Effect of the localization on the response of a quasi-periodic electromagnetic oscillator array for vibration energy harvesting

Vibration energy harvesting by exploiting the multimodal approach in a quasi-periodic system is proposed. The quasi-periodic system, based on electromagnetic transduction, consists of two weakly coupled magnets mechanically guided by two elastic beams. Mistuning is achieved by varying the mechanical stiffness of one of the beams. These imperfections will lead to the vibration energy localization in regions close to the imperfections which will be exploited to maximize the harvested energy.

Magnetically induced behaviour of ferritin corpuscles in avian ears: can cuticulosomes function as magnetosomes?

Magnetoreception is an enigmatic, poorly understood sensory ability, described mainly on the basis of behavioural studies in animals of diverse taxa. Recently, corpuscles containing superparamagnetic iron-storage protein ferritin were found in the inner ear hair cells of birds, a predominantly single ferritin corpuscle per cell. It was suggested that these corpuscles might represent magnetosomes and function as magnetosensors. Here we determine ferritin low-field paramagnetic susceptibility to estimate its magnetically induced intracellular behaviour. Physical simulations show that ferritin corpuscles cannot be deformed or rotate in weak geomagnetic fields, and thus cannot provide magnetoreception via deformation of the cuticular plate. Furthermore, we reached an alternative hypothesis that ferritin corpuscle in avian ears may function as an intracellular electromagnetic oscillator. Such an oscillator would generate additional cellular electric potential related to normal cell conditions. Though the phenomenon seems to be weak, this effect deserves further analyses.

(1/ω) Noise and the dynamical Casimir effect

The dynamical Casimir effect in quantum electrodynamics, which occurs for a frequency-modulated electromagnetic oscillator, is described in terms of reflection backward in time of the oscillator mode. From an experimental viewpoint, baekward-in-time reflections appear as radiated photons. The distribution of the electromagnetic radiation due to a modulation pulse is computed as a function of the frequency ω and is shown to exhbit a (1/ω) singularity in the limit ω → 0.