Electroconvective instability near an ion-selective surface: A mesoscopic lattice Boltzmann study.

Direct numerical simulations of electroconvection instability near an ion-selective surface are conducted using a mesoscopic lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). An electrohydrodynamic model of ion transport and fluid flow is presented. We numerically solve the Poisson-Nernst-Planck equations for the electric field and the Navier-Stokes equations for the flow field. The results cover Ohmic, limiting, and overlimiting current regimes, and they are in good agreement with the asymptotic analytical solution for the relationship between current and voltage. The influences of different ion transport mechanisms on the voltage-current relationship are discussed. The results reveal that the electroconvection mechanism is as important as other ion transport mechanisms in electrohydrodynamic flow. By comparing the contribution of different regions in the numerical domain, we find that the flow in the extended space charge layer is dominated by electroconvection. We also study the influences of multiple driving parameters, and the electrohydrodynamic coupling constant plays a dominant role in triggering convective instability. The flow pattern and ion concentration distribution are described in detail. Moreover, the route of flow from steady state to periodic oscillation and then to chaos is discussed.

[Research on trace gas spectral measurement on intra-cavity fiber optic laser].

Due to the advantages of immunity of electrical/electronic, high performance cost ratio, remote detection and multiplexing capability, intra-cavity fiber optic gas measurement has aroused wide concern. The trace gas measurement system has been developed based on the elaborated gas cell and reflector. The wavelength sweeping technique (WST) is realized when the Fabry-Perot type tunable optical filter is applied by the sawtooth driver voltage. Multi absorption lines can be obtained and one scanning measurement with WST is equal to multiple independent detections, so the gas measurement sensitivity is improved remarkably. The experimental results show that the acetylene detection sensitivity is reduced to less than 100 ppm and the relative measurement error is less than 3% of practical gas concentration.

[Review on label-free optical bio-sensing technology based on whisper-gallery-mode].

Optical biosensors are becoming an important tool for drug research and life science, and the label-free optical biosensor based on whisper-gallery-mode (WGM) is reviewed in the present paper. The WGM-based sensors are categorized into three types according to the microcavity structure. The biosensor using microsphere got extensive research because of high quality factor, and its response to protein, virus, and bacteria had been studied. The models based on single photon resonant state and perturbation theory were established. The biosensor using microdisk was proposed early since it can make use of mature lithography technology; however, the quality factor was increased greatly only after the thermal reflow process was introduced and single molecule measurement was then realized. The biosensor using microring has simpler mode structure and materials such as polymer, silicon nitride and silicon-on-insulator had been used for sensor fabrication. As a 3-dimension expansion, sensor using microtube can combine the optical channel and fluidic channel, which attracting more and more attention.