Critical phenomenon in tapered dielectric structures.

We demonstrate the existence of a critical behavior of a single electromagnetic mode propagating in a tapered dielectric structure. This behavior is described in terms of a critical phase velocity in the case of an adiabatic tapering. In the vicinity of this critical phase velocity, the tapered structure no longer confines the radiation and a significant fraction of the power escapes transversely.

A novel eyelid motion monitor.

BACKGROUND: Eyelid motion analysis can provide important information about ophthalmic, neurologic, and systemic diseases. Routine assessment of eyelid function is currently based mainly on clinical examination estimating Levator Function and static palpebral fissure measurements. Most clinical tools developed to date are cumbersome expensive and difficult to operate. Currently there is no widely available, affordable device providing user friendly precision based evaluation of eyelid kinematics. Our goal is to develop a novel device for evaluation of eyelid kinematics providing rapid defined diagnosis of diseases involving eyelid movement. METHODS: A real-time prototype eyelid motion monitoring system was designed based on magnetic field sensors detecting movement of a tiny magnet located on the upper eyelid. Motion is recorded and analyzed using specially developed hardware and software, respectively, enabling both real-time and off-line data presentation. The Eyelid Motion Monitor correlates between blinking characteristics of eyelid movement and the output voltages produced by the system. Blink detection is defined as peak in voltage, caused by eyelid closure or opening. The device was tested on 20 healthy volunteers with normal clinical blinking patterns. RESULTS: The Eyelid Motion Monitor succeeded in detecting full blink motion. The system easily extracts different parameters of eyelid kinetics. CONCLUSIONS: An inexpensive prototype novel device was developed for monitoring and analyzing eyelid motion characteristics, including the inter-blink interval, eye closing/opening duration and entire blink duration. The device should allow early objective non- invasive diagnosis and follow-up of disease progression. It could be of great potential value in many ophthalmic, neurologic, and systemic diseases.

Demonstration of acceleration of relativistic electrons at a dielectric microstructure using femtosecond laser pulses.

Acceleration of electrons using laser-driven dielectric microstructures is a promising technology for the miniaturization of particle accelerators. Achieving the desired GV m-1 accelerating gradients is possible only with laser pulse durations shorter than ∼1 ps. In this Letter, we present, to the best of our knowledge, the first demonstration of acceleration of relativistic electrons at a dielectric microstructure driven by femtosecond duration laser pulses. Using this technique, an electron accelerating gradient of 690±100 MV m-1 was measured-a record for dielectric laser accelerators.

Bayesian optimization to design a novel x-ray shaping device.

PURPOSE: In radiation therapy, x-ray dose must be precisely sculpted to the tumor, while simultaneously avoiding surrounding organs at risk. This requires modulation of x-ray intensity in space and/or time. Typically, this is achieved using a multi leaf collimator (MLC)-a complex mechatronic device comprising over one hundred individually powered tungsten 'leaves' that move in or out of the radiation field as required. Here, an all-electronic x-ray collimation concept with no moving parts is presented, termed "SPHINX": Scanning Pencil-beam High-speed Intensity-modulated X-ray source. SPHINX utilizes a spatially distributed bremsstrahlung target and collimator array in conjunction with magnetic scanning of a high energy electron beam to generate a plurality of small x-ray "beamlets." METHODS: A simulation framework was developed in Topas Monte Carlo incorporating a phase space electron source, transport through user defined magnetic fields, bremsstrahlung x-ray production, transport through a SPHINX collimator, and dose in water. This framework was completely parametric, meaning a simulation could be built and run for any supplied geometric parameters. This functionality was coupled with Bayesian optimization to find the best parameter set based on an objective function which included terms to maximize dose rate for a user defined beamlet width while constraining inter-channel cross talk and electron contamination. Designs for beamlet widths of 5, 7, and 10 mm2 were generated. Each optimization was run for 300 iterations and took approximately 40 h on a 24-core computer. For the optimized 7-mm model, a simulation of all beamlets in water was carried out including a linear scanning magnet calibration simulation. Finally, a back-of-envelope dose rate formalism was developed and used to estimate dose rate under various conditions. RESULTS: The optimized 5-, 7-, and 10-mm models had beamlet widths of 5.1 , 7.2 , and 10.1 mm2 and dose rates of 3574, 6351, and 10 015 Gy/C, respectively. The reduction in dose rate for smaller beamlet widths is a result of both increased collimation and source occlusion. For the simulation of all beamlets in water, the scanning magnet calibration reduced the offset between the collimator channels and beam centroids from 2.9 ±1.9 mm to 0.01 ±0.03 mm. A slight reduction in dose rate of approximately 2% per degree of scanning angle was observed. Based on a back-of-envelope dose rate formalism, SPHINX in conjunction with next-generation linear accelerators has the potential to achieve substantially higher dose rates than conventional MLC-based delivery, with delivery of an intensity modulated 100 × 100 mm2 field achievable in 0.9 to 10.6 s depending on the beamlet widths used. CONCLUSIONS: Bayesian optimization was coupled with Monte Carlo modeling to generate SPHINX geometries for various beamlet widths. A complete Monte Carlo simulation for one of these designs was developed, including electron beam transport of all beamlets through scanning magnets, x-ray production and collimation, and dose in water. These results demonstrate that SPHINX is a promising candidate for sculpting radiation dose with no moving parts, and has the potential to vastly improve both the speed and robustness of radiotherapy delivery. A multi-beam SPHINX system may be a candidate for delivering magavoltage FLASH RT in humans.

Turn-key constrained parameter space exploration for particle accelerators using Bayesian active learning.

Particle accelerators are invaluable discovery engines in the chemical, biological and physical sciences. Characterization of the accelerated beam response to accelerator input parameters is often the first step when conducting accelerator-based experiments. Currently used techniques for characterization, such as grid-like parameter sampling scans, become impractical when extended to higher dimensional input spaces, when complicated measurement constraints are present, or prior information known about the beam response is scarce. Here in this work, we describe an adaptation of the popular Bayesian optimization algorithm, which enables a turn-key exploration of input parameter spaces. Our algorithm replaces  the need for parameter scans while minimizing prior information needed about the measurement's behavior and associated measurement constraints. We experimentally demonstrate that our algorithm autonomously conducts an adaptive, multi-parameter exploration of input parameter space, potentially orders of magnitude faster than conventional grid-like parameter scans, while making highly constrained, single-shot beam phase-space measurements and accounts for costs associated with changing input parameters. In addition to applications in accelerator-based scientific experiments, this algorithm addresses challenges shared by many scientific disciplines, and is thus applicable to autonomously conducting experiments over a broad range of research topics.