Construction and cosmic-ray test of the new inner drift chamber for BESIII

A new inner drift chamber has been built which can replace the aged part of the BESIII drift chamber when needed. The design of the new inner drift chamber can minimize the ineffective area in the very forward and backward region and hence reduce the background event rate. With this design, the new inner drift chamber is expected to have a longer lifetime and improved performance due to the lower occupancy. The endplates and the cylinder were machined with high precision. Wire stringing was performed after the mechanical structure was assembled, and good quality of wire stringing was ensured by measurement of the tension and leakage current of the wires. After completion of the physical construction of the new chamber, a cosmic-ray test was carried out to test its performance. The results of the cosmic-ray test show that the new inner chamber achieves a spatial resolution of127 μm and a d E/dx resolution of 6.4%, which satisfies the design specifications.     

The synthesis of aligned silicon nanowires under ambient atmospheric pressure

Highly ordered amorphous silicon nanowires were successfully synthesized from single crystalline silicon wafer at the pyrolysis temperature of 1050 °C under ambient atmospheric pressure. Both poly (phenylcarbyne) and nickel nitrate played important roles in the growth of silicon nanowires. The fabrication of ordered silicon nanowires was controllable and repeatable, confirmed by the experimental results. The morphology and microstructure analysis of the as-obtained samples showed the highly ordered amorphous silicon nanowires were obtained, determined by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and FT-infrared spectroscopy. A solid-liquid-solid growing process was proposed.     

Extractive Atmospheric Pressure Photoionization (EAPPI) Mass Spectrometry: Rapid Analysis of Chemicals in Complex Matrices

Extractive atmospheric pressure photoionization (EAPPI) mass spectrometry was designed for rapid qualitative and quantitative analysis of chemicals in complex matrices. In this method, an ultrasonic nebulization system was applied to sample extraction, nebulization, and vaporization. Mixed with a gaseous dopant, vaporized analytes were ionized through ambient photon-induced ion–molecule reactions, and were mass-analyzed by a high resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOF-MS). After careful optimization and testing with pure sample solution, EAPPI was successfully applied to the fast screening of capsules, soil, natural products, and viscous compounds. Analysis was completed within a few seconds without the need for preseparation. Moreover, the quantification capability of EAPPI for matrices was evaluated by analyzing six polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in soil. The correlation coefficients (R ² ) for standard curves of all six PAHs were above 0.99, and the detection limits were in the range of 0.16–0.34 ng/mg. In addition, EAPPI could also be used to monitor organic chemical reactions in real time.

Open image in new window

Graphical Abstract ?

     

Enhanced thermal degradation of 2,2′-dichlorodiethyl sulfide (sulfur mustard,HD) with the presence of metal oxides

Thermal degradation of sulfur mustard (2,2′-dichlorodiethyl sulfide, HD) in the presence of metal oxide adsorbents was investigated by thermal desorption in conjunction with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Zr(OH)₄, Al₂O₃, Al₂CoO₄, MgO, CeO₂, and V₂O₅ were used as metal oxide adsorbents. Neat HD was spiked onto the metal oxides packed in glass tubes, which were kept at room temperature and then heated at moderately elevated temperatures of 100°C by a thermal desorption system. The products of thermal degradation were directly transferred and analyzed by GC-MS. 1,4-Dithiane and 1,4-oxathiane were characterized as the major products of the thermal degradation of HD in the presence of Zr(OH)₄, Al₂O₃, Al₂CoO₄, and CeO₂ adsorbents. No effective degradation was observed with MgO and V₂O₅. Of particular note is Zr(OH)₄, which extremely enhanced the thermal degradation of HD.     

Measurement of 129Xe frequency shift due to Cs–129Xe collisions

Enhancement factor K0, which characterizes NMR and EPR frequency shifts for Cs-129Xe, is measured for the first time. The enhancement factor r-o was measured to be （702±41） at 80 ℃ and （653±20） at 90 ℃, using the NMR frequency shift, detected by atomic magnetometer at a low magnetic field of 100 nT. This result is useful for predicting the EPR frequency shifts for Cs and the NMR frequency shifts for 129Xe in spin-exchange cells.     

Plasmon-induced absorption in stacked metamaterials based on phase retardation

In this paper, based on the constructive interference of plasmonic dipolar and quadrupolar modes, a classical analogue of electromagnetically induced absorption （EIA） is demonstrated theoretically in a stacked metamaterial consisting of a short metal strip （which acts as a bright resonator） and a long metal strip （acting as a dark resonator）, which has been reported to support the electromagnetically induced transparency （EIT） effect. The transition from EIA to EIT can be clearly observed in the absorbance spectra via varying the vertical spacing between two resonant oscillators. With the help of the coupled two-oscillator model, the phase shift between the bright and dark resonance modes is calculated by fitting the simulated absorbance spectra, which reveals the physical mechanisms behind constructive and destructive interference effects in EIT/EIA metamaterials.     

Designing of a polarization beam splitter for the wavelength of 1310 nm on dual-core photonic crystal fiber with high birefringence and double-zero dispersion

We have proposed a novel kind of photonic crystal fiber which contains two asymmetric cores. The bireti＇ingence and the dispersion are numerically analyzed based on finite element method when the size of the air holes and the pitch of two adjacent air holes are changed. It is shown that the proposed photonic crystal fiber has high birefringence up to the order of 10-2 and double-zero dispersion points are at the wavelengths of 1310 nm and 800 rim, simultaneously. At the same time, the normalized power and the extinction ratios of the proposed photonic crystal fiber have been simulated. It is demonstrated that, at the wavelength of 1310 rim, the x-polarized mode and the y-polarized mode are separated when the propagation distance is 2.481 ram.     

Investigation on landing impact dynamic and low-gravity experiments for deep space lander

Herein symmetrical four-legged suspension lunar lander was used as the research object, the six-degree-of-freedom dynamic model was built and the model of the lunar soil friction coefficient was improved. For the low-gravity simulation on objects outside earth for future work, the law of dynamic similarity for detectors was deduced. A new method was proposed for simulating the low-gravity field on the surface of objects outside earth, which was achieved by changing initial conditions of the landing by the probe and by subsequent treatment of experimental data. The prototype tested the limitation of this method was verified. It is shown that the prototypes of detectors can be used in detectors low-gravity simulation test with this method, and equipments are simple and operationally effective. This method can be used for later lunar exploration, and low-gravity simulations on extraterrestrial objects.     

Three‐dimensional visible‐light capsule enclosing perfect supersized darkness via antiresolution

Supersized darkness in three dimensions surrounded by all light in free space is demonstrated theoretically and experimentally in the visible regime. The object staying in the darkness is similar to staying in an empty light capsule because light just bypasses it by resorting to destructive interference. A binary‐optical system is designed and fabricated based on achieving antiresolution (AR), by which electromagnetic energy flux avoids and bends smoothly around a nearly perfect darkness region. AR remains an unexplored topic hitherto, in contrast to the super‐resolution for realizing high spatial resolution. This novel scheme replies on smearing out the point spread function and thus poses less stringent limitations upon the object's size and position since the created dark (zero‐field) area reach 8 orders of magnitude larger than λ² in cross‐sectional size. It functions very well with arbitrarily polarized beams in three dimensions, which is also frequency scalable in the whole electromagnetic spectrum.     

Line width analysis of a tunable optical filter based on free-space optics

The line width of a tunable optical filter based on free-space optics was analyzed. The relationship between the line width and the Gaussian beam waist was theoretically derived and experimentally verified. The experimental results meet the theoretical analysis well, which is beneficial for the design of a tunable optical filter based on free-space optics.