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Recently, emerging two-dimensional (2D) germanium selenide (GeSe) has drawn lots of attention due to its in-plane anisotropic properties and great potential for optoelectronic applications such as in solar cells. However, methods are still sought to enhance its interaction with light to enable practical applications. Herein, we numerically investigate the localized plasmon response of monolayer GeSe nanoribbon arrays systematically, and the results show that localized surface plasmon polaritons in the far-infrared range with anisotropic behavior can be efficiently excited to enhance the light-matter interaction. We further show that the plasmon response of monolayer GeSe nanoribbons could be tuned effectively through the nanoribbon width, local refractive index, substrate thickness and carrier concentration, pointing out the ways for controlling the localized plasmon response. In the case of monolayer GeSe nanoribbons on a substrate of finite thickness, a Fabry-Pérot-like (FP-like) quantitative model has been proposed to explain the overall spectral response originating from overlapped FP and plasmon modes, and it matches well with the simulation results. All in all, we investigate the plasmon response of the novel 2D GeSe nanoribbons thoroughly for the first time, bringing opportunities for potential applications of novel polarization-dependent optoelectronic devices.

Advances in tunable metamaterials/metasurfaces facilitates their utilization in novel optical components, and lead to many breakthroughs in light tailoring by giving birth to diverse spatiotemporal dynamics. In the ascendant field of terahertz (THz) photonics, the ultrafast modulation is the fundamental process of technological advancements in high-speed wireless communications, sensing, and imaging. However, the current research efforts have been mainly devoted to studies of single functionality under the control of one stimulus, which has plateaued in terms of innovative new features. Here, building on the incident angle-induced C2 symmetry breaking of split ring pairs, we experimentally demonstrate extremely versatile, ultrafast THz switching behaviors at continuously alterable resonant states. The direction-controlled resonance hybridization provides another excellent degree of routing freedom, owing to its robustness, simplicity, and wide tunability. By leveraging such virtues, single LC mode and EIT-like resonance under normal and oblique incidence conditions are both effectively switched-off by means of photon injection. Considering the ultrashort lifetime of free carriers in MoSe2 crystal, the corresponding transient dynamics show an ultrafast recovery time within 700 ps. The strategy proposed here is a viable pathway for multidimensional THz wave manipulation, which gears up a crucial step for diversified functionalities in deployable metaphotonic devices.

Electron-phonon scattering is the key process limiting the efficiency of modern nanoelectronic and optoelectronic devices, in which most of the incident energy is converted to lattice heat and finally dissipates into the environment. Here, we report an acoustic phonon recycling process in graphene-WS2 heterostructures, which couples the heat generated in graphene back into the carrier distribution in WS2. This recycling process is experimentally recorded by spectrally resolved transient absorption microscopy under a wide range of pumping energies from 1.77 to 0.48 eV and is also theoretically described using an interfacial thermal transport model. The acoustic phonon recycling process has a relatively slow characteristic time (>100 ps), which is beneficial for carrier extraction and distinct from the commonly found ultrafast hot carrier transfer (~1 ps) in graphene-WS2 heterostructures. The combination of phonon recycling and carrier transfer makes graphene-based heterostructures highly attractive for broadband high-efficiency electronic and optoelectronic applications. Here, the authors perform transient absorption microscopy on graphene-WS2 heterostructures, and identify a phonon recycling process that couples the heat generated in graphene back into the carrier distribution in WS2 with a picosecond characteristic time.

In article number of 2000799, Tian Jiang and co‐workers propose a novel functionality of pump‐colorselective ultrafast switching speed in terahertz metadevices by hybridizing meta‐atoms with judiciously engineered bilayer semiconductors. The proof‐of‐concept demonstration breaks the long‐standing challenge that all‐optical switching dynamics is hardly tunable in metaphotonic devices. This strategy could inspire more opportunities for designing ultrafast, multifunctional, all‐optical switchable photonic devices. [Image: see text]

Incorporating active materials into metamaterials is expected to yield exciting advancements in the unprecedented versatility of dynamically controlling optical properties, which sheds new light on the future optoelectronics. The exploration of emerging semiconductors into terahertz (THz) meta‐atoms potentially allows achieving ultrafast nanodevices driven by various applications, such as biomedical sensing/imaging, ultrawide‐band communications and security scanners. However, ultrafast optical switching of THz radiation is currently limited to a single level of tuning speed, which is a main hurdle to achieve multifunctionalities. Here, a hybrid metadevice which can realize the pump‐wavelength controlled ultrafast switching response by the functionalization of double photoactive layers is demonstrated experimentally. A whole cycle of electromagnetically induced transparency switching with a half‐recovery state changes from 0.78 ns to 8.8 ps as pump wavelength varies from near infrared to near ultraviolet regions. The observed pump‐color selective switching speed changing from nanosecond scale to picosecond scale is ascribed to the wavelength‐dependent penetration length of Ge and the contrasting defect states between noncrystalline Ge and epitaxial Si layers. It is believed that the schemes regarding pump‐color controllable ultrafast switching behavior introduced here can inspire more innovations across the field of ultrafast photonics and can boost the reconfigurable metamaterial applications., All‐optical terahertz modulators with pump‐color selective ultrafast switching speed are realized by combining double layers of semiconductors with electromagnetically induced transparency meta‐atoms. The transmission/group delay of terahertz wave is modulated at contrasting switching speeds from sub‐nanoseconds to picoseconds when pumped by the near‐infrared and near‐ultraviolet beams. This work opens up new avenues for manipulating the dynamics of ultrafast metaphotonic devices.

Nonlinear plasmons are becoming an appealing and intriguing research area due to their remarkable light concentration and manipulation abilities. In this work, the nonlinear absorption (NLA) phenomena of polarized nanoantenna arrays coupled with the low dimensional topological insulator Bi2Se3 are studied at different excitation wavelengths. Our experimental results indicate that a significant enhancement in the linear absorption coefficient is achieved by localized surface plasmon (LSP) resonance, with enhancement factors that are 10- and 8-fold in magnitude for the cases of 800 nm (y polarization) and 970 nm (x polarization), respectively. Moreover, by polarization sensitive studies under 800 nm laser excitation, this new Bi2Se3-Au nanoantenna hybrid-structure exhibits adverse absorption responses of enhancement and suppression compared to pure Bi2Se3 film, providing excellent potential for applications in information converters. In particular, under 800 nm pump light (10 GW cm-2), the transmittance intensity of 450 nm or 1064 nm continuous wave (CW) probe light alters back and forth when the polarization direction changes by 90°. Thus, "ON" and "OFF" modes of this Bi2Se3-Au nanoantenna hybrid structure-based switch are achieved by using 450 nm and 1064 nm light, respectively, with a corresponding modulation depth of 3.4% and 21.9%, which can be applied in versatile photonic devices.

Standing on the potential for high-speed modulation and switching in the terahertz (THz) regime, all-optical approaches whose response speeds mainly depend on the lifetime of nonequilibrium free carriers have attracted a tremendous attention. Here, we establish a novel bi-direction THz modulation experiment controlled by femtosecond laser for new functional devices. Specifically, time-resolved transmission measurements are conducted on a series of thin layers Bi2Se3 films fabricated straightforwardly on Al2O3 substrates, with the pump fluence range from 25 μJ/cm2 to 200 μJ/cm2 per pulse. After photoexcitation, an ultrafast switching of THz wave with a full recovery time of ~10 ps is observed. For a longer timescale, a photoinduced increase in the transmitted THz amplitude is found in the 8 and 10 quintuple layers (QL) Bi2Se3, which shows a thickness-dependent topological phase transition. Additionally, the broadband modulation effect of the 8 QL Bi2Se3 film is presented at the time delays of 2.2 ps and 12.5 ps which have a maximum modulation depth of 6.4% and 1.3% under the pump fluence of 200 μJ/cm2, respectively. Furthermore, the absorption of α optical phonon at 1.9 THz shows a time-dependent evolution which is consistent with the cooling of lattice temperature.

In this paper, an effective method is proposed to generate specific periodical surface structures. A 532 nm linearly polarized laser is used to irradiate the silicon with pulse duration of 10 ns and repetition frequency of 10 Hz. Laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSSs) are observed when the fluence is 121 mJ/cm2 and the number of pulses is 1000. The threshold of fluence for generating LIPSS gradually increases with the decrease of the number of pulses. In addition, the laser incident angle has a notable effect on the period of LIPSS, which varies from 430 nm to 1578 nm, as the incident angle ranges from 10° to 60° correspondingly. Besides, the reflectivity is reduced significantly on silicon with LIPSS.

We propose an object recognition architecture relying on a neural network algorithm in optical sensors. Precisely, by applying the high-speed and low-power Fourier transform operation in the optical domain, we can transfer the high-cost part of the traditional convolutional neural network algorithm to the sensor side to achieve faster computing speed. An optical neuron unit (ONU) consisting of transition metal sulfide (TMD) material is fabricated for a vivid validation of this architecture. Using the embedded gate pair structure inside our ONU, TMD materials can be electrically doped at different levels, forming an in-plane PN junction, which allows for effective manipulation of light response to imitate biological nerve synapses. The results demonstrate that our ONU could reach the ability of optic neurons, providing experimental support for future in-sensor computing architecture.

Understanding how blood lipid levels change with age in the general population is a precondition to defining dyslipidemia. To explore age-related trends in LDL-C and non-HDL-C levels in the general population, a large-scale cross-sectional study with 49,201 males and 35,084 females was adopted. Trends of non-HDL-C and LDL-C levels were plotted against each age (18 to 85 years old, one-year increments); the trends, as well as the influence of confounding factors on the trends, were validated and adjusted by linear regression modeling. The trajectory of LDL-C and non-HDL-C levels by age displayed a nonlinear correlation trend. Further multivariate linear regression modeling that incorporated sex-specific age phases showed that age was positively associated with LDL-C and non-HDL-C levels, with coefficients of 0.018 and 0.031, respectively, in females aged ≥18 to ≤56 years and negatively associated with LDL-C and non-HDL-C levels, with coefficients of -0·013 and -0.015, respectively, in females aged ≥57 years. The LDL-C and non-HDL-C levels increased with age in males ≥18 to ≤33 years of age, with coefficients of 0.025 and 0.053, respectively; the lipid levels plateaued at ≥34 to ≤56 years of age and subsequently decreased in those ≥57 years of age, with coefficients of -0.008 and -0.018, respectively. In contrast, pooled analyses without age stratification concealed these details. In conclusion, fluctuating increasing and decreasing lipid levels occurred with phases of aging in both sexes. Well-grounded age stratification is necessary to improve lipid-related pathophysiological studies.

A new novel method, hyperspectral imaging (HSI), is presented in this work to measure the beam divergence angle and beam profile uniformity of supercontinuum lasers. The obtained results of divergence angles are consistent with theoretically calculated values. The uniformity of different-size projected Gaussian beams was measured through referencing the data sets provided by HSI camera under the wavelength variation. HSI, compared with traditional methods, is much faster and capable of providing critical reference to supercontinuum output parameters measurements and practical application in far-field situation.

Two new D-A type polymers PBDSe-DPP and PBDSe-ID were synthesized to explore new ideal semiconducting polymers, by conjugating acceptor unit diketopyrrolopyrrole/isoindigo to a donor unit benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]diselenophene, which is designed by substituting the sulfur atom with a selenium atom in the benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene. The thermal, optical, electrochemical, photoelectric and photovoltaic properties of the two polymers were studied systematically. Relatively high open circuit voltage (0.7 and 0.75 V) and fill factor (>65%) were demonstrated for both polymers. Huge increase (by 64% and 120%) of the short circuit current density was achieved for both polymer based devices by using additive compared to the corresponding reference without additive, resulting in decent power conversion efficiency of 3.7% and 2.5% respectively with only simple optimizing consideration. We believe this class of BDSe polymer possesses a good potential to be alternatives of active material for photovoltaic applications.

The laser-induced damage on the surface of monocrystalline silicon (m-Si) solar cells and GaAs/Gesingle heterojunction solar cells are investigated. The solar cells were irradiated by a continuous wave laser at the wavelength of 532 nm. Concentric iridescent ring appeared on the damaged surfaces when observed with an optical microscope (OM) of broad spectrum. The damaged surface film was characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and the Contour Meter. The laser-induced temperature in silicon was calculated. The formation mechanism of the film and the cause of the concentric iridescent ring were analyzed.

Atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have emerged as a new class of two-dimensional (2D) material for novel optoelectronic applications. In particular, 2D TMDCs are viewed as intriguing and appealing materials to construct Q-switching and mode-locked modulators, due to their broadband saturable absorption even of photon energy below their excitonic energies. However, the dynamics and mechanism of saturable absorption inside TMDCs has yet to be investigated. In this paper, the relaxation dynamics of monolayer tungsten disulphide (WS2) was investigated considering different excitonic transitions. WS2 illustrates dramatic changes in optical responses when excited by intense laser pulses, which are characterized by the broadband photo-induced nonresonance absorption and the giant excitonic bands renormalization process. The experimental results show that strong photo-induced restructuring of excitonic bands has picosecond lifetime and full recovery of optical responses takes hundreds of picosecond. Additionally, our observations reveal that heavy renormalization and overlap of excitonic bands are induced by strong many-body Coulomb interactions. Moreover, the broadband absorption feature of WS2 opens up new applications in broadband saturable absorbers and ultrafast photonic devices.

Background: Evaluation of the lifetime trends of blood-lipid levels is needed to understand the role of dyslipidemia in the development and progression of diseases. Methods: The biannual physical examination results of 54,322 males and 37,851 females, comprising 167,542 data sets, were collected. Age-related trends in LDL-C and non-HDL-C levels were explored by age stratifications and valid by fitted linear logistic regression modeling. Findings: Among pooled females, age associated with LDL-C and non-HDL-C levels positively with coefficients of 0·016 and 0·026, respectively. After age stratification, age was positively associated with LDL-C and non-HDL-C levels with coefficients of 0·020 (95%CI: 0·020~0·021) and 0·033 (0·033~0·034), respectively in females aged 18 to 56 years; and negatively with coefficients of −0·013 (−0·010~−0·007) and −0·014 (−0·017~−0·011), respectively in females aged ≥57 years. Among pooled males, age associated with LDL-C and non-HDL-C levels positively with coefficients of 0·003 and 0·005, respectively. After age stratification, the LDL-C and non-HDL-C levels increased with age in males aged 18 to 33 years with coefficients of 0·026 (0·023~0·029) and 0·052 (0·049~0·055), respectively; plateaued between 34 to 56 years old with coefficients of 0·002 (0·001~0·003) and 0·005 (0·004~0·006), respectively; and subsequently decreased in males aged ≥57 years with coefficients of −0·008 (−0·010~−0·007) and −0·017 (−0·019~−0·015), respectively. Adjustments for covariates had little effect on the linear correlation patterns between age and lipids levels. Interpretation: In males and females, the LDL-C and non-HDL-C levels showed two (increase and decrease) and three (increase, plateau, and decrease) phases, respectively, with age. Funding Statement: The Major Projects of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning; the Shanghai Medical Key Specialty Construction Projects. Declaration of Interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethics Approval Statement: This study was conducted in accordance with the statement of ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, and was approved by the Internal Review Board of Minhang Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China. Written informed consent was obtained according to the guidelines of the National Ethics Regulation Committee.

The abilities of operating and maintaining optical instruments are crucial in modern society. Besides the basic knowledge in optics, the optics courses in the National University of Defense Technology also focus on the training on handling typical optical equipment. As the link between classroom courses on applied optics and the field trips, the integrated design course of applied optics aims to give the students a better understanding on several instantly used optical equipment, such as hand-held telescope and periscope, etc. The basic concepts of optical system design are also emphasized as well. The course is arranged rightly after the classroom course of applied optics and composed of experimental and design tasks. The experimental tasks include the measurements of aberrations and major parameters of a primitive telescope, while in the design parts, the students are asked to design a Keplerian telescope. The whole course gives a deepened understandings on the concepts, assembling, and operating of telescopes. The students are also encouraged to extend their interests on other typical optical instruments.

Military academies have two distinctive characteristics on talent training: Firstly, we must teach facing actual combat and connecting with academic frontier. Secondly, the bachelor's degree education and the military education should be balanced. The teaching mode of basic curriculum in military academies must be reformed and optimized on the basis of the traditional teaching mode, so as to ensure the high quality of teaching and provide enough guidance and help for students to support their academic burden. In this paper, our main work on "Applied Optics" teaching mode reform is introduced: First of all, we research extensively and learn fully from advanced teaching modes of the well-known universities at home and abroad, a whole design is made for the teaching mode of the core curriculum of optical engineering in our school "Applied Optics", building a new teaching mode which takes the methods of teaching basic parts as details, teaching application parts as emphases, teaching frontier parts as topics and teaching actual combat parts on site. Then combining with the questionnaire survey of students and opinions proposed by relevant experts in the teaching seminar, teaching effect and generalizability of the new teaching mode are analyzed and evaluated.

In recent years, CsPbBrsub3/subquantum dots (QDs) have attracted much attention due to their bright prospects in solar cell studies. Dielectric properties are important for the fabrication of optoelectronic devices. Here, the dielectric properties of a CsPbBrsub3/subQD solution are investigated between 0.1 and 2.0 THz by terahertz time-domain spectroscopy. The measured frequency-dependent transmitted ratio is found to decrease from 0.96 to 0.80 in this range. By comparing different concentrations of the QD solution, the frequency-averaged absorption is linearly increased with the increase in QD concentration. After that, the frequency-dependent dielectric constant, including the complex refractive index, complex dielectric constant, and conductivity, is extracted by Fourier transform of the time-domain spectrum. An effective medium approach method is adopted to extract the complex dielectric constant of a CsPbBrsub3/subQD inclusion, and a slight peak around 0.4 THz is found in the imaginary part of the dielectric constant. The result of Drude-Lorentz fitting shows that the phonon plays a dominant role in the dielectric properties of a CsPbBrsub3/subQD solution. Moreover, the THz response of a CsPbBrsub3/subQD is found to be unchanged when the test is conducted under illumination. We attribute this phenomenon to the discrete energy level of excitons in CsPbBrsub3/subQDs due to quantum confinement, and design a comparative experiment to validate it. This study is significant for its deeper insight into the dielectric properties of CsPbBrsub3/subQDs, and thus is helpful through its applications in optoelectronics.

The emergence of larger-scaled two-dimensional (2D) layered materials has attracted intense research efforts and significant progress in the area of photonics and optoelectronics recently. As a remarkable representative of 2D materials, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have demonstrated an astonishing photoconductivity and the ultrafast charge carrier dynamics, which provides excellent potentials for ultrafast optical modulators. Herein, by simply transferring a high-quality CVD-grown WSe2 multilayer on plasmon-induced transparency (PIT) metasurfaces, we demonstrate that the transmission amplitude modulation is as high as 43% and the slow light switching is up to 6 ps in the THz regime. Under photoexcitation, both functionalities are dynamically controlled within ~8 ps owing to a merit of ultrafast free carriers’ relaxation in the WSe2 multilayer. Moreover, a theoretical model consisting of two coupled harmonic oscillators and the near-field distributions are simultaneously employed to verify the strong dependence of the active PIT switching behavior on the suppression of the bright mode of split ring resonators. Our proposed versatile active WSe2-functionalized metasurface with a low cost and simple manufacturing will give researchers new insights into the ultrafast switchable metaphotonic devices.

An analytical model of transient latch-up in CMOS transmission gate induced by laser is established. The time-dependent current characteristics of the parasitic silicon controlled rectifier (SCR) under different injected photocurrent are illustrated. The model analyzes the trigger conditions for latch-up and describes the dynamic process varying with time. The photocurrent threshold causing latch-up under different pulse widths and repetition frequencies is obtained, which agrees well with the experimental results reported in the literature.

The year 2019 marks the 10th anniversary of the first report of ultrafast fiber laser mode-locked by graphene. This result has had an important impact on ultrafast laser optics and continues to offer new horizons. Herein, we mainly review the linear and nonlinear photonic properties of two-dimensional (2D) materials, as well as their nonlinear applications in efficient passive mode-locking devices and ultrafast fiber lasers. Initial works and significant progress in this field, as well as new insights and challenges of 2D materials for ultrafast fiber lasers, are reviewed and analyzed.

Active control of metamaterial properties with high tunability of both resonant intensity and frequency is essential for advanced terahertz (THz) applications, ranging from spectroscopy and sensing to communications. Among varied metamaterials, plasmon-induced transparency (PIT) has enabled active control with giant sensitivity by embedding semiconducting materials. However, there is still a stringent challenge to achieve dynamic responses in both intensity and frequency modulation. Here, an anisotropic THz active metamaterial device with an ultrasensitive modulation feature is proposed and experimentally studied. A radiative-radiative-coupled PIT system is established, with a frequency shift of 0.26 THz in its sharp transparent windows by polarization rotation. Enabled by high charge-carrier mobility and longer diffusion lengths, we utilize a straightforwardly spin-coated MAPbI3 film acting as a photoactive medium to endow the device with high sensitivity and ultrafast speed. When the device is pumped by an ultralow laser fluence, the PIT transmission windows at 0.86 and 1.12 THz demonstrate a significant reduction for two polarizations, respectively, with a full recovery time of 561 ps. In addition, we numerically prove the validity that the investigated resonator structure is sensitive to the optically induced conductivity. The hybrid system not only achieves resonant intensity and frequency modulations simultaneously, but also preserves the all-optical-induced switching merits with high sensitivity and speed, which enriches multifunctional subwavelength metamaterial devices at THz frequencies.

Recently, topological insulator based heterostructures (HSs) have attracted tremendous research interest, due to their efficient carrier transfer features at the heterointerface induced by metallic surface states. Here, a novel HS comprising 0D perovskite CsPbBr3 quantum dots (QDs) and 2D material topological insulator Bi2Se3 film is proposed and experimentally investigated. Specifically, steady state and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) measurements are employed, from which a significant quenching behaviour is observed in the HS, with an average quenching factor of 93.2 ± 0.8%. Additionally, time-resolved PL spectroscopy affirms that the carrier transfer efficiency can be up to 92.6 ± 0.2%. Furthermore, the dynamics of carrier transfer within the 0D-2D HS are characterized by utilizing femtosecond broadband transient absorption (TA) spectroscopy, revealing an ultrafast exciton transfer from photoexcited CsPbBr3 QDs to the Bi2Se3 film with a time-scale around 1.1 ± 0.2 ps. An alternative important finding is that the band renormalization is exhibited in CsPbBr3 QDs of the HS, with the dominant factor being the Coulomb screening effect. This work is expected to provide some fundamental understanding of the ultrafast and efficient carrier transfer mechanism underneath HSs based on topological insulators.

Recently lead halide nanocrystals (quantum dots) have been reported with potential for photovoltaic and optoelectronic applications due to their excellent luminescent properties. Herein excitonic photoluminescence (PL) excited by two-photon absorption in perovskite CsPbBr3 quantum dots (QDs) have been studied across a broad temperature range from 80K to 380K. Two-photon absorption has been investigated with absorption coefficient up to 0.085 cm/GW at room temperature. Moreover, the photoluminescence excited by two-photon absorption shows a linear blue-shift (0.25meV/K) below temperature of ~220K and turned steady with fluctuation below 1nm (4.4meV) for higher temperature up to 380K. These phenomena are distinctly different from general red-shift of semiconductor and can be explained by the competition between lattice expansion and electron-phonon couplling.Our results reveal the strong nonlinear absorption and temperature-independent chromaticity in a large temperature range from 220K to 380K in the CsPbX3 QDs, which will offer new opportunities in nonlinear photonics, light-harvesting and light-emitting devices., 4 pages, 5 figures

Broadband transient reflectivity traces were measured for Bi2Se3 thin films with various substrates via a 400 nm pump–white-light-probe setup. We have verified the existence of a second Dirac surface state in Bi2Se3 and qualitatively located it by properly analyzing the traces acquired at different probe wavelengths. Referring to the band structure of Bi2Se3, the relaxation mechanisms for photo-excited electrons with different energies are also revealed and studied. Our results show a second rise of the transient reflection signal at the time scale of several picoseconds. The types of substrate can also significantly affect the dynamics of the rising signal. This phenomenon is attributed to the effect of lattice heating and coherent phonon processes. The mechanism study in this work will benefit the fabrication of high-performance photonic devices based on topological insulators.

Two-dimensional transitional metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) based lateral heterojunctions have emerged as appealing and intriguing materials for applications in the next generation flexible nanoelectronics. The construction of depletion region near the in-plane interface brings rich opto-electrical dynamics, which is essential for future applications. Due to the synchronous requirement of spatial and time resolution, the study of lateral heterojunction dynamics remains a challenging issue. Herein, with a home-built spatiotemporal femtosecond transient absorption (TAS) spectroscopy platform, we have investigated the ultrafast photocarrier dynamics of monolayer spatial composition-graded WS2xSe2(1−x) lateral heterojunctions. At the alloy interface, the charge transfer (CT) processes have been visualized and referred to occur in 1 ps time scale. The mobility difference between electrons and holes results in the space modulation of the interface and a significant broadening of rising edge on the shell region. Moreover, carrier lifetime near the interface is extraordinarily extended by over 3 times from 153 ps to 678 ps. All these results unveil its great potential in designing future low cost logic devices and ultrafast optical applications.

International audience; Employing a pump-probe polarization-based two-frame shadowgraphy setup, the formation of filamentary damage induced in bulk fused silica by a nanosecond pulse at 1064 nm is investigated with a picosecond probe. Three different phases are exhibited in the damage experiments. The first phase is the formation of a micrometric plasma channel along the laser direction during the beginning of the pulse likely caused by multi-photon ionization. This channel exhibits growth during similar to 400 ps, and the newly grown plasma is discrete. Then, during the end of the pulse, this channel evolves into a tadpole-like morphology showing an elliptical head upstream the laser flux followed by a thin tail. This observed asymmetry is attributed to shielding effects caused by both the plasma and hot modified silica. Once the damage shows its almost final morphology, a last phase consists in the launch of a pressure wave enlarging it after the laser pulse. The physical mechanisms that might be involved in the formation of plasma channels are discussed. The experimental data are first confronted to the moving breakdown model which overestimates the filamentary damage length. Finally, taking into account the temporal shape of the laser pulses, the coupling between Kerr-induced self-focusing and stimulated Brillouin scattering is discussed to interpret the observations. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.

The nonlinear properties of black phosphorus (BP) nanoplatelets (NPs) have been characterized with Z-scan measurements under 800-nm femtosecond pulsed laser excitation. A transition from saturable absorption (SA) to reverse saturable absorption (RSA) with the increase of laser intensity was observed in the open-aperture (OA) measurements. Simultaneously, closed-aperture (CA) measurements were carried out to investigate the nonlinear refractive index of BP NPs together, and a value of n(2) ≃(6.8±0.2)×10(-13) m2/W was obtained. The nonlinear absorption properties were analyzed according to the band structure of BP. A theoretical analysis based on SA and two-photon absorption (TPA) was used to determine the nonlinear absorption coefficients from the experimental results, and the TPA coefficient at 800 nm was estimated about (4.5±0.2)×10(-10) m/W.

Recent progress in solar cell and light-emitting devices makes halide perovskite a research hot spot in optics. In this Letter, the nonlinear absorption and fluorescence properties of FAPbBr3 nanocrystal, one typical organometallic halide perovskite, have been investigated via Z-scan measurements and a density-dependent photoluminescence (PL) spectrum. The FAPbBr3 nanocrystal exhibits nonlinear absorption under the excitation of 800 nm, whose photon energy is below the bandgap of FAPbBr3. The significant absorption is experimentally confirmed to be induced by two-photon absorption (TPA), and the TPA coefficient is measured to be ∼0.0042 cm/GW. Moreover, the PL induced by TPA in FAPbBr3 nanocrystal shows different temperature-dependent behaviors in the range of 90 to 350 K. The peaks of the PL spectrum remain nearly constant at 100–160 K, with a very shallow trough at around 150 K, while a linear blue shift (0.496 meV/K) of the spectrum is observed when temperature is above 160 K. These temperature-dependent fluorescence behaviors can be ascribed to the structural phase transition at about 150 K and the contribution of thermal expansion. Moreover, the exciton binding energy around 160 meV and the optical phonon energy of 15.3 meV are also extracted from the temperature-dependent PL data.

Owing to their unique physical properties, monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) have been widely used in applications of light-emitting diodes (LEDs). However, monolayers of TMDCs undergo dramatic aging effects, including intense degradation in optical behavior, extensive cracking, and severe quenching of the direct gap photoluminescence (PL), seriously limiting the device performance. In this work, we show that monolayer WS2 stored for three months even in the glovebox exhibits obvious degenerative PL with changed peak position that can be attributed to the presence of a large number of trions induced by the aging effect. PC61BM surface processing was used to modify the surface of the aged monolayer WS2. As expected, higher uniformity in the PL spectrum was obtained. Besides, the PL peak wavelength was modified to be the same as that of the nonaged one and did not change even at higher excitation power. This strategy is shown to successfully suppress the formation of the trion by transferring the excess electrons from WS2 to PC61BM. The results demonstrate the feasibility of applying PC61BM surface modification to improve the performance of the LED based on monolayer WS2.

Topological insulators (TIs) are new states of quantum matter in which the spin-momentum-locked surface states reside in the bulk insulating gap and have triggered extensive investigations on fundamental properties and potential applications. Herein, we report scalable, broadband photovoltaic detectors based on the topological insulator Sb2Te3/strontium titanate (STO) heterostructure. Large-scale (2 mm × 5 mm), high crystalline quality p-type Sb2Te3 films were fabricated on an n-type STO substrate by the molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) method. The Sb2Te3/STO heterostructures exhibited pronounced photovoltaic behavior in a wide range of temperatures as a result of a strong built-in field at the hetero-interface. Superior performances of broadband (from visible to infrared, 405 nm–1550 nm) and ultrafast (rise time ∼30 μs, fall time ∼95 μs) photoresponses were achieved under ambient conditions. The prominent repeatability and stability indicated that our photodetectors can operate effectively in harsh circumstances. These results show that stacking the topological insulator thin films on a strongly correlated oxide substrate using the MBE approach holds great promise for high performance optoelectronic applications.

Laser-induced rear surface breakdown process of sodium chloride (NaCl) optical window was investigated based on the time-resolved shadowgraphy and interferometry. Violent particle ejection behavior lasting from tens of nanoseconds to tens of microseconds after the breakdown was observed. Classified by the particle velocity and propagating direction, the ejection process can be divided into three phases: (1) high-speed ejection of liquid particles during the first 100-ns delay; (2) micron-sized material clusters ejection from ∼ 100 - ns to ∼ 1 - μ s delay; (3) larger and slower solid-state particles ejection from ∼ 1 μ s to tens of microseconds delay. The moving directions of particles in the first and third phases are both perpendicular to the sample surface while particles ejected in the second phase exhibits angular ejection and present a V-like particle pattern. Mechanisms include explosive boiling, impact ejection, and shockwave ejection are discussed to explain this multiple phase ejection behavior. Our results highlight the significance of impact ejection induced by recoil pressure and backward propagating internal shockwave for laser-induced rear surface breakdown events of optical materials with low melting point.

The growth processes of CoAl(001) films are studied by kinetic Monte Carlo simulations (KMC) combined with first principle calculations. The calculation results show that (i) for stoichiometric CoAl(001) films, the surface is occupied by pure Al; (ii) for Co slightly enriched films, the Co anti-sites segregate on the surface with a c(2 × 2) short range order; (iii) there is a peak value for the number of Co anti-sites on the surface with a change of temperature. At high temperature, the number of anti-sites c(Co)(s) on the surface is low because of the entropy effect. At low temperature, c(Co)(s) is also low because of the frozen effect. These results are in agreement with experiments, which means that the kinetic effects are important to the surface structures of CoAl(001).

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), such as tungsten disulfide (WS(2)), are layered materials with strong in-plane bonding and weak out-of-plane interactions enabling exfoliation into two-dimensional layers of single unit cell thickness. Recent advances in nanoscale materials characterization and few layer TMDCs' unique optical properties make them a research hot-spot in nonlinear optics. In this work, the nonlinear refractive index of monolayer WS(2) has been characterized with Z-scan measurement under 800nm femtosecond pulsed laser excitation, and a value of n2 ≃ (8.1 ± 0.41) × 10(-13)m(2)/W is obtained. A shift from saturable absorption to reverse saturable absorption was observed at higher input pump intensities in the experiments. The transition process was analyzed using a phenomenological model based on two photon absorption, and the two photon absorption coefficient was estimated about (3.7±0.28)×10(-6)m/W.

The response mechanism of n-type indium antimonide photoconductive detectors under intense continuous wave (CW) 10.6 µm laser irradiation is investigated. The magnitude of the Voc signals and the exact shape of the signals vary greatly with laser power density and irradiation time. It is found that the signals begin to decrease at a critical time when laser power density is held in a constant value. If the irradiation time is fixed, the signals begin to decrease in a critical laser power density. The Voc signals for both radiation process and the end of laser irradiation have two different response time scales. A two-dimensional model of the detector for CW laser irradiation is presented. The calculated response curves agree well with the experimental results. The two separate time scales are found to be due to two thermally resistive bonding layers. Temperature-dependent mobility is the domain mechanism for the increasing tendency of Voc signals, and the decreasing tendency results from thermally generated carrier effect.

Growths of GaN on Si(111) – (7 × 7) substrates by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy (PA-MBE) have been studied. Optimal conditions of MBE and the effect of a low-temperature (LT) buffer are followed. It is found that irrespective of the growth conditions and the growth strategies (direct versus two-step growth), a thin amorphous-like interface layer always forms. For smooth surfaces and better crystallinity of the epifilms, a LT-buffer preceding the high-temperature deposition is helpful, and the grown GaN films are of nitrogen-polar. Transport measurements of the heterojunctions of GaN on heavily p- and n-doped Si reveal ohmic behavior, whereas that of n-GaN on lightly doped n−-Si substrate shows rectifying characteristics.