Quantum interference between dark-excitons and zone-edged acoustic phonons in few-layer WS2.

Fano resonance which describes a quantum interference between continuum and discrete states, provides a unique method for studying strongly interacting physics. Here, we report a Fano resonance between dark excitons and zone-edged acoustic phonons in few-layer WS2 by using the resonant Raman technique. The discrete phonons with large momentum at the M-point of the Brillouin zone and the continuum dark exciton states related to the optically forbidden transition at K and Q valleys are coupled by the exciton-phonon interactions. We observe rich Fano resonance behaviors across layers and modes defined by an asymmetry-parameter q: including constructive interference with two mirrored asymmetry Fano peaks (weak coupling, q > 1 and q < - 1), and destructive interference with Fano dip (strong coupling, ∣q∣ < < 1). Our results provide new insight into the exciton-phonon quantum interference in two-dimensional semiconductors, where such interferences play a key role in their transport, optical, and thermodynamic properties.

Double-Cavity Modulation of Exciton Polaritons in CsPbBr3 Microwire.

The lead halide perovskite has become a promising candidate for the study of exciton polaritons due to their excellent optical properties. Here, both experimental and simulated results confirm the existence of two kinds of Fabry-Pérot microcavities in a single CsPbBr3 microwire with an isosceles right triangle cross section, and we experimentally demonstrate that confined photons in a straight and a folded Fabry-Pérot microcavity are strongly coupled with excitons to form exciton polaritons. Furthermore, we reveal the polarization characteristic and double-cavity modulation of exciton polaritons emission by polarization-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy. Our results not only prove that the modulation of exciton polaritons emission can occur in this simple double-cavity system but also provide a possibility to develop related polariton devices.

Experimental Diagnosis on Combustion Characteristic of Shock Wave Focusing Initiation Engine.

A shock wave focusing initiation engine was assembled and tested in an experimental program. The effective pyrolysis rate of the pre-combustor was evaluated over a range of supplementary fuel ratio in this paper. Results highlight two operational modes of the resonant cavity: (1) pulsating combustion mode, (2) stable combustion mode. The appearance of the two combustion modes is jointly affected by the flow and the structural characteristic value of the combustion chamber. This paper uses images, time-frequency analysis, and nonlinear time series analysis methods to identify and distinguish these two combustion modes. It is believed that the interaction between the combustion chamber and the supply plenum is the probable reason for different combustion modes. The experiment has found that structural parameters and import flow parameters have an impact on the initiation of the combustion chamber. Increasing the injection pressure can appropriately broaden the fuel-rich boundary of initiation. Low equivalence ratio and high injection pressure can also appropriately increase the combustion working frequency in a small range. From the perspective of pressure utilization, under the premise of ensuring successful initiation, injection pressure should not be too high.

Strong Light-Matter Interactions between Gap Plasmons and Two-Dimensional Excitons under Ambient Conditions in a Deterministic Way.

Strong exciton-plasmon interactions between layered two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors and gap plasmons show a great potential to implement cavity quantum electrodynamics under ambient conditions. However, achieving a robust plasmon-exciton coupling with nanocavities is still very challenging, because the layer area is usually small in the conventional approaches. Here, we report on a robust strong exciton-plasmon coupling between the gap mode of a bowtie and the excitons in MoS2 layers with gold-assisted mechanical exfoliation and nondestructive wet transfer techniques for a large-area layer. Due to the ultrasmall mode volume and strong in-plane field, the estimated effective exciton number contributing to the coupling is largely reduced. With a corrected exciton transition dipole moment, the exciton numbers are extracted as being 40 for the case of a single layer and 48 for eight layers. Our work paves the way to realize strong coupling with 2D materials with a small number of excitons at room temperature.

Enhanced emission from a single quantum dot in a microdisk at a deterministic diabolical point.

We report on controllable cavity modes by controlling the backscattering by two identical scatterers. Periodic changes of the backscattering coupling between two degenerate cavity modes are observed with the changing angle between two scatterers and elucidated by a theoretical model using two-mode approximation and numerical simulations. The periodically appearing single-peak cavity modes indicate mode degeneracy at diabolical points. Interactions between single quantum dots and cavity modes are then investigated. Enhanced emission of a quantum dot with a six-fold intensity increase is obtained in a microdisk at a diabolical point. This method to control cavity modes allows large-scale integration, high reproducibility and flexible design of the size, the location, the quantity and the shape for scatterers, which can be applied for integrated photonic structures with scatterer-modified light-matter interaction.

Ultrastructural study of closed macular hole- preliminary application of a novel high magnification module combining with OCT.

BACKGROUND: As a novel high magnification module (HMM) combining with OCT (OCT-HMM) is able to detect the microstructure of retina, we apply it to explore the ultrastructure of the macula after closure of the idiopathic macular hole (IMH) by surgery. METHODS: This is an observational case series study in which patients with full-thickness IMHs who had undergone successful macular closure by vitrectomy and internal limiting membrane peeling and healthy subjects were recruited. After comprehensive ophthalmic examinations, the images of macular area were obtained and collected by professional operators using OCT-HMM. Then images were independently analyzed by 4 masked vitreoretinal specialists. RESULTS: A total of 24 IMH eyes and 42 healthy eyes were examined. HMM images were obtained in 10 IMH eyes. Among them, 4 eyes whose macula closed completely with recovery of photoreceptor layer presented a dark arc nasal to the fovea, oriented to the optic, and the notch of arc faced temporally. Six eyes in which the macula closed incompletely with photoreceptor cells loss revealed a dark ring with uneven bright spots inside. The other 14 eyes failed to obtain clear images by OCT-HMM. The contra lateral eyes of the patients and the healthy subjects' eyes succeeded to obtain the HMM images which displayed evenly grey background thickly covered with tiny bright dots that was in similar size and evenly and widely distributed and there no dark arc or ring. OCT B-scan and IR images could be acquired in all of the IMH and healthy eyes. CONCLUSION: The preliminary application of HMM has supplied us a brand-new insight into the microstructure of closed IMH. A dark arc sign could be detected with OCT-HMM in the macula which was functionally closed after surgery that was probably the healing mark on a microstructure photoreceptors level. Its existence and shape indicated that the functional closure followed by a retinal displacement mainly horizontally from temporal side to nasal side but not symmetric centripetally.

Strong Triplet-Exciton-LO-Phonon Coupling in Two-Dimensional Layered Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Perovskite Single Crystal Microflakes.

Two-dimensional (2D) layered hybrid perovskites provide an ideal platform for studying the properties of excitons. Here, we report on a strong triplet-exciton and longitudinal-optical (LO) phonon coupling in 2D (C6H5CH2CH2NH3, PEA)2PbBr4 perovskites. The triplet excitons exhibit strong photoluminescence (PL) in thick perovskite microflakes, and the PL is not detectable for monolayer microflakes. The coupling strength of the triplet exciton-LO phonon is approximately two to three times greater than that of the singlet exciton-LO phonon with a LO phonon energy of about 21 meV. This difference might due to the different locations of singlet excitons located in the well and triplet excitons located in the barrier in the 2D layered perovskite. Revealing the strong coupling of triplet exciton-LO phonon provides a fundamental understanding of many-body interaction in hybrid perovskites, which is useful to develop and optimize the optoelectronic devices based on 2D perovskites in the future.

Optimizing energy harvesting performance of silicone elastomers by molecular grafting of azobenzene to the macromolecular network.

The dielectric elastomer generator (DEG) has attracted significant attention in the past decade for harvesting energy from reciprocating mechanical motion owing to its variable capacitance under tension. However, the challenge of conceiving novel DEGs with high energy harvesting performance should be addressed. In this work, azobenzene molecules with strong polarity were synthesized and chemically grafted onto a hydroxyl-terminated polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) network through a simple one-step process, offering a robust, molecularly homogenous silicone rubber. In addition, dimethyl silicone oil (DMSO) plasticizer was simultaneously added to reduce the mechanical modulus of the composite. The loading content of DMSO was firstly optimized in terms of the mechanical and dielectric properties of the resultant azo-g-PDMS/DMSO elastomers. Then, the effects of azobenzene loading on the morphology, and mechanical, dielectric and electric generation performances were thoroughly investigated. Overall, the dielectric permittivity displayed a rising trend with the increase of the azobenzene content while the breakdown strength increased initially and then decreased. The breakdown strength could reach as high as 73 V µm-1 by grafting with 7 phr of azobenzene while maintaining a relatively low mechanical modulus. Meanwhile, the as-prepared azo-g-PDMS/DMSO films exhibited enhanced energy harvesting density (0.69 mJ cm-3) and electromechanical conversion efficiency (5.01%) at a bias voltage of 1500 V, which were 2 and 2.5 times as much as those of the azobenzene-free matrix. This work provides ideas for future applications of DEG with high energy harvesting performance.

Diabolical points in coupled active cavities with quantum emitters.

In single microdisks, embedded active emitters intrinsically affect the cavity modes of the microdisks, resulting in trivial symmetric backscattering and low controllability. Here we demonstrate macroscopic control of the backscattering direction by optimizing the cavity size. The signature of the positive and negative backscattering directions in each single microdisk is confirmed with two strongly coupled microdisks. Furthermore, diabolical points are achieved at the resonance of the two microdisks, which agrees well with theoretical calculations considering the backscattering directions. Diabolical points in active optical structures pave the way for an implementation of quantum information processing with geometric phase in quantum photonic networks.

Enhanced Strong Interaction between Nanocavities and p-shell Excitons Beyond the Dipole Approximation.

Large coupling strengths in exciton-photon interactions are important for the quantum photonic network, while strong cavity-quantum dot interactions have been focused on s-shell excitons with small coupling strengths. Here we demonstrate strong interactions between cavities and p-shell excitons with a great enhancement by the in situ wave-function control. The p-shell excitons are demonstrated with much larger wave-function extents and nonlocal interactions beyond the dipole approximation. Then the interaction is tuned from the nonlocal to the local regime by the wave function shrinking, during which the enhancement is obtained. A large coupling strength of 210 µeV has been achieved, indicating the great potential of p-shell excitons for coherent information exchange. Furthermore, we propose a distributed delay model to quantitatively explain the coupling strength variation, revealing the intertwining of excitons and photons beyond the dipole approximation.

Two-Photon Rabi Splitting in a Coupled System of a Nanocavity and Exciton Complexes.

Two-photon Rabi splitting in a cavity-dot system provides a basis for multiqubit coherent control in a quantum photonic network. Here we report on two-photon Rabi splitting in a strongly coupled cavity-dot system. The quantum dot was grown intentionally large in size for a large oscillation strength and small biexciton binding energy. Both exciton and biexciton transitions couple to a high-quality-factor photonic crystal cavity with large coupling strengths over 130 µeV. Furthermore, the small binding energy enables the cavity to simultaneously couple with two exciton states. Thereby, two-photon Rabi splitting between the biexciton and cavity is achieved, which can be well reproduced by theoretical calculations with quantum master equations.

High-Responsivity Photodetection by a Self-Catalyzed Phase-Pure p-GaAs Nanowire.

Defects are detrimental for optoelectronics devices, such as stacking faults can form carrier-transportation barriers, and foreign impurities (Au) with deep-energy levels can form carrier traps and nonradiative recombination centers. Here, self-catalyzed p-type GaAs nanowires (NWs) with a pure zinc blende (ZB) structure are first developed, and then a photodetector made from these NWs is fabricated. Due to the absence of stacking faults and suppression of large amount of defects with deep energy levels, the photodetector exhibits room-temperature high photoresponsivity of 1.45 × 105 A W-1 and excellent specific detectivity (D*) up to 1.48 × 1014 Jones for a low-intensity light signal of wavelength 632.8 nm, which outperforms previously reported NW-based photodetectors. These results demonstrate these self-catalyzed pure-ZB GaAs NWs to be promising candidates for optoelectronics applications.

Dielectric Elastomer Generator with Improved Energy Density and Conversion Efficiency Based on Polyurethane Composites.

Dielectric elastomer generators (DEGs), which follow the physics of variable capacitors and harvest electric energy from mechanical work, have attracted intensive attention over the past decade. The lack of ideal dielectric elastomers, after nearly two decades of research, has become the bottleneck for DEGs' practical applications. Here, we fabricated a series of polyurethane-based ternary composites and estimated their potential as DEGs to harvest electric energy for the first time. Thermoplastic polyurethane (PU) with high relative permittivity (∼8) was chosen as the elastic matrix. Barium titanate (BT) nanoparticles and dibutyl phthalate (DBP) plasticizers, which were selected to improve the permittivity and mechanical properties, respectively, were blended into the PU matrix. As compared to pristine PU, the resultant ternary composite films fabricated through a solution casting approach showed enhanced permittivity, remarkably reduced elastic modulus, and relatively good electrical breakdown strength, dielectric loss, and strain at break. Most importantly, the harvested energy density of PU was significantly enhanced when blended with BT and DBP. A composite film containing 25 phr of BT and 60 phr of DBP with the harvested energy density of 1.71 mJ/cm3 was achieved, which is about 4 times greater than that of pure PU and 8 times greater than that of VHB adhesives. Remarkably improved conversion efficiency of mechano-electric energy was also obtained via cofilling BT and DBP into PU. The results shown in this work strongly suggest compositing is a very promising way to provide better dielectric elastomer candidates for forthcoming practical DEGs.