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IMAGE: a, Schematic of the proposed all-in-one polarizer that can function at an arbitrary position on the Poincaré sphere by design based on a dielectric metasurface composed of dimerized nanopillars, which. view more
Credit: by Shuai Wang, Zi-Lan Deng, Yujie Wang, Qingbin Zhou, Xiaolei Wang, Yaoyu Cao, Bai-Ou Guan, Shumin Xiao, Xiangping Li
Polarization control is essential for tailoring light-matter interactions and is the foundation for many applications such as polarization imaging, nonlinear optics, data storage, and information multiplexing. A linear polarizer, which is a polarization optical element that filters a specific linear polarization from unpolarized light, plays an important role in both polarization generation and manipulation. However, the generation of arbitrary polarization states other than linear polarization usually requires cascading of multiple optical polarization elements, including both linear polarizers and waveplates based on an
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IMAGE: In this schematic, the teal balls represent boron and the red balls are hydrogen. view more
Credit: Northwestern University
Northwestern University researchers have, for the first time, created borophane atomically thin boron that is stable at standard temperatures and air pressures.
Researchers have long been excited by the promise of borophene a single-atom-thick sheet of boron because of its strength, flexibility and electronics properties. Stronger, lighter and more flexible than graphene, borophene could potentially revolutionize batteries, electronics, sensors, photovoltaics and quantum computing.
Unfortunately, borophene only exists inside of an ultrahigh vacuum chamber, limiting its practical use outside the lab. By bonding borophene with atomic hydrogen, the Northwestern team created borophane, which has the same exciting properties as borophene and is stable outside of a vacuum.
Millions of people die prematurely every year from diseases and cancer caused by air pollution. The first line of defence against this carnage is ambient air quality standards. Yet, according to researchers from McGill University, over half of the world s population lives without the protection of adequate air quality standards.
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IMAGE: a, The conceptual illustration of manipulating the transmission of electromagnetic waves via spatiotemporal metasurface. b, The input phase states of the meta-atom with N=4. c, Cayley diagram of the product. view more
Credit: by Haotian Wu, Xin Xin Gao, Lei Zhang, Guo Dong Bai, Qiang Cheng, Lianlin Li, and Tie Jun Cui
Spatiotemporal metasurfaces, driven by ultrafast dynamic modulations, opened up new possibilities for manipulating the harmonic modes of electromagnetic waves and generations of exotic physical phenomena, such as dispersion cancellation, Lorentz reciprocity broken, and Doppler illusions. In recent years, rapid development of information technologies have stimulated many information processing applications for metasurfaces, including computational imaging, wireless communications, and performing mathematical operations. With increasing amount of researches focused on the topic of information processing with metasurfaces, a general theory is
Credit: by Hong Liu
In contemporary society, the demand for high-bandwidth optical communication, including mobile high-definition videos, autonomous vehicles, remote surgery, telepresence, and interactive 3D virtual reality gaming, is sharply increasing. The electro-optical modulator is the key component for optical fiber communication, which modulates the light signal for loading information through electricity. Lithium niobate (LiNbO3, LN) exhibits a high-performance electro-optic effect and high optical transparency. On the other hand, the ferroelectric domain engineering on LN crystals has been extended from 1D to 2D and 3D. Moreover, considering the device size, reliability, cost, and energy consumption, the photonic integrated circuit (PIC) technology has recently gained signi?cant interest in the rise of the integrated photonics field. Integrated photonics is concerned with the integration of all the key components connected by a waveguide in a single chip (photonic platform