switching mechanism is revealed by combing acoustic diffraction of grating with mode conversion of double-layer PMMA plates. The device is tuned to control wave transmission by changing grating angle. Furthermore, we experimentally fabricate the metasurface acoustic switcher. The broadband-switching performance is realized to control underwater target detection and to produce binary digital encoding for acoustic waves. The proposed metasurface acoustic switcher offers the advantages of broadband performance and thin structure, which promises the opportunity for designing next-generation broadband-switching devices in underwater acoustic detection and communication.

Switching Acoustic Propagation via Underwater Metasurface

We show in this work an oblique layered system that is capable of manipulating two dimensional subwavelength images. Through properly designed planar layered system, we demonstrate analytically that lateral image shift could be achieved with subwavelength resolution, due to the asymmetry of the dispersion curve of constant frequency. Further, image rotation with arbitrary angle, as well as image magnification could be generated through a concentric geometry of the alternating layered system. In addition, we verify the image mechanism using full wave electromagnetic (EM) simulations. Utilizing the proposed layered system, optical image of an object with subwavelength features can be projected allowing for further optical processing of the image by conventional optics.

Subwavelength image manipulation through an oblique layered system.

Scattering generally worsens the condition of inverse problems, with the severity depending on the statistics of the refractive index gradient and contrast. Removing scattering artifacts from images has attracted much work in the literature, including recently the use of static neural networks. S. Li et al. [Optica5(7), 803 (2018)10.1364/OPTICA.5.000803] trained a convolutional neural network to reveal amplitude objects hidden by a specific diffuser; whereas Y. Li et al. [Optica5(10), 1181 (2018)10.1364/OPTICA.5.001181] were able to deal with arbitrary diffusers, as long as certain statistical criteria were met. Here, we propose a novel dynamical machine learning approach for the case of imaging phase objects through arbitrary diffusers. The motivation is to strengthen the correlation among the patterns during the training and to reveal phase objects through scattering media. We utilize the on-axis rotation of a diffuser to impart dynamics and utilize multiple speckle measurements from different angles to form a sequence of images for training. Recurrent neural networks (RNN) embedded with the dynamics filter out useful information and discard the redundancies, thus quantitative phase information in presence of strong scattering. In other words, the RNN effectively averages out the effect of the dynamic random scattering media and learns more about the static pattern. The dynamical approach reveals transparent images behind the scattering media out of speckle correlation among adjacent measurements in a sequence. This method is also applicable to other imaging applications that involve any other spatiotemporal dynamics.

Recurrent neural network reveals transparent objects through scattering media.

In photovoltaic devices, light harvesting (LH) and carrier collection have opposite relations with the thickness of the photoactive layer, which imposes a fundamental compromise for the power conversion efficiency (PCE). Unbalanced LH at different wavelengths further reduces the achievable PCE. Here, we report a novel approach to broadband balanced LH and panchromatic solar energy conversion using multiple-core-shell structured oxide-metal-oxide plasmonic nanoparticles. These nanoparticles feature tunable localized surface plasmon resonance frequencies and the required thermal stability during device fabrication. By simply blending the plasmonic nanoparticles with available photoactive materials, the broadband LH of practical photovoltaic devices can be significantly enhanced. We demonstrate a panchromatic dye-sensitized solar cell with an increased PCE from 8.3% to 10.8%, mainly through plasmon-enhanced photoabsorption in the otherwise less harvested region of solar spectrum. This general and simple strategy also highlights easy fabrication, and may benefit solar cells using other photoabsorbers or other types of solar-harvesting devices.

Tunable Localized Surface Plasmon-Enabled Broadband Light-Harvesting Enhancement for High-Efficiency Panchromatic Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

It has been experimentally demonstrated that a single layer of silver functions as a “superlens” [Fang et al, Science 308, 534 (2005)], providing image resolution much better than the diffraction limit. Resolution as high as 60 nanometer (λ/6) half-pitch was achieved. In this paper, we explore the possibility of further refining the image resolution using a “multilayer superlens” design. With optimized design of silver-alumina multilayer superlens, our numerical simulations show a feasibility of resolving 15nm features, about 1/26th of the illumination wavelength. We present preliminary experimental results targeted towards achieving the molecular scale imaging resolution. The development of potential low-loss and high resolution superlens opens the door to exciting applications in nanoscale optical metrology and nanomanufacturing.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S1946427400088126

Nicholas X. Fang

Papers

Switching Acoustic Propagation via Underwater Metasurface

Subwavelength image manipulation through an oblique layered system.

Recurrent neural network reveals transparent objects through scattering media.

Tunable Localized Surface Plasmon-Enabled Broadband Light-Harvesting Enhancement for High-Efficiency Panchromatic Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Molecular Scale Imaging with a Multilayer Superlens