Visual pigment density in single primate foveal cones

The feasibility is demonstrated of microspectrophotometric studies on primate photoreceptors aligned at right angles to the test beam, rather than axially illuminated. Pigment densities, and hence absorption per unit thickness, are approximately equal in primate rods and foveal cones. These pigment densities are similar to those reported for frog rods and fish cones.     

The detection of eclipses in the pluto-charon system

The first eclipses between Pluto and its satellite ("Charon") were detected in January and February 1985, confirming the satellite's existence. Eclipses lasting a few hours will now occur at 3.2-day intervals for the next 5 to 6 years and then will cease for about 120 years. Careful observations of these eclipses will allow greatly improved determinations to be made of several physical parameters for the Pluto-Charon system: the diameters of the planet and satellite, the surface albedo distribution on one hemisphere of the planet, the orbit of the satellite, and the mass of the planet and hence its density. Knowledge of the density will provide a constraint on models of Pluto's bulk composition.     

Highly efficient light-emitting diodes with microcavities

One-dimensional microcavities are optical resonators with coplanar reflectors separated by a distance on the order of the optical wavelength. Such structures quantize the energy of photons propagating along the optical axis of the cavity and thereby strongly modify the spontaneous emission properties of a photon-emitting medium inside a microcavity. This report concerns semiconductor light-emitting diodes with the photon-emitting active region of the light-emitting diodes placed inside a microcavity. These devices are shown to have strongly modified emission properties including experimental emission efficiencies that are higher by more than a factor of 5 and theoretical emission efficiencies that are higher by more than a factor of 10 than the emission efficiencies in conventional light-emitting diodes.