Direct integration of nanoscale conventional and slot waveguides

Slot waveguides can provide high optical confinement in a nanoscale low-index layer. While a conventional waveguide has a Gaussian-like Eigenmode profile, the Eigenmode profile of a slot waveguide is quite non-Gaussian type, due to the large discontinuity of refractive indices and thus the transverse electric field component between the high and low index layers of a slot waveguide. Although the field profiles of the two types of waveguides seem different, here we show that direct integration of conventional and slot waveguides yields efficient coupling of light into and out of slot waveguides using the rigorous finite-difference time domain method. The proposed direct coupling method has comparable performance to recently proposed taper based coupling methods, while having advantages in easier integration with conventional waveguide optics and higher integration density. We also show that coupling efficiency is not sensitive to the symmetricity of the slot waveguide, resulting in good manufacturing tolerance. The proposed direct coupler may have a number of applications in lightwave interconnects, sensing and data storage.     

Coupling characteristics of cladding modes in tilted optical fiber bragg gratings

We have studied both theoretically and experimentally the effect of grating tilting on the coupling between the fundamental core mode and the cladding modes in an optical fiber Bragg grating. The coupling is shown to be very sensitive on the tilting angle. It is also shown that tilting angle has to be minimized in fibers with designs to suppress the coupling between the fundamental core mode and the cladding modes. We have also studied the single, strong loss peak accompanying the Bragg reflection peak in depressed-cladding fibers, thus showing a good agreement between behavior that is measured and that is predicted theoretically.     

Spine-shaped gold protrusions improve the adherence and electrical coupling of neurons with the surface of micro-electronic devices

Interfacing neurons with micro- and nano-electronic devices has been a subject of intense study over the last decade. One of the major problems in assembling efficient neuro-electronic hybrid systems is the weak electrical coupling between the components. This is mainly attributed to the fundamental property of living cells to form and maintain an extracellular cleft between the plasma membrane and any substrate to which they adhere. This cleft shunts the current generated by propagating action potentials and thus reduces the signal-to-noise ratio. Reducing the cleft thickness, and thereby increasing the seal resistance formed between the neurons and the sensing surface, is thus a challenge and could improve the electrical coupling coefficient. Using electron microscopic analysis and field potential recordings, we examined here the use of gold micro-structures that mimic dendritic spines in their shape and dimensions to improve the adhesion and electrical coupling between neurons and micro-electronic devices. We found that neurons cultured on a gold-spine matrix, functionalized by a cysteine-terminated peptide with a number of RGD repeats, readily engulf the spines, forming tight apposition. The recorded field potentials of cultured Aplysia neurons are significantly larger using gold-spine electrodes in comparison with flat electrodes.     

Four coupled parity-time symmetric micro-rings for single-mode laser operation

In this paper, a novel scheme is proposed to obtain the single-mode laser using parity-time symmetry breaking. Four analogue micro-rings are optically coupled in the square configuration in a way that two micro-rings on the square diameter experience gain and the other two experience loss. The coupling coefficient for horizontal and vertical coupling between micro-rings is considered to be different. According to this new scheme, the symmetry of structure is destroyed, and thus the degenerate modes that can disrupt the stability of laser, disappeared. Due to the coupling of the resonators, four super-modes, which are coupled pairwise, are generated. The Eigen-frequency and parity-time symmetry breaking of the two super-modes depend on the difference between horizontal and vertical coupling coefficient; however, these parameters depend on the summation of the coupling coefficients for the other two. Results show that the laser output is single mode in a specific condition of coupling coefficient and gains. It is concluded that the threshold of pump parameter is improved in the new scheme, relative to the two coupled micro-rings.     

Polarization-independent tunable spectral slicing filter in Ti:LiNbO3

A two-port polarization-independent tunable spectral slicing filter at the 1530?nm wavelength regime is presented. The design utilizes an asymmetric interferometer with a sparse index grating along its arms. The sparse grating makes it possible to select equally spaced frequency channels from an incident WDM signal and to place nulls between them to coincide with the signal comb frequency. The number of selected channels and nulls between them depends on the number of coupling regions used in the sparse grating. The free spectral range depends on the spacing between the coupling regions. The Z-transform method is used to synthesize the filter and determine the spectral response. The operation of a device with six coupling regions is demonstrated, and good agreement with theoretical predictions is obtained. A 3?dB bandwidth of ～1?nm and thermal tuning over a range of ～13?nm are measured.     

电磁屏蔽涂料镍填料的表面偶联处理研究

了自制钛酸酯联剂用量对镍基电磁屏涂料电性能和电磁屏蔽效能的影响,结果表明所使用的钛酸酯偶联剂比硅烷偶联剂更有效地提高了微米级镍填料在丙烯酸树脂中的分散性和导电稳定性,特别当偶联剂用量为镍粉量的１．２５％时,镍粉呈蠕虫状分布,涂料的综合性能最佳。     

A Composite Polymeric Carbon Nitride with In Situ Formed Isotype Heterojunctions for Highly Improved Photocatalysis under Visible Light

Introducing heterojunction is an effective way for improving the intrinsic photocatalytic activity of a graphitic carbon nitride (GCN) semiconductor. These heterostructures are mostly introduced by interfacing GCN with foreign materials that normally have entirely different physicochemical properties and show unfavorable compatibility, thus resulting in a limited improvement of the photocatalytic performance of the resultant materials. Herein, a composite polymeric carbon nitride (CPCN) that contains both melon‐based GCN and triazine‐based crystalline carbon nitride (CCN) is prepared by a simple thermal reaction between lithium chloride and GCN. Thanks to the intimate contact and good compatibility between GCN and CCN, an in situ formed heterojunction acts as a driving force for separating the photogenerated charge carriers in CPCN. As a result, CPCN exhibits a significantly improved photocatalytic performance under visible light irradiation, which is, respectively, 10.6 and 5.3 times as high as those of the GCN and CCN alone. This well designed isotype heterojunction by a coupling of CCN presents an effective avenue for developing efficient GCN photocatalysts.     

Nonreciprocal behaviour between photon and phonon in coupled optomechanical systems

It is shown that the asymmetry coupling between two coupled optomechanical cavities leads to special class of PT-symmetric model for optomechanical structure. Under these conditions, Hamiltonian is considered in blue and red sideband regime. In these cases, the asymmetric coupling between two cavities has been transferred such that the asymmetric beam-splitter or squeezing interaction is generated between optical and mechanical modes. Then, the amount of entanglement between the different optical and mechanical modes is calculated. The results define that PT-symmetry can improve the entanglement in special conditions. The proposed system provides good condition to investigate the nonreciprocal interaction between photon and phonon.     

适用于不同维数耦合的数值模拟方法研究

适用于不同维数之间耦合计算的数值模拟方法在计算复杂流动系统时能够兼顾效率和精度,有很大的优势和潜力。该文探讨了不同维数耦合数值模拟的方法;在此基础上自主发展了一个高度自动化、多软件集成、可维数缩放的耦合计算平台CNSPS;并通过多个算例对该计算方法和平台进行了逐步验证。各算例结果表明：该文的耦合方法是可行的,耦合结果与MPCCI的相应计算结果能够实现很好的吻合;耦合方法在计算较为复杂的耦合任务时也表现出了很好的性能。     

Identification of damage mechanisms in concrete under high level creep by the acoustic emission technique

Many researchers have proposed hypotheses concerning the physical mechanisms that govern creep and among them the development of microcracks is well recognized. For high load levels, microcracking may initiates at the moment of load application and begins to grow to form a time-dependent crack path. An experimental investigation is proposed here in order to provide interesting insight into the coupling between creep and damage with specimens loaded in flexure. The acoustic emission (AE) technique is used as a tool to provide information on the pertinence of the physical hypothesis that microcracks appear during creep. An original test is performed to accelerate the creep phenomenon by submitting concrete beams to desiccation after a basic creep period. The results show a good proportionality between the creep deformation and the AE activity and thus the efficiency of acoustic measurements for the estimation of the state of damage. In addition, an unsupervised pattern recognition analysis is used as a tool for the classification of the monitored AE signatures. The cluster analysis shows two clusters during basic creep and three clusters during desiccation creep indicating different damage mechanisms.     

A Flexible Caterpillar‐Like Gold Nanoparticle Assemblies with Ultrasmall Nanogaps for Enhanced Dual‐Modal Imaging and Photothermal Therapy

Gold nanoparticle (AuNP) assemblies (GNAs) have attracted attention since enhanced coupling plasmonic resonance (CPR) emerged in the nanogap between coupling AuNPs. For one dimensional GNAs (1D‐GNAs), most CPR from the nanogaps could be easily activated by electromagnetic waves and generate drastically enhanced CPR because the nanogaps between coupling AuNPs are linearly distributed in the 1D‐GNAs. The reported studies focus on the synthesis of 1D‐GNAs and fundamental exploration of CPR. There are still problems which impede further applications in nanomedicine, such as big size (>500 nm), poor water solubility, and/or poor stability. In this study, a kind of 1D flexible caterpillar‐like GNAs (CL‐GNAs) with ultrasmall nanogaps, good water solubility, and good stability is developed. The CL‐GNAs have a flexible structure that can randomly move to change their morphology, which is rarely reported. Numerous ultrasmall nanogaps (<1 nm) are linearly distributed along the structure of CL‐GNAs and generate enhanced CPR. The toxicity assessments in vitro and vivo respectively demonstrate that CL‐GNAs have a low cytotoxicity and good biocompatibility. The CL‐GNAs can be used as an efficient photothermal agent for photothermal therapy, a probe for Raman imaging and photothermal imaging.     

Controlling the polarization dependence of dual-channel directional couplers formed by silicon-on-insulator slot waveguides

The polarization dependence of directional couplers (DC) formed by silicon-on-insulator (SOI) slot waveguides was studied, and its applications as highly efficient polarization beam splitters (PBSs) and polarization-independent directional couplers (PIDCs) were investigated. The coupling lengths for the quasi-TE and quasi-TM modes may vary with the waveguide geometry due to structural birefringence; thus numerical simulations of the coupling effects in the directional couplers with different aspect ratios and waveguide spacing were conducted to obtain the optimal design parameters for high efficiency as well as compact device size. The lengths of the coupling regions of the designed PBS and PIDC are 47.61 and 23.13 μm, respectively, and they delivered good performance, with an extinction ratio greater than 20 and 1 dB bandwidth larger than 100 nm. The tolerance of fabrication error in the practical device is also discussed.     

基于SEA分析验证的混响箱-消声室实验方法设计及隔声性能研究

不同于以往的理论、经验设计,采用低频段的声固耦合法、中高频段的统计能量法(SEA)对设计的混响声场进行声学分析,提高混响水平。根据虚拟结果建立混响箱实物,置于半消声室内进行测试,混响箱结构本体的噪声衰减量超过50 dB,混响时间达到混响要求,混响场内不同位置声压值差距均小于2 dB,该混响箱设计满足混响声场的要求;将SEA法隔声计算结果与应用混响箱-消声室法对板件的隔声测试结果进行对比,两者吻合良好;因此该实验方法能实现很好的隔声效果。通过该方法可快速对单层板及夹层板件进行隔声测试,发现吻合频率效应对隔声性能影响较大;以上研究对工程应用有较大的参考意义。     

耦合凸缘结构间的振动传递

凸缘结构是一种常见的工程结构。用统计能量分析（ＳＥＡ）研究耦合凸缘结构间的振动传递，需要决定其间的耦合损耗因子。本文研究了通过册缘和弹性材料耦合结构间振动传递特性，分析了减振隔振措施，导出耦合损耗因子的计算公式。以通过不同大小截面的凸缘和不同特性的弹性材料耦合的凸级板结构为例，进行了一系列实验测量，耦耗损耗因子的实验测量值与理论估算吻合较好。     

基于高阶谱的旋转机械故障征兆提取

研究了旋转机械振动信号的非线性特征,分析了产生非线性的机制,着重讨论了二次相位耦合与机械故障的关系,在此基础上将高阶谱分析引入转子故障诊断。高阶谱保留了信号的相位信息且能有效抑制噪声,可以定量描述非线性性相位耦合,试验分析表明,对于不同类型的故障,高阶谱特征存在明显差异,因中用于故障模式识别,高阶谱丰富了旋转机械故障诊断系统知识库中的振动特征信息,用于工业现场能大大提高诊断准确性。     

A Novel Compact Highly Isolated UWB MIMO Antenna with WLAN Notch

This paper presents a compact Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna with WLAN band notch for Ultra-Wideband (UWB) applications. The antenna is designed on 0.8 mm thick low-cost FR-4 substrate having a compact size of 22 mm × 30 mm. The proposed antenna comprises of two monopole patches on the top layer of substrate while having a shared ground on its bottom layer. The mutual coupling between adjacent patches has been reduced by using a novel stub with shared ground structure. The stub consists of complementary rectangular slots that disturb the surface current direction and thus result in reducing mutual coupling between two ports. A slot is etched in the radiating patch for WLAN band notch. The slot is used to suppress frequencies ranging from 5.1 to 5.9 GHz. The results show that the proposed antenna has a very good impedance bandwidth of |S11| < −10 dB within the frequency band from 3.1–14 GHz. A low mutual coupling of less than −23 dB is achieved within the entire UWB band. Furthermore, the antenna has a peak gain of 5.8 dB, low ECC < 0.002 and high Diversity Gain (DG > 9.98).     

Thermal expansion in the superconducting state

We present a model for the electronic contribution to the thermal expansion in the superconducting state based on the weak coupling BCS theory. A simple scaling parameter is introduced to accommodate strong coupling. We find satisfactory agreement between the model's predictions and experimental measurements for a number of materials exhibiting qualitatively different expansion behavior.Supported by the Australian Research Grants Committee.     

Modelling the structure changes in quenchable steel subjected to grinding

This paper analyzes the consequences of the microstructural changes in a quenchable steel component subjected to grinding. The model takes into account the coupling of the temperature history and stress field in the grinding, where the temperature field is assessed by Jager's model and the stress field is analyzed by means of an embossed grid method. The effects of the dislocation density and grain size distribution are also examined. The transformation kinetics of martensite, bainite and ferrite is then discussed based on the Cahn's law. It was found that that the temperature-stress field varies significantly in different subsurface parts of the component and thus creates a variable structure across its depth. The theoretical results are in good agreement with experimental data.     

Principles of conjugating quantum dots to proteins via carbodiimide chemistry

The covalent coupling of nanomaterials to bio-recognition molecules is a critical intermediate step in using nanomaterials for biology and medicine. Here we investigate the carbodiimide-mediated conjugation of fluorescent quantum dots to different proteins (e.g., immunoglobulin G, bovine serum albumin, and horseradish peroxidase). To enable these studies, we developed a simple method to isolate quantum dot bioconjugates from unconjugated quantum dots. The results show that the reactant concentrations and protein type will impact the overall number of proteins conjugated onto the surfaces of the quantum dots, homogeneity of the protein-quantum dot conjugate population, quantum efficiency, binding avidity, and enzymatic kinetics. We propose general principles that should be followed for the successful coupling of proteins to quantum dots.     

A triple quantum dot in a single-wall carbon nanotube

A top-gated single-wall carbon nanotube is used to define three coupled quantum dots in series between two electrodes. The additional electron number on each quantum dot is controlled by top-gate voltages allowing for current measurements of single, double, and triple quantum dot stability diagrams. Simulations using a capacitor model including tunnel coupling between neighboring dots captures the observed behavior with good agreement. Furthermore, anticrossings between indirectly coupled levels and higher order cotunneling are discussed.