Niels Asger Mortensen

[First paragraph] In a recent paper Yamada et al. propose the novel concept of "pinched flow fractionation" (PFF) for the continuous size separation and analysis of particles in microfabricated lab-on-a-chip devices. In their description of the basic principle they claim that especially the width of the pinched and broadened segments will affect theseparation performance. In the following we comment on the physics behind this statement.

Slow-light enhanced optical detection in liquid-infiltrated photonic crystals is theoretically studied. Using a scattering-matrix approach and the Wigner-Smith delay time concept, we show that optical absorbance benefits both from slow-light phenomena as well as a high filling factor of the energy residing in the liquid. Utilizing strongly dispersive photonic crystal structures, we numerically demonstrate how liquid-infiltrated photonic crystals facilitate enhanced light-matter interactions, by potentially up to an order of magnitude. The proposed concept provides strong opportunities for improving existing miniaturized absorbance cells for optical detection in lab-on-a-chip systems.

Wave chaos is a concept which has already proved its practical usefulness in design of double-clad fibers for cladding-pumped fiber lasers and fiber amplifiers. In general, classically chaotic geometries will favor strong pump absorption and we address the extent of chaotic wave dynamics in typical air-clad geometries. While air-clad structures supporting sup-wavelength convex air-glass interfaces (viewed from the high-index side) will promote chaotic dynamics we find guidance of regular whispering-gallery modes in air-clad structures resembling an overall cylindrical symmetry. Highly symmetric air-clad structures may thus suppress the pump-absorption efficiency eta below the ergodic scaling law eta proportional to Ac/Acl, where Ac and Acl are the areas of the rare-earth doped core and the cladding, respectively.

We consider laminar flow of incompressible electrolytes in long, straight channels driven by pressure and electroosmosis. We use a Hilbert space eigenfunction expansion to address the general problem of an arbitrary cross section and obtain general results in linear-response theory for the mass and charge transport coefficients that satisfy Onsager relations. In the limit of nonoverlapping Debye layers the transport coefficients are simply expressed in terms of parameters of the electrolyte as well as the hydraulic radius with and being the cross-sectional area and perimeter, respectively. In particular, we consider the limits of thin nonoverlapping as well as strongly overlapping Debye layers, respectively, and calculate the corrections to the hydraulic resistance due to electrohydrodynamic interactions.

Enhanced transmissions through a gold film with arrays of subwavelength holes are theoretically studied, employing the rigid full vectorial three dimensional finite difference time domain method. Influence of air-holes shape to the transmission is firstly studied, which confirms two different resonances attributing to the enhanced transmission: the localized waveguide resonance and periodic surface plasmon resonances. For the film coated with dielectric layers, calculated results show that in the wavelength region of interest the localized waveguide resonant mode attributes to sensing rather than the periodic gold-glass surface plasmon mode. Although the detected peak is fairly broad and the shift is not too pronounced, we emphasize the contribution for sensing from the localized waveguide resonant mode, which may opens up new ways to design surface plasmon based sensors.

Enhanced transmissions through a gold film with arrays of subwavelength holes are theoretically studied, employing the rigid full vectorial three dimensional finite difference time domain method. Influence of air-holes shape to the transmission is firstly studied, which confirms two different resonances attributing to the enhanced transmission: the localized waveguide resonance and periodic surface plasmon resonances. For the film coated with dielectric layers, calculated results show that in the wavelength region of interest the localized waveguide resonant mode attributes to sensing rather than the periodic gold-glass surface plasmon mode. Although the detected peak is fairly broad and the shift is not too pronounced, we emphasize the contribution for sensing from the localized waveguide resonant mode, which may opens up new ways to design surface plasmon based sensors.

The pronounced light-matter interactions in photonic crystals make them interesting as opto-fludic "building blocks" for lab-on-a-chip applications. We show how conducting electrolytes cause dissipation and smearing of the density-of-states, thus altering decay dynamics of excited bio-molecules dissolved in the electrolyte. Likewise, we find spatial damping of propagating modes, of the order dB/cm, for naturally occurring electrolytes such as drinking water or physiological salt water.

We consider laminar flow of incompressible electrolytes in long, straight channels driven by pressure and electro-osmosis. We use a Hilbert space eigenfunction expansion to address the general problem of an arbitrary cross section and obtain general results in linear-response theory for the mass and charge transport coefficients which satisfy Onsager relations. In the limit of non-overlapping Debye layers the transport coefficients are simply expressed in terms of parameters of the electrolyte as well as the hydraulic radius R=2A/P with A and P being the cross-sectional area and perimeter, respectively. In articular, we consider the limits of thin non-overlapping as well as strongly overlapping Debye layers, respectively, and calculate the corrections to the hydraulic resistance due to electro-hydrodynamic interactions.

We consider meta materials made from a two-dimensional dielectric rod-type photonic crystal. The magnetic response is studied within the recently developed homogenization theory and we in particular study the effects of topology and inhomogeneous broadening. While topology itself mainly affects the Mie resonance frequency we find that the dispersion in the topological radius R of the dielectric rods may lead to significant inhomogeneous broadening and suppression of the negative-mu phenomena for dR/R0 >> epsilon''/epsilon', with epsilon=epsilon'+i*epsilon'' being the relative dielectric function of the rods.