Current stage and future development of Belgrade collisional and radiative databases/datasets of importance for molecular dynamics.

Atomic and molecular (A&M) databases that contain information about species, their identities and radiative/collisional processes are essential and helpful tools that are utilized in many fields of physics, chemistry, and chem/phys-informatics. Errors or inconsistencies in the datasets are a serious issue since they can lead to inaccurate predictions and generate problems with the modeling. This demonstrates that data curation efforts around A&M databases are still indispensable and that in the curation process studious attention is required. Therefore, we herein present research activities around Belgrade "nodes" - datasets of collision/radiative cross-sections and rates needed for spectroscopy analysis in various A&M, optical and plasma physics fields. Methodologies of our research and both present and future aspects of the applications are explained. We explored the possibility to extend our nodes towards building a new database on Judd-Ofelt parameters by using machine learning in order to predict optical properties of luminescence materials. In addition, we hope that public availability of our datasets and their graphical representations will also motivate others to investigate the potential of these data.

Nonlinear microscopy of chitin and chitinous structures: a case study of two cave-dwelling insects.

We performed a study of the nonlinear optical properties of chemically purified chitin and insect cuticle using two-photon excited autofluorescence (TPEF) and second-harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy. Excitation spectrum, fluorescence time, polarization sensitivity, and bleaching speed were measured. We have found that the maximum autofluorescence signal requires an excitation wavelength below 850 nm. At longer wavelengths, we were able to penetrate more than 150-um deep into the sample through the chitinous structures. The excitation power was kept below 10 mW (at the sample) in order to diminish bleaching. The SHG from the purified chitin was confirmed by spectral- and time-resolved measurements. Two cave-dwelling, depigmented, insect species were analyzed and three-dimensional images of the cuticular structures were obtained.