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Compared with conventional single-energy computed tomography (CT), dual-energy CT (DECT) provides better material differentiation but most DECT imaging systems require dual full-angle projection data at different X-ray spectra. Relaxing the requirement of data acquisition is a particularly attractive research to promote the applications of DECT in a wide range of imaging areas. In this work, we design a novel DECT imaging scheme with dual quarter scans and propose an efficient method to reconstruct the desired DECT images from dual limited-angle projection data, which enables DECT on imaging configurations with half-scan and largely reduces scanning angles and radiation doses. We first study the characteristics of image artifacts under dual quarter scans scheme, and find that the directional limited-angle artifacts of DECT images are complementarily distributed in image domain because the corresponding X-rays of high- and low-energy scans are orthogonal. Inspired by this finding, a fusion CT image is generated by integrating the limited-angle DECT images of dual quarter scans. This strategy largely reduces the limited-angle artifacts and preserves the image edges and inner structures. Utilizing the capability of neural network in the modeling of nonlinear problem, a novel Anchor network with single-entry double-out architecture is designed in this work to yield the desired DECT images from the generated fusion CT image. Experimental results on the simulated and real data verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Quantum photon sources of high rate, brightness, and purity are increasingly desirable as quantum information systems are quickly scaled up and applied to many fields. Using a periodically poled lithium niobate microresonator on chip, we demonstrate photon-pair generation at high rates of 8.5 MHz and 36.3 MHz using only 3.4-$\mu$W and 13.4-$\mu$W pump power, respectively, marking orders of magnitude improvement over the state-of-the-art. The measured coincidence to accidental ratio is well above 100 at those high rates and reaches $14,682\pm 4427$ at a lower pump power. The same chip enables heralded single-photon generation at tens of megahertz rates, each with low auto-correlation $g^{(2)}_{H}(0)=0.008$ and $0.097$ for the microwatt pumps. Such distinct performance, facilitated by the chip device's noiseless and giant optical nonlinearity, will contribute to the forthcoming pervasive adoption of quantum optical information technologies., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

Compared with the conventional 1*1 acquisition mode of projection in computed tomography (CT) image reconstruction, the 2*2 acquisition mode improves the collection efficiency of the projection and reduces the X-ray exposure time. However, the collected projection based on the 2*2 acquisition mode has low resolution (LR) and the reconstructed image quality is poor, thus limiting the use of this mode in CT imaging systems. In this study, a novel sinogram-super-resolution generative adversarial network (SSR-GAN) model is proposed to obtain high-resolution (HR) sinograms from LR sinograms, thereby improving the reconstruction image quality under the 2*2 acquisition mode. The proposed generator is based on the residual network for LR sinogram feature extraction and super-resolution (SR) sinogram generation. A relativistic discriminator is designed to render the network capable of obtaining more realistic SR sinograms. Moreover, we combine the cycle consistency loss, sinogram domain loss, and reconstruction image domain loss in the total loss function to supervise SR sinogram generation. Then, a trained model can be obtained by inputting the paired LR/HR sinograms into the network. Finally, the classic FBP reconstruction algorithm is used for CT image reconstruction based on the generated SR sinogram. The qualitative and quantitative results of evaluations on digital and real data illustrate that the proposed model not only obtains clean SR sinograms from noisy LR sinograms but also outperforms its counterparts.

Nematode species are well-known for their invariant cell lineage pattern during development. Combining knowledge about the fate specification induced by asymmetric division and the anti-correlation between cell cycle length and cell volume in Caenorhabditis elegans, we propose a model to simulate lineage initiation by altering cell volume segregation ratio in each division, and quantify the derived pattern's performance in proliferation speed, fate diversity and space robustness. The stereotypic pattern in C. elegans embryo is found to be one of the most optimal solutions taking minimum time to achieve the cell number before gastrulation, by programming asymmetric division as a strategy., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, 4 supplemental figures, 2 supplemental tables

Thin-film lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) has emerged as a superior integrated-photonics platform for linear, nonlinear, and electro-optics. Here we combine quasi-phase-matching, dispersion engineering, and tight mode confinement to realize nonlinear parametric processes with both high efficiency and wide wavelength tunability. On a millimeter-long, Z-cut LNOI waveguide, we demonstrate ultra-efficient ($1900\pm500 \% $W$^{-1}$cm$^{-2}$) and highly tunable (-1.71 nm/K) second-harmonic generation from 1530 to 1583 nm by type-0 quasi-phase-matching. Our technique is applicable to optical harmonic generation, quantum light sources, frequency conversion, and many other photonic information processing across visible to mid-IR spectral bands.

The widely used crystal structures for both heptazine-based and triazine-based two-dimensional (2D) graphitic carbon nitride (g-C$_3$N$_4$) are the flat P-6m2 configurations. However, the experimentally synthesized 2D g-C$_3$N$_4$ possess thickness ranging in 0.2-0.5 nm, indicating that the theoretically used flat P-6m2 configurations are not the correct ground states. In this work, we propose three new corrugated structures P321, P3m1 and Pca21 with energies of 66 (86), 77 (87) and 78 (89) meV/atom lower than that of the corresponding heptazine-based (triazine-based) g-C$_3$N$_4$ in flat P-6m2 configuration, respectively. These corrugated structures have very similar periodic patterns to the flat P-6m2 ones and they are difficult to be distinguished from each other according to their top-views. The optimized thicknesses of the three corrugated structures ranging in 1.347-3.142 {\AA} are in good agreement with the experimental results. The first-principles results show that these corrugated structural candidates are also semiconductors with band gaps slightly larger than those of the correspondingly flat P-6m2 ones. Furthermore, they possess also suitable band edge positions for sun-light-driven water-splitting at both $pH=0$ and $pH=7$ environments. Our results show that these three new structures are more promising candidates for the experimentally synthesized g-C$_3$N$_4$., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

Based on first-principles method we predict a new low-energy Stone-Wales graphene SW40, which has an orthorhombic lattice with Pbam symmetry and 40 carbon atoms in its crystalline cell forming well-arranged Stone-Wales patterns. The calculated total energy of SW40 is just about 133 meV higher than that of graphene, indicating its excellent stability exceeds all the previously proposed graphene allotropes. We find that SW40 processes intrinsic Type-III Dirac-cone (Phys. Rev. Lett., 120, 237403, 2018) formed by band-crossing of a local linear-band and a local flat-band, which can result in highly anisotropic Fermions in the system. Interestingly, such intrinsic type-III Dirac-cone can be effectively tuned by inner-layer strains and it will be transferred into Type-II and Type-I Dirac-cones under tensile and compressed strains, respectively. Finally, a general tight-binding model was constructed to understand the electronic properties nearby the Fermi-level in SW40. The results show that type-III Dirac-cone feature can be well understood by the $\pi$-electron interactions between adjacent Stone-Wales defects., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures