Observation of Non-Abelian Thouless Pump.

Thouless pump provides robust ways to realize quantized transport of waves and particles, and it casts the static 2D quantum Hall effect onto 1D dynamic systems where one of the momentum dimensions is replaced by the evolution time or path parameter. In the past few decades, various types of Abelian Thouless pump have been achieved theoretically and experimentally. However, the study of non-Abelian Thouless pump is scarce, which tells us that the order of two evolution loops with the same base point cannot be changed, and there has been no experimental observation of non-Abelian Thouless pump.

Computer-Aided Diagnosis of COVID-19 CT Scans Based on Spatiotemporal Information Fusion.

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is highly contagious and pathogenic. Currently, the diagnosis of COVID-19 is based on nucleic acid testing, but it has false negatives and hysteresis. The use of lung CT scans can help screen and effectively monitor diagnosed cases.

Highly efficient coherent conformal projection system based on adaptive fiber optics collimator array.

Coherent beam combination (CBC) of fiber laser array, which is a promising approach to overcome the power scaling limitations of the single fiber laser and to achieve high-brightness laser with good beam quality, can be employed in coherent conformal projection system (CCPS) for beam projection and free space laser communication system with enormous potential. To date, all the demonstrated CBC system through several kilometers atmospheric turbulence have employed collimated beams, which significantly decrease the final CBC effect because of the inefficient wavefront overlap. On the other hand, focused CCPS has lots of advantages over collimated projection system since the wave front of the projected beam is closer to that of a convergent spherical wave.

Tuning Anti-Klein to Klein Tunneling in Bilayer Graphene.

We show that in gapped bilayer graphene, quasiparticle tunneling and the corresponding Berry phase can be controlled such that they exhibit features of single-layer graphene such as Klein tunneling. The Berry phase is detected by a high-quality Fabry-Pérot interferometer based on bilayer graphene. By raising the Fermi energy of the charge carriers, we find that the Berry phase can be continuously tuned from 2π down to 0.

Ultralong π-phase shift fiber Bragg grating empowered single-longitudinal mode DFB phosphate fiber laser with low-threshold and high-efficiency.

Phosphate glass fiber is one of the candidates for building compact fiber lasers because of its capability of high-concentration of rare-earth ions doping in fiber core. Nevertheless, it is challenging for the integration of UV-written intra-core fiber Bragg gratings into the fiber laser cavity due to the low photosensitivity of phosphate glass fiber. The research presented in this paper will focus on demonstration of UV-written Bragg gratings in phosphate glass fiber and its application in direct-written short monolithic single-frequency fiber lasers.

Highly Efficient Water Harvesting with Optimized Solar Thermal Membrane Distillation Device.

Water distillation with solar thermal technology could be one of the most promising way to address the global freshwater scarcity, with its low cost and minimum environmental impacts. However, the low liquid water productivity, which is caused by the heat loss and inadequate heat utilization in solar-thermal conversion process, hinders its practical application. Here, a compact solar-thermal membrane distillation system with three structure features: highly localized solar-thermal heating, effective cooling strategy, and recycling the latent heat, is proposed.

The development of high-voltage repetitive low-jitter corona stabilized triggered switch.

The high-power switch plays an important part in a pulse power system. With the trend of pulse power technology toward modularization, miniaturization, and accuracy control, higher requirements on electrical trigger and jitter of the switch have been put forward. A high-power low-jitter corona-stabilized triggered switch (CSTS) is designed in this paper.

Tailoring supercurrent confinement in graphene bilayer weak links.

The Josephson effect is one of the most studied macroscopic quantum phenomena in condensed matter physics and has been an essential part of the quantum technologies development over the last decades. It is already used in many applications such as magnetometry, metrology, quantum computing, detectors or electronic refrigeration. However, developing devices in which the induced superconductivity can be monitored, both spatially and in its magnitude, remains a serious challenge.

An analytical formula for predicting R-branch high-lying transition lines of BiLi molecule.

A concise and convenient analytical formula without any spectral constant is derived from the conventional expression of R-branch transitional energies for calculating the R-branch high-lying rovibrational emission spectral lines of diatomic molecule. This is based on the thought of Sun's difference converging method (DCM) in 2011. This formula can correctly predict the high-lying transitional emission spectral lines only using 11 known experimental transition lines and a set of physical criteria when any spectral constants of the system are not available.

Flexible spectral manipulation property of a high power linearly polarized random fiber laser.

Fiber lasers with flexible spectral manipulation property could provide a flexible tool for scenes where the temporal coherence property accounts, for example, coherent sensing/communication and nonlinear frequency conversion. Due to the good laser performance and relative simplicity of implementation, random fiber lasers (RFLs) based on random distributed feedback and Raman gain have earned more and more attention in the past few years, and a variety of RFLs with substantially different spectral properties have been developed. In this presentation, we demonstrate a high power linearly polarized RFL with flexible spectral manipulation property, in which the central wavelength and the linewidth of the spectrum can be tuned independently through a bandwidth-adjustable tunable optical filter (BA-TOF).

Generalized Magnetic Mirrors.

We propose generalized magnetic mirrors that can be achieved by excitations of sole electric resonances. Conventional approaches to obtain magnetic mirrors rely heavily on exciting the fundamental magnetic dipoles, whereas here we reveal that, besides magnetic resonances, electric resonances of higher orders can be also employed to obtain highly efficient magnetic mirrors. Based on the electromagnetic duality, it is also shown that electric mirrors can be achieved by exciting magnetic resonances.

Selective excitation of spin-polarized alkali atoms in different ground-state hyperfine levels.

A technique to selectively excite spin-polarized alkali atoms in one of the two ground-state hyperfine levels is demonstrated, which can separately create the transverse spin component of spin-polarized alkali atoms in either ground-state hyperfine level. The principle of this technique is analyzed, and the experimental results are found to be in good agreement with the theoretical predictions, thereby demonstrating the feasibility of this technique. This technique can be used to accurately measure spin relaxation and polarization of alkali atoms in either ground-state hyperfine level.

Uniform Gold-Nanoparticle-Decorated {001}-Faceted Anatase TiO Nanosheets for Enhanced Solar-Light Photocatalytic Reactions.

The {001}-faceted anatase TiO micro-/nanocrystals have been widely investigated for enhancing the photocatalysis and photoelectrochemical performance of TiO nanostructures, but their practical applications still require improved energy conversion efficiency under solar-light and enhanced cycling stability. In this work, we demonstrate the controlled growth of ultrathin {001}-faceted anatase TiO nanosheets on flexible carbon cloth for enhancing the cycling stability, and the solar-light photocatalytic performance of the synthesized TiO nanosheets can be significantly improved by decorating with vapor-phase-deposited uniformly distributed plasmonic gold nanoparticles. The fabricated Au-TiO hybrid system shows an 8-fold solar-light photocatalysis enhancement factor in photodegrading Rhodamine B, a high photocurrent density of 300 μA cm under the illumination of AM 1.

An Al₂O₃ Gating Substrate for the Greater Performance of Field Effect Transistors Based on Two-Dimensional Materials.

We fabricated 70 nm Al₂O₃ gated field effect transistors based on two-dimensional (2D) materials and characterized their optical and electrical properties. Studies show that the optical contrast of monolayer graphene on an Al₂O₃/Si substrate is superior to that on a traditional 300 nm SiO₂/Si substrate (2.4 times).

Realization of large energy proportion in the central lobe by coherent beam combination based on conformal projection system.

In this paper, we experimentally validate a tiled-aperture conformal projection system with the largest array filling factor and element beam truncation factor to the best of our knowledge. The conformal projection system, which is made up of a hexagonal adaptive fiber-optics collimator (AFOC) array with the proximate ideal intensity distributions, is fabricated and the performance of output beam is tested and evaluated properly and carefully. Both of the active phase-locking control and precise tip-tilt control are implemented successfully in the CBC of the hexagonal seven-beam-array.

An all-solid-state microsecond-range quasi-square pulse generator based on fractional-turn ratio saturable pulse transformer and anti-resonance network.

High voltage pulse generators are widely applied in a number of fields. Defense and industrial applications stimulated intense interests in the area of pulsed power technology towards the system with high power, high repetition rate, solid state characteristics, and compact structure. An all-solid-state microsecond-range quasi-square pulse generator based on a fractional-turn ratio saturable pulse transformer and anti-resonance network is proposed in this paper.

Solid-state pulse forming module with adjustable pulse duration.

A new solid-state pulse forming module is described in this paper. The pulse forming module is fabricated on a glass ceramic substrate, with the dimension of 250 mm × 95 mm × 4 mm. By changing the copper strips used in the pulse forming modules, the pulse duration of the obtained pulsed can range from 80 ns to 140 ns.

Preliminary experimental investigation of an X-band Cerenkov-type high power microwave oscillator without guiding magnetic field.

Among high power microwave (HPM) generators without guiding magnetic field, Cerenkov-type oscillator is expected to achieve a relatively high efficiency, which has already been realized in X-band in our previous simulation work. This paper presents the preliminary experimental investigations into an X-band Cerenkov-type HPM oscillator without guiding magnetic field. Based on the previous simulation structure, some modifications regarding diode structure were made.

Multipolar interference effects in nanophotonics.

Scattering of electromagnetic waves by an arbitrary nanoscale object can be characterized by a multipole decomposition of the electromagnetic field that allows one to describe the scattering intensity and radiation pattern through interferences of dominating multipole modes excited. In modern nanophotonics, both generation and interference of multipole modes start to play an indispensable role, and they enable nanoscale manipulation of light with many related applications. Here, we review the multipolar interference effects in metallic, metal-dielectric and dielectric nanostructures, and suggest a comprehensive view on many phenomena involving the interferences of electric, magnetic and toroidal multipoles, which drive a number of recently discussed effects in nanophotonics such as unidirectional scattering, effective optical antiferromagnetism, generalized Kerker scattering with controlled angular patterns, generalized Brewster angle, and non-radiating optical anapoles.

Elliptical polarization of near-resonant linearly polarized probe light in optically pumped alkali metal vapor.

Optically pumped alkali metal atoms currently provide a sensitive solution for magnetic microscopic measurements. As the most practicable plan, Faraday rotation of linearly polarized light is extensively used in spin polarization measurements of alkali metal atoms. In some cases, near-resonant Faraday rotation is applied to improve the sensitivity.

High-power dual-wavelength Ho-doped fiber laser at >2 μm tandem pumped by a 1.15 μm fiber laser.

We demonstrated a high-power continuous-wave (CW) dual-wavelength Ho-doped fiber laser (HDFL) at 2049 nm and 2153 nm with a simple coupled-cavity configuration. A ~100 W laser diode-pumped fiber laser at 1150 nm served as the pump source. The maximum output power reached ~22.

Towards nano-optical tweezers with graphene plasmons: Numerical investigation of trapping 10-nm particles with mid-infrared light.

Graphene plasmons are rapidly emerging as a versatile platform for manipulating light at the deep subwavelength scale. Here we show numerically that strong optical near-field forces can be generated under the illumination of mid-IR light when dielectric nanoparticles are located in the vicinity of a nanostructured graphene film. These near-field forces are attributed to the excitation of the graphene's plasmonic mode.

Powerful linearly-polarized high-order random fiber laser pumped by broadband amplified spontaneous emission source.

A great deal of attention has been drawn to Random fiber lasers (RFLs) for their typical features of modeless, cavity-less and low coherence length. However, most previously reported high power RFLs employ narrowband fiber lasers as the pump source, thus inducing the self-pulsing transferring from pump source to output Stokes. In this contribution, linearly-polarized RFL pumped by broadband amplified-spontaneous-emission (ASE) is demonstrated and continuous-wave (CW) high order Stokes can be obtained.

Unidirectional superscattering by multilayered cavities of effective radial anisotropy.

We achieve unidirectional forward superscattering by multilayered spherical cavities which are effectively radially anisotropic. It is demonstrated that, relying on the large effective anisotropy, the electric and magnetic dipoles can be tuned to spectrally overlap in such cavities, which satisfies the Kerker's condition of simultaneous backward scattering suppression and forward scattering enhancement. We show that such scattering pattern shaping can be obtained in both all-dielectric and plasmonic multilayered cavities at different spectral positions, and believe that the mechanism we have revealed provides extra freedom for scattering shaping, which may play a significant role in many scattering related applications and also in optoelectronic devices made up of intrinsically anisotropic two dimensional materials.

Sensitive determination of the spin polarization of optically pumped alkali-metal atoms using near-resonant light.

A new method to measure the spin polarization of optically pumped alkali-metal atoms is demonstrated. Unlike the conventional method using far-detuned probe light, the near-resonant light with two specific frequencies was chosen. Because the Faraday rotation angle of this approach can be two orders of magnitude greater than that with the conventional method, this approach is more sensitive to the spin polarization.