Manipulating plasmonic vortex based on meta-atoms with four rectangular slits.

In this paper, four rectangular slits with the same size and regular rotation angle are regarded as the meta-atom, arranged on circular contours, to create plasmonic vortex lenses (PVLs) solely based on the geometric phase. These PVLs can achieve the same purpose of exciting surface plasmon polariton (SPP) vortices with arbitrary combinations of topological charge (TC) when illuminated by circularly polarized (CP) light with different handedness as the traditional PVLs. Furthermore, they can generate SPP vortices with different TCs and specific constant or varying electric-field intensities when excited by linearly polarized (LP) light, which marks the first instance of this phenomenon solely through geometric phase manipulation. The TC can be dynamically altered by controlling the polarization order of the incident vector beam. These PVLs not only possess advantages in terms of device miniaturization and the creation of a more uniform vortex field, as compared to PVLs based on the transmission phase, but also offer a more straightforward design process in comparison to traditional structures that rely solely on the geometric phase.

TFG mutation induces haploinsufficiency and drives axonal Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease by causing neurite degeneration.

AIMS: TFG-related axonal Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease is a late-onset, autosomal dominant, hereditary motor, and sensory neuropathy characterized by slowly progressive weakness and atrophy of the distal muscles. The objective of this study was to determine the common pathogenic mechanism of TFG-related CMT type 2 (CMT2) caused by different mutations and establish a direct association between TFG haploinsufficiency and neurodegeneration. METHODS: Three individuals carrying the TFG p.G269V mutation but with varying disease durations were studied. The effect of the p.G269V mutation was confirmed by analyzing protein samples extracted from the blood of two individuals. The functional consequences of both CMT2 mutant gene products were evaluated in vitro. The effect of TFG deficiency in the nervous system was examined using zebrafish models and cultured mouse neurons. RESULTS: Overexpression of p.G269V TFG failed to enhance soluble TFG levels by generating insoluble TFG aggregates. TFG deficiency disrupted neurite outgrowth and induced neuronal apoptosis both in vivo and in vitro and further impaired locomotor capacity in zebrafish, which was consistent with the phenotype in patients. Wnt signaling was activated as a protective factor in response to TFG deficiency. CONCLUSION: CMT2-related TFG mutation induces TFG haploinsufficiency within cells and drives disease by causing progressive neurite degeneration.

Gold-viral particle identification by deep learning in wide-field photon scattering parametric images.

The ability to identify virus particles is important for research and clinical applications. Because of the optical diffraction limit, conventional optical microscopes are generally not suitable for virus particle detection, and higher resolution instruments such as transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) are required. In this paper, we propose a new method for identifying virus particles based on polarization parametric indirect microscopic imaging (PIMI) and deep learning techniques. By introducing an abrupt change of refractivity at the virus particle using antibody-conjugated gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), the strength of the photon scattering signal can be magnified. After acquiring the PIMI images, a deep learning method was applied to identify discriminating features and classify the virus particles, using electron microscopy (EM) images as the ground truth. Experimental results confirm that gold-virus particles can be identified in PIMI images with a high level of confidence.

Characterization of deep sub-wavelength nanowells by imaging the photon state scattering spectra.

Optical-matter interactions and photon scattering in a sub-wavelength space are of great interest in many applications, such as nanopore-based gene sequencing and molecule characterization. Previous studies show that spatial distribution features of the scattering photon states are highly sensitive to the dielectric and structural properties of the nanopore array and matter contained on or within them, as a result of the complex optical-matter interaction in a confined system. In this paper, we report a method for shape characterization of subwavelength nanowells using photon state spatial distribution spectra in the scattering near field. Far-field parametric images of the near-field optical scattering from sub-wavelength nanowell arrays on a SiN substrate were obtained experimentally. Finite-difference time-domain simulations were used to interpret the experimental results. The rich features of the parametric images originating from the interaction of the photons and the nanowells were analyzed to recover the size of the nanowells. Experiments on nanoholes modified with Shp2 proteins were also performed. Results show that the scattering distribution of modified nanoholes exhibits significant differences compared to empty nanoholes. This work highlights the potential of utilizing the photon status scattering of nanowells for molecular characterization or other virus detection applications.

Point spread function degradation model of a polarization imaging system for wide-field subwavelength nanoparticles: publisher's note.

This publisher's note corrects the author listing in Appl. Opt.59, 7114 (2020).APOPAI0003-693510.1364/AO.397357.

Point spread function degradation model of a polarization imaging system for wide-field subwavelength nanoparticles.

We propose a comprehensive point spread function (PSF) degradation model, which considers multiple factors consisting of degradation of specimen retardant sampling and polarization angularly anamorphic sampling, to indicate the image degradation characteristics of polarization imaging systems. First, a one-layer optical coherence tomography (OCT) model was established to express the retardancy of medium-loading specimens. Then, a PSF degradation model of angularly anamorphic polarization sampling was deduced through the retrieval of Stokes parameters. Finally, maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) was adopted to assess the distribution of the proposed model. Hypothesis testing using actual data and numerical simulations demonstrated that the error of the system followed an asymmetric generalized Gaussian distribution (AGGD). Finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation results and an actual imaging experiment demonstrate the consistency of the proposed model and the degradation characteristics of the PSF, which provide support for the improved accuracy and enhanced image quality of the optical field retrieval of nanoparticles.