NEST, Istituto Nanoscienze-CNR and Scuola Normale Superiore , Piazza S. Silvestro 12 , I-56127 Pisa , Italy.
Published: March 2018
AI Article Synopsis
Article Abstract
A fundamental aspect of electronics is the ability to distribute a charge current among different terminals. On the other hand, despite the great interest in dissipation, storage, and conversion of heat in solid state structures, the control of thermal currents at the nanoscale is still in its infancy. Here, we show the experimental realization of a phase-tunable thermal router able to control the spatial distribution of an incoming heat current, thus providing the possibility of tuning the electronic temperatures of two output terminals. This ability is obtained thanks to a direct current superconducting quantum interference device (dc SQUID), which can tune the coherent component of the electronic heat currents flowing through its Josephson junctions. By varying the external magnetic flux and the bath temperature, the SQUID allows us to regulate the size and the direction of the thermal gradient between two drain electrodes. Our results offer new opportunities for all microcircuits requiring an accurate energy management, including electronic coolers, quantum information architectures, and thermal logic components.
Maintaining optimal Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) requires continuous measurement of certain variables. To this end, ASHRAE and BPIE recommend that at least the following areas of interest be considered when measuring IEQ: thermal comfort, illuminance, indoor air quality, and noise. At this time, it is not common to find an IoT device that is suitable for dense deployments in schools, university campuses, hospitals, and office buildings, among others, that measures variables in all of the above areas of interest.
Polymer-based lab-on-a-disc (LoaD) devices for isolating ribonucleic acid (RNA) from whole blood samples have gained considerable attention for accurate biomedical analysis and point-of-care diagnostics. However, the mass production of these devices remains challenging in manufacturing cost and sustainability, primarily due to the utilization of a laser cutter or router computer numerical control (CNC) machine for engraving and cutting plastics in the conventional prototyping process. Herein, we reported the first energy-efficient room-temperature printing-imprinting integrated roll-to-roll manufacturing platform for mass production of a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based LoaD to on-site isolate ribonucleic acid (RNA) from undiluted blood samples.
We consider novel types of spatially multiplexed single-photon sources based on output-extended incomplete binary-tree multiplexers containing general asymmetric routers where the construction of the multiplexers takes into account the total transmission efficiencies of the multiplexer arms at which a novel router can be added to the system. After selecting the multiplexer that outperforms the others, we identify the ranges of the loss parameters for which the application of the selected multiplexer leads to single-photon sources with higher single-photon probabilities and lower multiphoton noise than that can be achieved by using asymmetric multiplexers. We show that using the selected multiplexer is especially advantageous in the case of single-mode sources characterized by thermal statistics of the input photon pairs.
Key Laboratory of Artificial Micro/Nano Structure of Ministry of Education, School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, People's Republic of China.
Plasmonic nanowires (NWs) due to their polarization-dependent optics and enhanced light-matter interactions have presented vibrant capabilities in functional nanophotonic devices. However, current demonstrations have largely been based on chemically synthesized Ag NWs, which are extremely unstable and poorly functional. Here we show single-crystalline Al NWs can be fabricated by a superplastic nanomolding (SPNM) technique on a centimeter scale, which are earth-abundant and highly stable.
