We report on the optical properties of the hole-doped manganites Nd 0.7 Sr 0.3 MnO 3 , La 0.7 Ca 0.3 MnO 3 , and La 0.7 Sr 0.3 MnO 3 . The low-energy optical conductivity in the paramagnetic-insulating state of these materials is characterized by a broad maximum near 1 eV. This feature shifts to lower energy and grows in optical oscillator strength as the temperature is lowered into the ferromagnetic state. It remains identifiable well below T c and transforms eventually into a Drude-like response. This optical behavior and the activated transport in the paramagnetic state of these materials are consistent with a Jahn-Teller small polaron. The optical spectra and oscillator strength changes compare well with models that include both double exchange and the dynamic Jahn-Teller effect in the description of the electronic structure.

The superfluid response of single-crystal YBa 2 Cu 3 O 72x and YBa 2 Cu 4 O 8 shows a strong anisotropy in the a-b plane as revealed by far infrared spectroscopy. The value of the London penetration depth in both systems is considerably smaller in the direction along the Cu-O chains, suggesting that a substantial portion of the superconducting condensate is on the chains.

We have measured the optical conductivity of single crystal LuMnO3 from 10 to 45000 cm(-1) at temperatures between 4 and 300 K. A symmetry allowed on-site Mn d-d transition near 1.7 eV is observed to blueshift ( approximately 0.1 eV) in the antiferromagnetic state due to Mn-Mn superexchange interactions. Similar anomalies are observed in the temperature dependence of the TO phonon frequencies which arise from spin-phonon interaction. We find that the known anomaly in the temperature dependence of the quasistatic dielectric constant epsilon(0) below T(N) approximately 90 K is overwhelmingly dominated by the phonon contributions.

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The increasing scale of cryogenic detector arrays for submillimeter and millimeter wavelength astrophysics has led to the need for large aperture, high index of refraction, low loss, cryogenic refracting optics. Silicon with n=3.4, low loss, and high thermal conductivity is a nearly optimal material for these purposes but requires an antireflection (AR) coating with broad bandwidth, low loss, low reflectance, and a matched coefficient of thermal expansion. We present an AR coating for curved silicon optics comprised of subwavelength features cut into the lens surface with a custom three-axis silicon dicing saw. These features constitute a metamaterial that behaves as a simple dielectric coating. We have fabricated silicon lenses as large as 33.4 cm in diameter with micromachined layers optimized for use between 125 and 165 GHz. Our design reduces average reflections to a few tenths of a percent for angles of incidence up to 30° with low cross polarization. We describe the design, tolerance, manufacture, and measurements of these coatings and present measurements of the optical properties of silicon at millimeter wavelengths at cryogenic and room temperatures. This coating and lens fabrication approach is applicable from centimeter to submillimeter wavelengths and can be used to fabricate coatings with greater than octave bandwidth.

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Time-dependent density-functional theory is used to calculate the energy loss of antiprotons and protons traversing metal clusters of variable size. We find that the effective energy loss per unit path length inside the cluster shows no significant cluster size effects over the wide range of projectile velocities studied. This allows us to compare the calculated stopping power with the experimental values for a solid metal target. Excellent agreement between the theoretical results and recent experimental data is found for velocities below the inner-shell excitation threshold. We thus present a nonperturbative quantum-mechanical approach to obtain the energy loss of charges in solids.

We present several corrections for point-source photometry to be applied to data from the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) on the Spitzer Space Telescope. These corrections are necessary because of characteristics of the IRAC arrays and optics and the way the instrument is calibrated in flight. When these corrections are applied, it is possible to achieve a ∼2% relative photometric accuracy for sources of adequate signal-to-noise ratio in an IRAC image.