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A lithium (Li)-ion exchange method is reported to fabricate functional inks containing well-dispersed two-dimensional (2D) materials. The Li-ion-exchanged Na2W4O13 (LixNa2−xW4O13) nanosheets show highly stable dispersity in water due to the high affinity of Li ions with respect to water. Moreover, the aqueous ink can be sprayed on various substrates to obtain a uniform Li [Detail] ...
Additive manufacturing (AM), which is also known as three-dimensional (3D) printing, uses computer-aided design to build objects layer by layer. Here, we focus on the recent progress in the development of techniques for 3D printing of glass, an important optoelectronic material, including fused deposition modeling, selective laser sintering/melting, stereolithography (SLA) and direct ink writing. We compare these 3D printing methods and analyze their benefits and problems for the manufacturing of functional glass objects. In addition, we discuss the technological principles of 3D glass printing and applications of 3D printed glass objects. This review is finalized by a summary of the current achievements and perspectives for the future development of the 3D glass printing technique.
Circadian rhythms are considered a masterstroke of natural selection, which gradually increase the adaptability of species to the Earth’s rotation. Importantly, the nervous system plays a key role in allowing organisms to maintain circadian rhythmicity. Circadian rhythms affect multiple aspects of cognitive functions (mainly via arousal), particularly those needed for effort-intensive cognitive tasks, which require considerable top-down executive control. These include inhibitory control, working memory, task switching, and psychomotor vigilance. This mini review highlights the recent advances in cognitive functioning in the optical and multimodal neuroimaging fields; it discusses the processing of brain cognitive functions during the circadian rhythm phase and the effects of the circadian rhythm on the cognitive component of the brain and the brain circuit supporting cognition.
In this work, we present the design of a polarization independent broadband absorber in the terahertz (THz) frequency range using a metasurface resonator. The absorber comprises of three layers, of which, the top layer is made of a vanadium dioxide (VO2) resonator with an electrical conductivity of σ = 200000 S/m; the bottom layer consists of a planar layer made of gold metal, and a dielectric layer is sandwiched between these two layers. The optimized absorber exhibits absorption greater than 90% from 2.54−5.54 THz. Thus, the corresponding bandwidth of the designed absorber is 3 THz. Further, the thermal tunable absorption and reflection spectra have been analyzed by varying the electrical conductivity of VO2. The impact of the various geometrical parameters on the absorption characteristics has also been assessed. The physics of generation of broadband absorption of the proposed device has been explored using field analysis. Finally, the absorption characteristics of the unit cell has been studied for various incident and polarization angles.
The printed electronics technology can be used to efficiently construct smart devices and is dependent on functional inks containing well-dispersed active materials. Two-dimensional (2D) materials are promising functional ink candidates due to their superior properties. However, the majority 2D materials can disperse well only in organic solvents or in surfactant-assisted water solutions, which limits their applications. Herein, we report a lithium (Li)-ion exchange method to improve the dispersity of the Na2W4O13 nanosheets in pure water. The Li-ion-exchanged Na2W4O13 (LixNa2−xW4O13) nanosheets show highly stable dispersity in water with a zeta potential of −55 mV. Moreover, this aqueous ink can be sprayed on various substrates to obtain a uniform LixNa2−xW4O13 nanosheet film, exhibiting an excellent electrochromic performance. A complementary electrochromic device containing a LixNa2−xW4O13 nanosheet film as an electrochromic layer and Prussian white (PW) as an ion storage layer exhibits a large optical modulation of 75% at 700 nm, a fast switching response of less than 2 s, and outstanding cyclic stability. This Na2W4O13-based aqueous ink exhibits considerable potential for fabricating large-scale and flexible electrochromic devices, which would meet the practical application requirements.
In this study, we developed a facile one-step hydrothermal process that allows to synthesize high-purity VO2(M/R) nanoparticles with various morphologies such as nanorods, nanogranules, nanoblocks, and nanospheres. W dopants are successfully implanted in VO2(M/R) unit cells with high doping efficiency, which allows to regulate the size, morphology, and phase of obtained nanoparticles. The underlying regulation mechanism is presented in detail to reveal how hydrothermal products vary with W doping contents, which provides a synthetic strategy for the preparation of shape-controlling VO2(M/R) nanoparticles with high purity to satisfy different specific demands for corresponding applications in the field of thermochromic smart windows.
Diagnosis of the Graves’ ophthalmology remains a significant challenge. We identified between Graves’ ophthalmology tissues and healthy controls by using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) combined with machine learning method. In this work, the paraffin-embedded samples of the Graves’ ophthalmology were prepared for LIBS spectra acquisition. The metallic elements (Na, K, Al, Ca), non-metallic element (O) and molecular bands ((C-N), (C-O)) were selected for diagnosing Graves’ ophthalmology. The selected spectral lines were inputted into the supervised classification methods including linear discriminant analysis (LDA), support vector machine (SVM), k-nearest neighbor (kNN), and generalized regression neural network (GRNN), respectively. The results showed that the predicted accuracy rates of LDA, SVM, kNN, GRNN were 76.33%, 96.28%, 96.56%, and 96.33%, respectively. The sensitivity of four models were 75.89%, 93.78%, 96.78%, and 96.67%, respectively. The specificity of four models were 76.78%, 98.78%, 96.33%, and 96.00%, respectively. This demonstrated that LIBS assisted with a nonlinear model can be used to identify Graves’ ophthalmopathy with a higher rate of accuracy. The kNN had the best performance by comparing the three nonlinear models. Therefore, LIBS combined with machine learning method can be an effective way to discriminate Graves’ ophthalmology.
Alcohol, total sugar, total acid, and total phenol contents are the main indicators of wine quality detection. This study aims to establish simultaneous analysis models for the four indicators through near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy with wavelength optimization. A Norris derivative filter (NDF) platform with multiparameter optimization was established for spectral pretreatment. The optimal parameters (i.e., derivative order, number of smoothing points, and number of differential gaps) were (2, 9, 3) for alcohol, (1, 19, 5) for total sugar, (1, 17, 11) for total acid, and (1, 1, 1) for total phenol. The equidistant combination-partial least squares (EC-PLS) was used for large-scale wavelength screening. The wavelength step-by-step phase-out PLS (WSP-PLS) and exhaustive methods were used for secondary optimization. The final optimization models for the four indicators included 7, 10, 15, and 13 wavelengths located in the overtone or combination regions, respectively. In an independent validation, the root mean square errors, correlation coefficient for prediction (i.e., SEP and RP), and ratio of performance-to-deviation (RPD) were 0.41 v/v, 0.947, and 3.2 for alcohol; 1.48 g/L, 0.992, and 6.8 for total sugar; 0.68 g/L, 0.981, and 5.1 for total acid; and 0.181 g/L, 0.948, and 2.9 for total phenol. The results indicate high correlation, low error, and good overall prediction performance. Consequently, the established reagent-free NIR analytical models are important in the rapid and real-time quality detection of the wine fermentation process and finished products. The proposed wavelength models provide a valuable reference for designing small dedicated instruments.
Direct X-ray detectors are considered as competitive next-generation X-ray detectors because of their high spatial resolution, high sensitivity, and simple device configuration. However, their potential is largely limited by the imperfections of traditional materials, such as the low crystallization temperature of α-Se and the low atomic numbers of α-Si and α-Se. Here, we report the Sb2Se3 X-ray thin-film detector with a p–n junction structure, which exhibited a sensitivity of 106.3 µC/(Gyair·cm2) and response time of <2.5 ms. This decent performance and the various advantages of Sb2Se3, such as the average atomic number of 40.8 and μτ product (μ is the mobility, and τ is the carrier lifetime) of 1.29 × 10−5 cm2/V, indicate its potential for application in X-ray detection.
In this paper, a CO2 laser induced discharge plasma extreme ultraviolet (EUV) source experimental device was established. The optical emission spectroscopy was used to diagnose the characteristics of the plasma, and the evolution of electron temperature and electron density with time was obtained. The influence of discharge voltage on plasma parameters was analyzed and discussed. The EUV radiation characteristics of the plasma were investigated by self-made grazing incidence EUV spectrometer. The EUV radiation intensity and conversion efficiency were discussed.
Hong–Ou–Mandel (HOM) interference is one of the most important experimental phenomena in quantum optics. It has drawn considerable attention with respect to quantum cryptography and quantum communication because of the advent of the measurement device independent (MDI) quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol. Here, we realize HOM interference, having a visibility of approximately 38.1%, using two independent heralded single-photon sources (HSPSs). The HOM interference between two independent HSPSs is a core technology for realizing the long-distance MDI QKD protocol, the quantum coin-tossing protocol, and other quantum cryptography protocols.
A scheme for the generation of a pseudo noise (PN) sequence in the optical domain is proposed. The cascaded units of micro-ring resonator (MRR)-based D flip-flop are used to design the device. D flip-flops consist of a single MRR and share the same optical pump signal. Numerical analysis is performed, and simulated results are discussed. The proposed device can be used as a building block for optical computing and for creating an information processing system.
An ultracompact, bandwidth-tunable filter has been demonstrated using a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer. The device is based on cascaded grating-assisted contra-directional couplers (GACDCs). It also involves the use of a subwavelength grating (SWG) structure. By heating one of the heaters on GACDCs, a bandwidth tunability of ~6 nm is achieved. Owing to the benefit of having a large coupling coefficient between SWG and strip waveguides, the length of the coupling region is only 100 μm. Moreover, the combination of the curved SWG and the tapered strip waveguides effectively suppresses the sidelobes. The filter possesses features of simultaneous wavelength tuning with no free spectral range (FSR) limitation. A maximum bandwidth of 10 nm was experimentally measured with a high out-of-band contrast of 25 dB. Similarly, the minimum bandwidth recorded is 4 nm with an out-of-band contrast of 15 dB.
