Rationally designed C/Co9S8@SnS2 nanocomposite as a highly efficient anode for lithium-ion batteries.

Nanostructured transition metal sulfides are promising anode materials for lithium-ion batteries. Nevertheless, it is still a great challenge to prepare capacity-improved electrodes without reducing their rate capability and cycle stability. In this paper, we present a C/Co9S8@SnS2 composite material by loading SnS2 nanocrystals onto MOF-derived C/Co9S8 nanostructures. The C/Co9S8@SnS2 composite has multiple active sites to store lithium ions. The specific capacity reaches 3.1 mAh cm-2 when the current density is 0.224 mA cm-2. The asynchronous electrochemical reaction between Co9S8 and SnS2 offsets the volume expansion of the anode material. Meanwhile, the compact adhesion of carbon layers on the interfaces suppresses the destruction of the anode during the charging-discharging processes. Consequently, the synthesized electrode presents favorable capacity with high current density or under long-term cycling conditions. The prepared battery has a reversible specific capacity of 0.452 mAh cm-2 and a coulomb efficiency of 99.7% after 500 cycles with a high current density of 2.24 mA cm-2. The research results obtained in this work provides a feasible strategy to improve the performance of electrodes systematically.

Theoretical investigation on asymmetrical spinning and orbiting motions of particles in a tightly focused power-exponent azimuthal-variant vector field.

We generate a new kind of azimuthal-variant vector field with a distribution of states of polarization (SoPs) described by the square of the azimuthal angle. Owing to asymmetrical SoPs distribution of this localized linearly polarized vector field, the tightly focused field exhibits a double half-moon shaped pattern with the localized elliptical polarization in the cross section of field at the focal plane. Moreover, we study the three-dimensional distributions of spin and orbital linear and angular momenta in the focal region. We numerically investigate the gradient force, radiation force, spin torque, and orbital torque on a dielectric Rayleigh particle produced by the tightly focused vector field. It is found that asymmetrical spinning and orbiting motions of trapped Rayleigh particles can be realized by the use of a tight vector field with power-exponent azimuthal-variant SoPs.

Focus shaping and optical manipulation using highly focused second-order full Poincaré beam.

Generation of vectorial optical fields with arbitrary polarization distribution is of great interest in plenty of applications. In this work, we propose and experimentally demonstrate the generation of a second-order full Poincaré (FP) beam and its application in two-dimensional (2D) flattop beam shaping with spatially variant polarization under a high numerical aperture focusing condition. In addition, the force mechanism of the focal field with 2D flattop beam profile is numerically studied, demonstrating the feasibility to trap a dielectric Rayleigh particle in three-dimensional space. The results show that the additional degree of freedom provided by the FP beam allows one to control the spatial structure of polarization, to engineer the focusing field, and to tailor the optical force exerted on a dielectric Rayleigh particle. The findings reported in the work may find useful applications in laser micromachining, optical trapping, and optical assembly.

Radial-variant nonlinear ellipse rotation.

The nonlinear ellipse rotation usually occurs when an elliptically polarized beam propagates through an isotropic nonlinear medium owing to the existence of χ1221(3). Here we report the radial-variant nonlinear ellipse rotation of a vector beam with structured elliptical polarization through isotropic Kerr nonlinearities. Due to the interaction of elliptically polarized vector beams (EPVBs) with isotropic nonlinear media, the distributions of both the orientation angle and the ellipticity angle of beams at the far-field observational plane exhibit multiple concentric ring structures with the circularly symmetry. Numerical simulations show that the self-diffraction intensity pattern, the distribution of the state of polarization, and the spin angular momentum (SAM) distribution of an EPVB could be manipulated by tuning both the isotropic optical nonlinearity and the chirality parameter of the vector beam, which may find direct applications in polarization-control optical switching, SAM manipulation, and optical polarization encoding or detection.

Nonlinear polarization evolution of hybridly polarized vector beams through isotropic Kerr nonlinearities.

Structured intense laser interacting with matter will result in a variety of novel nonlinear optical effects, modulate the light propagation behavior, and change the structural property of a material. In this work, we theoretically investigate the spatial self-phase modulation (SSPM) effect, nonlinear ellipse rotation, and spin angular momentum (SAM) flux redistribution of hybridly polarized vector beams through isotropic Kerr nonlinearities. Experimentally, we observe the SSPM effect of the femtosecond-pulsed hybridly polarized vector beam in carbon disulfide at 800 nm, which is in agreement with the theoretical predictions. Our results show that the SSPM intensity pattern, the distribution of state of polarization (SoP), and the SAM flux of a hybridly polarized vector beam could be manipulated by tuning the isotropic optical nonlinearity, which may find interesting applications in nonlinear mechanism analysis, nonlinear optical characterization, and SAM manipulation.

Varying polarization and spin angular momentum flux of radially polarized beams by anisotropic Kerr media.

Light fields with structured polarization distribution interacting with structured media will result in many novel optical effects in both the linear and nonlinear regimes. In this work, we report a theoretical investigation of both vectorial self-diffraction behaviors and polarization evolution characteristics of a radially polarized beam induced by anisotropic Kerr nonlinearity. By taking the polarization-orientation dependence of the third-order refractive nonlinearity, we study the far-field vectorial self-diffraction patterns of the radially polarized beam using the vectorial Rayleigh-Sommerfeld formulas. Numerical results reveal that the self-diffraction patterns with a four-fold rotational symmetry exhibit hybrid states of polarization. Moreover, the interaction of radially polarized beams with the anisotropic nonlinear Kerr media leads to the redistribution of the spin angular momentum (SAM) flux in the far-field plane. The presented work opens up new avenues for varying polarization and SAM through anisotropic optical nonlinearity.

A scintillating plastic fiber array and multiplexer based 384-channel fast neutron spectrometer.

A fast neutron detection system based on a scintillating plastic fiber array and multiplexer was designed to measure the spectrum of fast neutrons ranged 10 MeV-100 MeV. With the method of nuclear recoil, the energy of incident neutron was determined by measuring the recoil proton track and deposited energy in scintillating plastic fibers. The detection system was composed of a scintillating plastic fiber array, 6 position sensitive photomultiplier tubes, and a high-density readout electronics based on the multiplexer. The scintillating plastic fiber array was made as a staggered structure with two kinds of fibers in different sizes (0.5 mm-square fiber and 3 mm-square fiber). The structure provided a wider detection energy range and better detection efficiency than arrays made with uniform plastic fibers. A dedicated digital electronics system was well designed to control the whole readout system to provide 384-channel signal processing. The detector had a 48 mm × 48 mm effective detection area and a mechanical size of 34 cm × 34 cm × 27 cm. In the simulation of the detector model performance, the system gave an energy resolution of 23%-35% for neutrons ranged 10 MeV-100 MeV. Experimental results showed that the detector had a good energy linearity and energy resolutions were, respectively, 35.82% at 14.817 MeV, 36.84% at 21.264 MeV, 35.90% at 23.069 MeV, and 32.90% at 24.220 MeV. The optimized prototype model had potential in increasing fast neutron detection performance.