Robust SiO-AlO/Agarose Composite Aerogel Beads with Outstanding Thermal Insulation Based on Coal Gangue.

Advanced SiO-AlO aerogel materials have outstanding potential in the field of thermal insulation. Nevertheless, the creation of a mechanically robust and low-cost SiO-AlO aerogel material remains a considerable challenge. In this study, SiO-AlO aerogel based on coal gangue, which is a type of zero-cost inorganic waste, was constructed in porous agarose aerogel beads, followed by simple chemical vapor deposition of trimethylchlorosilane to fabricate SiO-AlO/agarose composite aerogel beads (SCABs).

Diffraction-limited imaging with monolayer 2D material-based ultrathin flat lenses.

Ultrathin flat optics allow control of light at the subwavelength scale that is unmatched by traditional refractive optics. To approach the atomically thin limit, the use of 2D materials is an attractive possibility due to their high refractive indices. However, achievement of diffraction-limited focusing and imaging is challenged by their thickness-limited spatial resolution and focusing efficiency.

Highly stable and repeatable femtosecond soliton pulse generation from saturable absorbers based on two-dimensional CuP nanocrystals.

Heavily doped colloidal plasmonic nanocrystals have attracted great attention because of their lower and adjustable free carrier densities and tunable localized surface plasmonic resonance bands in the spectral range from near-infra to mid-infra wavelengths. With its plasmon-enhanced optical nonlinearity, this new family of plasmonic materials shows a huge potential for nonlinear optical applications, such as ultrafast switching, nonlinear sensing, and pulse laser generation. CuP nanocrystals were previously shown to have a strong saturable absorption at the plasmonic resonance, which enabled high-energy Q-switched fiber lasers with 6.