A Mechanical Characterization of the Porcine Atria at the Healthy Stage and After Ventricular Tachypacing

2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara Bellini ◽  
Elena S. Di Martino

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a cardiac arrhythmia that highly increases the risk of stroke and is associated with significant but still unexplored changes in the mechanical behavior of the tissue. Planar biaxial tests were performed on tissue specimens from pigs at the healthy stage and after ventricular tachypacing (VTP), a procedure applied to reproduce the relevant features of AF. The local arrangement of the fiber bundles in the tissue was investigated on specimens from rabbit atria by means of circularly polarized light. Based on this, mechanical data were fitted to two anisotropic constitutive relationships, including a four-parameter Fung-type model and a microstructurally-motivated model. Accounting for the fiber-induced anisotropy brought average R2 = 0.807 for the microstructurally-motivated model and average R2 = 0.949 for the Fung model. Validation of the fitted constitutive relationships was performed by means of FEM simulations coupled to FORTRAN routines. The performances of the two material models in predicting the second Piola-Kirchhoff stress were comparable, with average errors <3.1%. However, the Fung model outperformed the other in the prediction of the Green-Lagrange strain, with 9.2% maximum average error. To increase model generality, a proper averaging procedure accounting for nonlinearities was used to obtain average material parameters. In general, a stiffer behavior after VTP was noted.

Author(s):  
Marcos F. Maestre

Recently we have developed a form of polarization microscopy that forms images using optical properties that have previously been limited to macroscopic samples. This has given us a new window into the distribution of structure on a microscopic scale. We have coined the name differential polarization microscopy to identify the images obtained that are due to certain polarization dependent effects. Differential polarization microscopy has its origins in various spectroscopic techniques that have been used to study longer range structures in solution as well as solids. The differential scattering of circularly polarized light has been shown to be dependent on the long range chiral order, both theoretically and experimentally. The same theoretical approach was used to show that images due to differential scattering of circularly polarized light will give images dependent on chiral structures. With large helices (greater than the wavelength of light) the pitch and radius of the helix could be measured directly from these images.


Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 368 (6498) ◽  
pp. 1465-1468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Daly ◽  
Frédéric Rosu ◽  
Valérie Gabelica

DNA and proteins are chiral: Their three-dimensional structures cannot be superimposed with their mirror images. Circular dichroism spectroscopy is widely used to characterize chiral compounds, but data interpretation is difficult in the case of mixtures. We recorded the electronic circular dichroism spectra of DNA helices separated in a mass spectrometer. We studied guanine-rich strands having various secondary structures, electrosprayed them as negative ions, irradiated them with an ultraviolet nanosecond optical parametric oscillator laser, and measured the difference in electron photodetachment efficiency between left and right circularly polarized light. The reconstructed circular dichroism ion spectra resembled those of their solution-phase counterparts, thereby allowing us to assign the DNA helical topology. The ability to measure circular dichroism directly on biomolecular ions expands the capabilities of mass spectrometry for structural analysis.


2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (10) ◽  
pp. 4006-4011 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.-H. Kung ◽  
A. P. Goyal ◽  
D. L. Maslov ◽  
X. Wang ◽  
A. Lee ◽  
...  

The protected electron states at the boundaries or on the surfaces of topological insulators (TIs) have been the subject of intense theoretical and experimental investigations. Such states are enforced by very strong spin–orbit interaction in solids composed of heavy elements. Here, we study the composite particles—chiral excitons—formed by the Coulomb attraction between electrons and holes residing on the surface of an archetypical 3D TI,Bi2Se3. Photoluminescence (PL) emission arising due to recombination of excitons in conventional semiconductors is usually unpolarized because of scattering by phonons and other degrees of freedom during exciton thermalization. On the contrary, we observe almost perfectly polarization-preserving PL emission from chiral excitons. We demonstrate that the chiral excitons can be optically oriented with circularly polarized light in a broad range of excitation energies, even when the latter deviate from the (apparent) optical band gap by hundreds of millielectronvolts, and that the orientation remains preserved even at room temperature. Based on the dependences of the PL spectra on the energy and polarization of incident photons, we propose that chiral excitons are made from massive holes and massless (Dirac) electrons, both with chiral spin textures enforced by strong spin–orbit coupling. A theoretical model based on this proposal describes quantitatively the experimental observations. The optical orientation of composite particles, the chiral excitons, emerges as a general result of strong spin–orbit coupling in a 2D electron system. Our findings can potentially expand applications of TIs in photonics and optoelectronics.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhaoming Zhang ◽  
Takunori Harada ◽  
Adriana Pietropaolo ◽  
Yuting Wang ◽  
Yue Wang ◽  
...  

Preferred-handed propeller conformation was induced by circularly polarized light irradiation to three amorphous molecules with trigonal symmetry, and the molecules with induced chirality efficiently exhibited blue circularly polarized luminescence. In...


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jian Wang ◽  
Asuka Miura ◽  
Rajkumar Modak ◽  
Yukiko K. Takahashi ◽  
Ken-ichi Uchida

AbstractThe introduction of spin caloritronics into thermoelectric conversion has paved a new path for versatile energy harvesting and heat sensing technologies. In particular, thermoelectric generation based on the anomalous Nernst effect (ANE) is an appealing approach as it shows considerable potential to realize efficient, large-area, and flexible use of heat energy. To make ANE applications viable, not only the improvement of thermoelectric performance but also the simplification of device structures is essential. Here, we demonstrate the construction of an anomalous Nernst thermopile with a substantially enhanced thermoelectric output and simple structure comprising a single ferromagnetic material. These improvements are achieved by combining the ANE with the magneto-optical recording technique called all-optical helicity-dependent switching of magnetization. Our thermopile consists only of Co/Pt multilayer wires arranged in a zigzag configuration, which simplifies microfabrication processes. When the out-of-plane magnetization of the neighboring wires is reversed alternately by local illumination with circularly polarized light, the ANE-induced voltage in the thermopile shows an order of magnitude enhancement, confirming the concept of a magneto-optically designed anomalous Nernst thermopile. The sign of the enhanced ANE-induced voltage can be controlled reversibly by changing the light polarization. The engineering concept demonstrated here promotes effective utilization of the characteristics of the ANE and will contribute to realizing its thermoelectric applications.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document