ABSTRACT
At our body surface, the epidermis absorbs UV radiation. UV overexposure leads to sunburn with tissue injury and pain. To understand how, we focus on TRPV4, a nonselective cation channel highly expressed in epithelial skin cells and known to function in sensory transduction, a property shared with other transient receptor potential channels. We show that following UVB exposure mice with induced Trpv4 deletions, specifically in keratinocytes, are less sensitive to noxious thermal and mechanical stimuli than control animals. Exploring the mechanism, we find that epidermal TRPV4 orchestrates UVB-evoked skin tissue damage and increased expression of the proalgesic/algogenic mediator endothelin-1. In culture, UVB causes a direct, TRPV4-dependent Ca(2+) response in keratinocytes. In mice, topical treatment with a TRPV4-selective inhibitor decreases UVB-evoked pain behavior, epidermal tissue damage, and endothelin-1 expression. In humans, sunburn enhances epidermal expression of TRPV4 and endothelin-1, underscoring the potential of keratinocyte-derived TRPV4 as a therapeutic target for UVB-induced sunburn, in particular pain.
Subject(s)
Endothelin-1/metabolism , Epithelial Cells/radiation effects , Pain/metabolism , Signal Transduction/radiation effects , Sunburn/metabolism , TRPV Cation Channels/metabolism , Ultraviolet Rays , Analysis of Variance , Animals , Cells, Cultured , Epithelial Cells/metabolism , Immunohistochemistry , Mice , Mice, Transgenic , Microscopy, Electron , Pain/etiology , Skin/cytology , Sunburn/pathologyABSTRACT
In this Letter we demonstrate, for the first time, selective thermal emitters based on metamaterial perfect absorbers. We experimentally realize a narrow band midinfrared (MIR) thermal emitter. Multiple metamaterial sublattices further permit construction of a dual-band MIR emitter. By performing both emissivity and absorptivity measurements, we find that emissivity and absorptivity agree very well as predicted by Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation. Our results directly demonstrate the great flexibility of metamaterials for tailoring blackbody emission.
ABSTRACT
A thin-film InGaAs/GaAs edge-emitting single-quantum-well laser has been integrated with a tapered multimode SU-8 waveguide onto an Si substrate. The SU-8 waveguide is passively aligned to the laser using mask-based photolithography, mimicking electrical interconnection in Si complementary metal-oxide semiconductor, and overlaps one facet of the thin-film laser for coupling power from the laser to the waveguide. Injected threshold current densities of 260A/cm(2) are measured with the reduced reflectivity of the embedded laser facet while improving single mode coupling efficiency, which is theoretically simulated to be 77%.
Subject(s)
Lasers , Silicon/chemistry , Arsenicals/chemistry , Equipment Design , Gallium/chemistry , Indium/chemistry , Light , Optics and Photonics , Semiconductors , Silicon Dioxide/chemistryABSTRACT
A III-V thin-film single-quantum-well edge-emitting laser is patterned on both sides of the epitaxial layer and bonded to silicon. Injected threshold current densities of 420 A/cm(2) for gain-guided lasers with bottom p-stripes and top n-stripes and 244 A/cm(2) for index-guided bottom p-ridge and top n-stripe lasers are measured with a lasing wavelength of approximately 995 nm. These threshold current densities, among the lowest for thin-film edge-emitting lasers on silicon reported to date (to our knowledge), enable the implementation of integrated applications such as power-efficient portable chip-scale photonic sensing systems.
ABSTRACT
We present the design, fabrication, and measurement of a dual-band planar metamaterial with two distinct electric resonances at 1.0 and 1.2 THz, as a step towards the development of frequency agile or broadband THz materials and devices. A method of defining the effective thickness of the metamaterial layer is introduced to simplify the material design and characterization. Good agreement between the simulated and measured transmission is obtained for the fabricated sample by treating the sample as multi-layer system, i. e. the effective metamaterial layer plus the rest of the substrate, as well as properly modeling the loss of the substrate. The methods introduced in this paper can be extended to planar metamaterial structures operating in infrared and optical frequency ranges.
Subject(s)
Electronics/instrumentation , Metals/chemistry , Models, Theoretical , Optics and Photonics/instrumentation , Computer Simulation , Equipment Design , Equipment Failure Analysis , Infrared Rays , Light , Materials Testing , Microwaves , Scattering, RadiationABSTRACT
We report on a thin film InGaAsP laser integrated with a 1 x 4 polymer multimode interference (MMI) splitter on a silicon substrate for planar optical signal distribution. The thin film laser had a threshold current of 40 mA and was endfire coupled to the integrated passive polymer MMI splitter, and the optical signal from the laser was distributed to the four output waveguides of the MMI coupler. The measured loss of the MMI splitter was 0.79 dB. The normalized powers of the four MMI output ports in the integrated system were measured to be 0.823, 0.978, 0.852, and 1.