A quantum circuit design of AES requiring fewer quantum qubits and gate operations

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is one of the most widely used block ciphers nowadays, and has been established as an encryption standard in 2001. Here we design AES-128 and the sample-AES (S-AES) quantum circuits for deciphering. In the quantum circuit of AES-128, we perform an affine transformation for the SubBytes part to solve the problem that the initial state of the output qubits in SubBytes is not the |0>^⊗8 state. After that, we are able to encode the new round sub-key on the qubits encoding the previous round sub-key, and this improvement reduces the number of qubits used by 224 compared with Langenberg et al.’s implementation. For S-AES, a complete quantum circuit is presented with only 48 qubits, which is already within the reach of existing noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers.     

Kinetics of carbon steel dissolution in ammonium chloride solution containing sodium thiosulfate

The dissolution behavior of carbon steel in ammonium chloride (NH₄Cl) solution containing sodium thiosulfate (Na₂S₂O₃) of various concentrations (0.01 and 0.1 M) was investigated using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and other nonelectrochemical techniques. The weight loss and polarization measurements indicate a significant increase in the NH₄Cl corrosion rate of carbon steel on addition of Na₂S₂O_3. The EIS measurements exhibited two capacitive loops at multiple direct current (dc) potentials for both the concentrations. Electrical equivalent circuit (EEC) and reaction mechanism analysis (RMA) were employed to analyze the impedance data. A four-step mechanism with two intermediate adsorbate species of same charge was proposed to explain the dissolution behavior of carbon steel in the given system. The surface coverage values enumerated that the surface was entirely covered with adsorbed species unlike in the pure NH₄Cl system. Charge transfer resistance and polarization resistance values estimated from RMA parameters indicate the increase in a dissolution rate with dc potential. The surface morphology was inspected via field emission scanning electron microscopy, and the corrosion products including surface state of carbon steel electrode were analyzed using energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.     

Printed Circuit Board-Based Electrolyte Regulator for Laminar Microfluidics

The trench on a printed circuit board was reconstructed to fabricate a microfluidic framework that allows low-cost production for small quantities and integration with multifunctional elements. An on-chip electrolyte regulator was thus proposed on this platform to analyze diffusion properties in laminar flow. A numerical model was developed, highlighting the interplay between the electrolyte migration and hydrodynamic properties. Solutions with dissolved sodium chloride were simulated and experimentally tested for the regulation of electrical conductivity under the guidance of the normalized Nernst-Planck equation. The diffusion mechanism and the resulting concentration field were demonstrated in detail. This approach provides a satisfactory manufacturing method and a useful tool for integrated microfluidic systems.     

地磁对γγ方向角关联测量的影响

在γ-γ角关联实验中,发现能谱中全能峰的位置随探头方位角的改变而变化。本文通过不同的实验,验证了地磁对能谱测量的干扰以及对γ-γ方向角关联测量的影响。发现地磁对测量的影响主要来自光电倍增管,地磁方向与光电倍增管中电子飞行方向的夹角的改变,引起光电倍增管增益变化,最终给γ-γ方向角关联测量带来较大的影响。文中总结了如何减小地磁影响,改进γ-γ方向角关联实验测量的方法。     

Point‐to‐Plane Nonhomogeneous Electric‐Field‐Induced Simultaneous Formation of Giant Unilamellar Vesicles (GUVs) and Lipid Tubes

It is well‐known that homogeneous electric fields can be used to generate giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs). Herein we report an interesting phenomenon of formation of GUVs and lipid tubes simultaneously using a nonhomogeneous electric field generated by point‐to‐plane electrodes. The underlying mechanism was analyzed using finite element analysis. The two forces play main roles, that is, the pulling force (F) to drag GUVs into lipid tubes induced by fluid flow, and the critical force (Fc) to prevent GUVs from deforming into lipid tubes induced by electric fields. In the center area underneath the needle electrode, the GUVs were found because F is less than Fc in that region, whereas in the edge area the lipid tubes were obtained because F is larger than Fc. The diffusion coefficient of lipid in the tubes was found to be 4.45 μm² s^?1 using a fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) technique. The method demonstrated here is superior to conventional GUV or lipid tube fabrication methods, and has great potential in cell mimic or hollow material fabrication using GUVs and tubes as templates.     

低喷淋密度超亲水表面水平管降液膜温度分布

水平管降液膜蒸发广泛应用在石油、化工、海水淡化等领域,对低喷淋密度温度演化规律的研究有助于拓宽其应用范围,理解其微观机理。本文在超亲水表面上结合红外热追踪技术,对水平管降液膜表面的温度演化规律进行了研究,分析了温度分区现象和温升规律。实验中首次发现了马鞍形液膜内部的高温环状结构,并结合三维数值模拟揭示了掺混作用导致的局部高温环状结构形成的内部机理。     

A survey on HHL algorithm: From theory to application in quantum machine learning

The Harrow-Hassidim-Lloyd (HHL) algorithm is a method to solve the quantum linear system of equations that may be found at the core of various scientific applications and quantum machine learning models including the linear regression, support vector machines and recommender systems etc. After reviewing the necessary background on elementary quantum algorithms, we provide detailed account of how HHL is exploited in different quantum machine learning (QML) models, and how it provides the desired quantum speedup in all these models. At the end, we briefly discuss some of the remaining challenges ahead for HHL-based QML models and related methods.     

对史密斯-帕塞尔自由电子激光光栅的研究

为了研究史密斯-帕塞尔自由电子激光的输出频率和光栅槽深、光栅槽长、光栅槽宽的关系,对于基于矩形光栅的史密斯-帕塞尔自由电子激光利用粒子模拟软件进行模拟和理论分析。首先,利用粒子模拟软件模拟对于基于矩形光栅的史密斯-帕塞尔自由电子激光进行了研究,发现史密斯-帕塞尔自由电子激光的输出频率随光栅槽深、光栅槽长、光栅槽宽的增大而减少。接着,对史密斯-帕塞尔自由电子激光的光栅槽进行了理论分析,发现每个光栅槽都可以等效为一个LC谐振电路,并发现在史密斯-帕塞尔自由电子激光中存在两种辐射,一种是史密斯-帕塞尔辐射,另一种是LC振荡辐射。最后,对光栅槽的LC振荡辐射进行了估算,发现史密斯-帕塞尔自由电子激光输出频率的模拟值与光栅槽的LC振荡辐射估算值的数量级均为102 GHz,且变化规律上一致。据此推测决定史密斯-帕塞尔自由电子激光输出频率的应该是光栅槽,而不是谐振腔。     

Theoretical studies of photovoltaic properties of five new silol dithiophene based D2-A-D1-A-D2 donors

Organic solar cell of silol dithiophene based D₂-A-D₁-A-D₂/PC₇₁BM (D: donor part; A: acceptor part; 1 and 2 denote different units) possesses promising power conversion efficiency. Researchers have studied D₂-A-D₁-A-D₂ molecules carefully, including the effects of the different number of terminal thiophenes, the different central moiety (D₁), and the length of the alkyl chain. However, there are few investigations, especially theoretical studies, on the influences of different A (acceptor) units on the properties of D₂-A-D₁-A-D₂ molecule. In the present work, we have designed and modeled five new D₂-A-D₁-A-D₂ (D₂ = bithiophene and D₁ = silol dithiophene) donors by changing A units (A = diketopyrrolopyrrole, naphtho[1,2-c:5,6-c′]bis[1,2,5]thiadiazole, 5-fluoro-2,1,3-benzoselenadiazole, benzobisthiadiazole, and thiazolo[5,4-d]thiazole). We have applied density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent DFT to predict their ground-state electronic structures and the UV–vis spectra, and the open circuit voltages (Vocs) of organic solar cells of D₂-A-D₁-A-D₂/PC₇₁BM. Based on the calculated results, we find that bithiophene thiazolo[5,4-d]thiazole siloldithiophene (BTTS) (D₂ = bithiophene, A = thiazolo[5,4-d]thiazole, D₁ = silol dithiophene) possesses the highest lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (−2.60 eV) and the lowest highest occupied molecular orbital (−5.33 eV) energies, and the strongest absorption in the visible region. Besides, the solar cell of BTTS/PC₇₁BM has the highest Voc of 1.02 V. These results indicate that it may be a promising donor. In contrast, bithiophene benzobisthiadiazole siloldithiophene (BBBS) (A = benzobisthiadiazole) has low absorption strength in the visible region, which indicates that it may not be a suitable donor material.     

The pyrolysis of propane

The pyrolysis of propane plays an important role in determining the combustion properties of natural gas mixtures and offers insight into the cracking patterns of larger fuels. This work investigates propane pyrolysis behind reflected shock waves with a multiwavelength laser-absorption speciation technique. Nine laser wavelengths, sensitive to key pyrolysis species, were used to measure absorbance time histories during the decomposition of 2% propane in argon between 1022 and 1467 K, 3.7-4.3 atm. Absorbance models were developed at each diagnostic wavelength to interrogate common initial conditions, and time histories of all major species are reported at 1250, 1290, 1330, 1370, and 1410 K. Nearly complete carbon recovery observed at lower temperatures enabled the inference of hydrogen formation from atomic conservation, while decaying carbon recovery at high temperatures suggests the formation of allene and 1-butene. The results show systematically faster pyrolysis than predicted by kinetic modeling and motivate further study into the kinetics of propane pyrolysis.