Exposure response coefficient of polarization-sensitive media using tensor theory of polarization holography.

We report a method for measuring the exposure response coefficient of polarization-sensitive media using the tensor theory of polarization holography. According to the theory of polarization holography based on the tensor method, the exposure response coefficient of polarization-sensitive media is not only determined by the materials but also affected by the exposure energy. The exposure response coefficient changing with the exposure energy is the key factor in polarization holography for controlling the polarization state of the reconstructed wave. We summarize the change of the polarization state of the reconstructed wave with the exposure energy under different recording conditions and obtain the initial value (about 8.4) of the exposure response coefficient of the polarization-sensitive media. Finally, the null reconstruction of linear polarization wave is realized by using this initial value.

Generation of circular polarization with an arbitrarily polarized reading wave.

Polarization holography has attracted considerable attention in recent years, due to its capability of recording the polarization information in polarization-sensitive material. Particularly, the faithful reconstruction (FR) can retrieve the polarization information of the recorded signal. To date, studies referring to these topics mainly concentrate on the interference between the same type of polarization such as linearly, circularly, and elliptically polarized light. In addition, most of the reading wave is strictly limited to some specified polarization state to achieve the FR. Here, we apply the linearly polarized light as the reference wave to record the circularly polarized light, and then the circular polarization state would be faithfully reconstructed by the arbitrarily polarized reading wave. We theoretically analyze its polarization characteristic based on the tensor theory and experimentally verified the analytical results. This result further extending the FR in polarization holography, and provides a practicable way to generate circular polarization which is easily fabricated. Moreover, the work would lay a favorable theoretical foundation for the future preparation of circular polarization generator and discloses a new insight in polarization manipulation for tailoring the optical field.

Excitation of coupled spin-orbit dynamics in cobalt oxide by femtosecond laser pulses.

Ultrafast control of magnets using femtosecond light pulses attracts interest regarding applications and fundamental physics of magnetism. Antiferromagnets are promising materials with magnon frequencies extending into the terahertz range. Visible or near-infrared light interacts mainly with the electronic orbital angular momentum. In many magnets, however, in particular with iron-group ions, the orbital momentum is almost quenched by the crystal field. Thus, the interaction of magnons with light is hampered, because it is only mediated by weak unquenching of the orbital momentum by spin-orbit interactions. Here we report all-optical excitation of magnons with frequencies up to 9 THz in antiferromagnetic CoO with an unquenched orbital momentum. In CoO, magnon modes are coupled oscillations of spin and orbital momenta with comparable amplitudes. We demonstrate excitations of magnon modes by directly coupling light with electronic orbital angular momentum, providing possibilities to develop magneto-optical devices operating at several terahertz with high output-to-input ratio.Light pulses can control magnetism in a material, and the effective creation of magnetic oscillations leads to spintronic devices with higher efficiency. Here, the authors increase the efficiency of magnon excitation by using a material in which orbital angular momenta are not quenched.

Dual-channel recording based on the null reconstruction effect of orthogonal linear polarization holography.

We report on dual-channel recording within polarization holography written by orthogonal linear polarization waves. The null reconstruction effect (NRE) of linear polarization holography was experimentally achieved at a large cross-angle of π/2 inside the polarization-sensitive media. Based on the NRE, two polarization encoded holograms were recorded in a dual-channel recording system with negligible inter-channel crosstalk. The two polarization multiplexed holograms could then be sequentially or simultaneously readout by shifting the polarization state of reference wave with the best signal-to-noise of 18:1 obtained within the experiment.

Inverse polarizing effect of an elliptical-polarization recorded hologram at a large cross angle.

We report on the inverse polarizing effect (IPE) of an elliptical-polarization recorded hologram at a large recording angle. The IPE is a polarizing phenomenon in which the reconstructed signal switches the major and minor axes and keeps the original polarization, direction compared, to that of the signal wave. In reviewing the case of a linear-polarization and circular-polarization recorded hologram, we found that the IPE is a unique phenomenon for elliptical polarization. The IPE was observed at the cross angle of 38° experimentally, and was theoretically explained using tensor theory to remove paraxial limitation.

Null reconstruction of orthogonal circular polarization hologram with large recording angle.

We report on the null reconstruction of polarization volume hologram recorded by orthogonal circularly polarized waves with a large cross angle. Based on the recently developed tensor theory for polarization holography, the disappearance of the reconstruction was analytically verified, where a nice agreement was found between the experimental and theoretical results. When the polarization and intensity hologram attain a balance, not only the null reconstruction but also the faithful reconstruction can be realized by the illumination of the orthogonal reference wave and original reference wave. As a consequence of the hologram recorded without paraxial approximation, the null reconstruction may lead to important applications, such as a potential enhancement in optical storage capacity for volume holograms.

Angular multiplex recording of data pages by dual-channel polarization holography.

Simultaneous recording of two data pages by dual-channel polarization holography is experimentally demonstrated. Two data pages are transferred as two orthogonal scalar wave components of a vector wave. The signal vector wave and reference beam are superposed on a polarization-sensitive medium. The two recorded data pages are simultaneously and independently reconstructed. Furthermore, holographic angular multiplex recording is performed.

Dual-channel polarization holography: a technique for recording two complex amplitude components of a vector wave.

In this Letter, the principle of polarization holography for recording an arbitrary vector wave on a thin polarization-sensitive recording medium is proposed. It is analytically shown that the complex amplitudes of p- and s-polarization components are simultaneously recorded and independently reconstructed by using an s-polarized reference beam. The characteristics are experimentally verified.

Spin oscillations in antiferromagnetic NiO triggered by circularly polarized light.

Coherent spin oscillations were nonthermally induced by circularly polarized pulses in the fully compensated antiferromagnet NiO. This effect is attributed to the action of the effective magnetic field generated by an inverse Faraday effect on the spins. The novelty of this mechanism is that spin oscillations are driven by the time derivative of the effective magnetic field which acts even on "pure" antiferromagnets with zero net magnetic moment in the ground state. The measured frequencies (1.07 THz and 140 GHz) correspond to the out-of-plane and in-plane modes of antiferromagnetic spin oscillations.

Photorefractive effect in undoped aluminum nitride.

We report our observation of the photorefractive effect in undoped aluminum nitride. We measured the coupling constant and the formation rate as a function of pump intensity at a wavelength of 405 nm in a two-wave mixing experiment. The photorefractive gain coefficient was 0.47 cm(-1) at I = 6.9 W/cm(2), and the actual saturated value was probably larger than this. The time constant was 59 ms at I = 1.0 W/cm(2). In addition to a refractive index grating, an absorption grating was also formed, which is attributed mainly to an ionized trap density modulation process.

Simultaneous separation of polydisperse particles using an asymmetric nonperiodic optical stripe pattern.

We present simultaneous separation of polydisperse particles driven by an optical gradient force in the absence of microfluidic flow. The separation mechanism involves particle-size dependence of the potential landscape generated by a one-dimensional asymmetric optical stripe pattern. The outcome is that the particles align in different stacks according to their sizes. The dynamics of Brownian particles inside the optical potential landscapes are investigated theoretically and experimentally for various optical intensities and particle sizes. By introducing sequential changes in the optical profile, we also show that this technique allows semipassive arrangement of particles in arbitrary configurations.

Effects of turmeric extract on the pharmacokinetics of nifedipine after a single oral administration in healthy volunteers.

The effects of turmeric extracts on the pharmacokinetics of nifedipine were examined in 10 healthy volunteers. An open-label and randomized crossover study was performed at 2-week intervals. In the control experiment, after a 10 h overnight fast, 10 mg of nifedipine (Adalat® capsule) was administered orally and blood was collected at 0, 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 h. In the combination experiment, the volunteers were orally administered 10 mg of nifedipine together with six tablets containing concentrated turmeric extract (480 mg of curcuminoid per six tablets), which is the general daily dose, and blood was sampled as above. The time profile of the plasma concentration of nifedipine in the control was comparable to that in combination with turmeric extract, as were the pharmacokinetic parameters: that is, the mean ratio of turmeric extract/control group (90% confidence interval: CI); C(max), 0.98 (0.95, 1.01) and AUC(0 - ∞) 1.00 (0.98, 1.02). In addition, the volunteers all completed the study without any serious adverse events. Consumption of the turmeric extract did not affect the pharmacokinetics of nifedipine after a single oral administration.

Polychromatic reconstruction for volume holographic memory.

We propose a method of reconstructing an image from a volume hologram at a wavelength different from the recording one. Spectrally broad but spatially coherent light was used as a probe beam. Each angular spectral component of the recorded hologram could be Bragg matched at one particular wavelength within the broadband spectrum. We experimentally demonstrated that a whole image could be reconstructed by using polychromatic light, whereas only a partial image was obtained by using single-mode laser light. We discuss the required bandwidth of the probe beam and the deformation of the reconstructed image.

Group-velocity-mismatch compensation in cascaded third-harmonic generation with two-dimensional quasi-phase-matching gratings.

A novel scheme to achieve broadband cascaded third-harmonic generation by use of two-dimensional quasi-phase-matching gratings is proposed. Intrinsic group-velocity mismatch is compensated by the pulse front tilt in noncollinear interaction geometry. The presented scheme enables broadband third-harmonic generation in a single device of long interaction length, which reduces the operation intensity dramatically.

Analysis of a collinear holographic storage system: introduction of pixel spread function.

Image formation in a collinear holographic storage system was analyzed. The wavefront from each pixel of a spatial light modulator was regarded as a plane wave in the recording medium, and its wave vector was determined by the position of the pixel. The hologram in the recording medium was treated as the summation of all gratings written by all combinations of two plane waves. The image of a data page was formed by diffraction of the reference waves by all gratings. The results of the simulation showed good agreement with experiment. We introduced the pixel spread function to describe the image formation characteristics. Analysis of the pixel spread function reveals that a radial-line pixel pattern for reference waves gave a sharper image than other reference pixel patterns. It is also shown that a random phase modulation applied to each reference pixel improved the image formation.

Adiabatic compression of quadratic temporal solitons in aperiodic quasi-phase-matching gratings.

We numerically show that it is possible to achieve adiabatic compression of femtosecond quadratic solitons in aperiodically poled lithium niobate device. Two-colored solitons of the fundamental wavelength of 1560 nm can be adiabatically shaped by using group-velocity matching schemes available in quasi-phase-matching (QPM) devices. We investigate the performance of the adiabatic compression based on two different group-velocity matching schemes: type-I (e: o + o) collinear QPM geometry and type-0 (e: e + e) non-collinear QPM geometry. Two-colored temporal solitons with pulse duration of 35 fs are generated without visible pedestals from 100-fs fundamental pulse. We also show that walking solitons with shorter pulse durations are adiabatically excited under small group-velocity mismatch condition. The walking solitons experience deceleration or acceleration during compression, depending on the sign of the groupvelocity- mismatch. The demonstrated adiabatic pulse shaping is useful for generation of shorter pulses with clean temporal profiles, efficient femtosecond second harmonic generation and group-velocity control.

Studies on interactions between functional foods or dietary supplements and medicines. IV. Effects of ginkgo biloba leaf extract on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of nifedipine in healthy volunteers.

The effects of Ginkgo biloba leaf extract (GBE), a widely used herbal dietary supplement in Japan, on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of nifedipine (NFP), a calcium-channel blocker, were studied using 8 healthy volunteers. Simultaneous oral ingestion of GBE (240 mg) did not significantly affect any of the mean pharmacokinetic parameters of either NFP or dehydronifedipine, a major metabolite of NFP, after oral administration of NFP (10 mg). However, the maximal plasma NFP concentrations in 2 subjects were approximately doubled by GBE, and they had severer and longer-lasting headaches with GBE than without GBE, with dizziness or hot flushes in combination with GBE. The mean heart rate after oral administration of NFP with GBE tended to be faster than that without GBE at every time point. Accordingly, it was concluded that GBE and NFP should not be simultaneously ingested as much as possible, and careful monitoring is needed when administering NFP concomitantly with GBE to humans.

Studies on interactions between functional foods or dietary supplements and medicines. III. Effects of ginkgo biloba leaf extract on the pharmacokinetics of nifedipine in rats.

The effects of Ginkgo biloba leaf extract (GBE), one of the most widely used herbal dietary supplements in Japan and the United States, on the pharmacokinetics of nifedipine (NFP), a typical probe of P450 (CYP) 3A, but not a substrate of the multidrug transporter P-glycoprotein (P-gp), were studied using rats. Simultaneous oral treatment with GBE (20 mg/kg) did not affect the pharmacokinetics after intravenous administration of NFP (2.5 mg/kg). However, the maximal plasma NFP concentration, the area under the concentration-time curve and absolute bioavailability after oral administration of NFP (5 mg/kg) were significantly increased by simultaneous oral treatment with GBE, approximately 1.6-fold, 1.6-fold and 2.1-fold, respectively. These results suggest that the concomitant oral use of GBE appeared to reduce the first-pass metabolism of orally administered NFP, by inhibiting CYP3A, possibly but not P-gp, in rats.

Studies on interactions between functional foods or dietary supplements and medicines. I. Effects of Ginkgo biloba leaf extract on the pharmacokinetics of diltiazem in rats.

The effects of Ginkgo biloba leaf extract (GBE), one of the most widely used herbal dietary supplements in Japan, on the pharmacokinetics of diltiazem (DTZ), a typical probe of cytochrome P450 (CYP) 3A, were examined in rats. The simultaneous addition of GBE to small intestine and liver microsomes inhibited the formation of N-demethyl DTZ (MA), an active metabolite of DTZ produced by CYP3A, in a concentration-dependent manner, with an IC(50) of about 50 and 182 microg/ml, respectively. This inhibition appeared to be caused, at least in part, by a mechanism-based inhibition. Both the rate of formation of MA and total amount of CYP in intestinal or hepatic microsomes after a single oral pretreatment with GBE (20 mg/kg) decreased transiently. The pretreatment significantly decreased the terminal elimination rate constant and increased the mean residence time, after intravenous administration of DTZ (3 mg/kg). Furthermore, it significantly increased the area under the concentration-time curve and absolute bioavailability after oral administration of DTZ (30 mg/kg). These results indicated that the concomitant use of GBE in rats increased the bioavailability of DTZ by inhibiting both intestinal and hepatic metabolism, at least in part, via a mechanism-based inhibition for CYP3A.

Group-velocity-matched cascaded quadratic nonlinearities of femtosecond pulses in periodically poled MgO:LiNbO3.

Large nonlinear phase shifts were generated with femtosecond pulses at 1560 nm through cascaded quadratic interactions in periodically poled MgO-doped LiNbO3. The off-diagonal component of the nonlinear coefficient was utilized for simultaneous quasi phase matching and group-velocity matching. The effective nonlinear refractive index was varied from -2.9 x 10(-14) to +3.3 x 10(-14) cm2/W by tuning the phase-mismatch conditions.