International Business Machines Corporation

Mesophotonics Limited

Renishaw Diagnostics Limited

D3 Technologies, Ltd.

James Gordon Wilkinson

Majd Zoorob

John Lincoln

William Kress Bodin

Andrew Ian Hickson

Tatchi Placido Lay

Sven Mahnkopf

Susan Yee

David Michael Hyde

Greg Jason Parker

Martin David Brian Charlton

Maria Caterina Netti

Nicolas Perney

A planar optical platform for generating a Raman signal from a foreign object comprises an input region and an output region, for receiving and extracting optical radiation, optically coupled to a plasmonic band structure region. The plasmonic band structure region comprises a layer of a first material, having a first refractive index, patterned with an array of sub-regions of a second material, having a second refractive index, wherein a side-wall of each sub-region is coated with a metallodielectric layer. The array of sub-regions gives rise to a plasmonic band structure and, in use, each sub-region confines a plasmon resonance excited by optical radiation coupled into the plasmonic band structure region, which gives rise to a Raman signal from a foreign object placed proximate the plasmonic band structure region. The platform may be incorporated into a spectroscopic measurement system and is particularly useful for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy of analyte molecules.

Metal nano-void photonic crystal for enhanced raman spectroscopy

Metal nano-void photonic crystal for enhanced Raman spectroscopy

There is provided a non-linear optical device for enhancing the bandwidth accessible in the nonlinear generation of an optical signal. The device comprises a planar optical waveguide, the planar optical waveguide being operative to generate an optical output from an optical input having an input bandwidth by means of a non-linear optical process, the optical output having a wavelength within an accessible bandwidth, wherein the planar optical waveguide is operative to enhance the accessible bandwidth such that the ratio of the accessible bandwidth to the input bandwidth is at least 4. The device is particularly applicable to broad optical continuum generation, but may also be used in a parametric oscillator or amplifier arrangement with broad tuning range.

Nonlinear optical device

Access to groups of related items which are accessible by multiple processes in a computer system is controlled, in response to determining that an individually accessed data item is part of a group, by marking the whole group as locked and returning an unlocking key to the process accessing the original data item. Further access to any items of the group by a process is prevented except on provision of the key. The invention is particularly applicable to messages in a message queuing system which are logically grouped and yet may be individually destructively retrieved.

Access control for groups of related data items

A data processing apparatus runs a messaging and queuing software package whereby messages received at the data processing apparatus are stored in a message queue. The apparatus has: a processor; a high storage capacity storage device; and a low storage capacity storage device (e.g., a high-speed cache); the high storage capacity storage device stores full-length expiration data for each message in the message queue; and the low storage capacity storage device stores an abbreviated version of the full-length expiration data for each message in the message queue, the abbreviated version used to quickly and efficiently determine whether a queued message is expired.

System for storing new messages in both full-length and abbreviated

A method and apparatus are disclosed for providing exchange of data between a peripheral device having a paging mechanism and an application operating in a virtual machine which includes a page directory for exclusive use by the paging mechanism of the peripheral device. The virtual machine is running on a data processing system and preferably contains a block of memory which is divided into various sections of memory. The page directory is provided to the paging mechanism of the peripheral device when the application requires the use of the peripheral device. A section of memory is selectively locked down in response to the section of memory being utilized by the application. Additionally, the page directory is updated with an entry which identifies the section of memory that is locked down. Memory may also be locked down in order to permit the peripheral device to access that section of memory. The page directory is selectively updated thereafter by mapping entries into the page directory in order to track memory usage within the block of memory utilized by the virtual machine. The page directory is preferably created at the same time the virtual machine is created. Memory for utilization by the virtual machine is preferably locked down while the virtual machine is in the foreground. When the virtual machine is terminated or moved into the background, the sections of memory that have been locked down are then unlocked or freed for other use.

System for locking down part of portion of memory and updating page

A method and apparatus for the enhancing efficiency of a data processing system which includes a host microprocessor, a system memory, and a graphics adapter for producing an enhanced graphics display. The graphics adapter is coupled to the data processing system by a bus and includes a video memory and an adapter microprocessor, wherein the adapter microprocessor is less powerful than the host microprocessor in the data processing system. The method and apparatus of the present invention includes the establishment of a stage buffer from a portion of the system memory with the stage buffer, including at least two buffer sections. A first portion of data is transferred from the system memory into a first buffer section. Next, a second portion of data is transferred from the system memory into a second buffer section, while the adapter microprocessor is simultaneously retrieving the first portion of data from the first buffer section and transferring that first portion of data across the bus to the video memory, wherein host microprocessor is available to perform other tasks. When the adapter microprocessor has transferred the data to the video memory from the first buffer section, the host microprocessor fills the first buffer section with more data, while the adapter microprocessor retrieves data from the second buffer section. This process continues until all the data has been transferred.

System for transferring data between processors via dual buffers within

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Southampton, United Kingdom

James Gordon Wilkinson