Decoupling basic concept

The cell model is a commonly used way of reducing the complicated many-body problem of a polyelectrolyte solution to an effective one-particle theory [24-30]. The idea depicted in Fig. 1 is to partition the solution into subvolumes, each containing only a single macroion together with its counterions. Since each sub-volume is electrically neutral, the electric field will on average vanish on the cell surface. By virtue of this construction different sub-volumes are electrostatically decoupled to a first approximation. Hence, the partition function is factorized and the problem is reduced to a singleparticle problem, namely the treatment of one sub-volume, called cell . Its shape should reflect the symmetry of the polyelectrolyte. Reviews of the basic concepts can be found in [24-26]. 

This basic concept applies to our technique as well. In microsphere nanoscopy, microspheres are in direct contact with objects, which forms a Particle-on-Surface (POS) system, as illustrated in Fig. 8(a). It is this POS system that effectively interacts with the near-field evanescent waves, decouples and turns them into propagating wave that would reach the objective lens in the far-field. Like in NSOM, such interaction are quite complicated and only takes place in the proximity of the interface of particle and substrate, which was indicated by the shadow zone in Fig. 8(a). The characteristic thickness of the evanescent waves scattering zone, dg, could be decided by ... 

I assume that you are conversant with basic principles of XH or proton NMR spectroscopy as applied to small molecules. In particular, I assume that you understand the concepts of chemical shift (8) and spin-spin coupling, classical continuous-wave methods of obtaining NMR spectra, and decoupling experiments to determine pairs of coupled nuclei. If these ideas are unfamiliar to you, you may wish to review NMR spectroscopy in an introductory organic chemistry textbook before reading further. 

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