Adaptive Radiative Thermal Camouflage via Synchronous Heat Conduction

The advent of transformation thermotics has seen a boom in development of thermal metamaterials with a variety of thermal functionalities,including phenomena such as thermal cloaking and camouflage.However,most thermal metamaterials-based camouflage devices only tune in-plane heat conduction,which may fail to conceal a target from out-of-plane detection.We propose an adaptive radiative thermal camouflage via tuning out-ofplane transient heat conduction,and it is validated by both simulation and experiment.The physics underlying the performance of our adaptive thermal camouflage is based on real-time synchronous heat conduction through the camouflage device and the background plate,respectively.The proposed concept and device represent a promising new approach to fabrication of conductive thermal metamaterials,providing a feasible and effective way to achieve adaptive thermal camouflage.     

热超构材料：几何结构、工作机制与新奇性质

因为在热保护、热探测和热管理领域存在重要的应用价值,自由操控宏观热流一直是人类的 一个梦想。热超构材料正是为此目的应运而生,它是电磁超构材料在热学领域的延伸。在此,我将 综述该领域自2008 年诞生以来取得的若干研究进展,其将主要包括以下新奇热现象或功能器件： 热隐身;热聚集;热旋转;宏观热二极管;热伪装;热透明;热晶体;环境温差中零能耗保温;宏 观热网络中反常热传导;热对流隐身、聚集、伪装;热辐射制冷。我将介绍与之相关的微观或宏观 传热机制,这些机制可以通过以下理论或方法来理解或阐述：变换热学理论、Laplace 方程、热声 子能带理论、相变理论、变换热对流理论、热辐射制冷理论。我也将介绍这些材料从基础研究到工 业应用的发展前景。     

磁斯格明子器件及其应用进展

磁斯格明子是一种具有准粒子特性的拓扑纳米磁畴壁结构.由于磁斯格明子具有较好的稳定性和新奇的动力学特性,并可被磁场、电场、电流等方式调控,有望成为高密度、低耗能、非易失性信息存储及逻辑运算的新兴信息载体.自2009年磁斯格明子首次被实验观测到至今,已有多种基于磁斯格明子的器件概念和原型器件被提出.本文对基于磁斯格明子应用的研究进展进行综述,对现阶段几种具有代表性的磁斯格明子器件应用进行简要介绍、分析和总结,包括基于磁斯格明子的赛道存储器件、逻辑计算器件、类晶体管功能器件和纳米级微波振荡器;同时阐述了几种可能的通过磁斯格明子表达二进制信息元的方法;并展望了磁斯格明子的其他潜在应用以及未来基于磁斯格明子器件应用的发展方向.     

Heat source reconstruction from noisy temperature fields using an optimised derivative Gaussian filter

The aim of this paper is to present a post-processing technique based on a derivative Gaussian filter to reconstruct heat source fields from temperature fields measured by infrared thermography. Heat sources can be deduced from temperature variations thanks to the heat diffusion equation. Filtering and differentiating are key-issues which are closely related here because the temperature fields which are processed are unavoidably noisy. We focus here only on the diffusion term because it is the most difficult term to estimate in the procedure, the reason being that it involves spatial second derivatives (a Laplacian for isotropic materials). This quantity can be reasonably estimated using a convolution of the temperature variation fields with second derivatives of a Gaussian function. The study is first based on synthetic temperature variation fields corrupted by added noise. The filter is optimised in order to reconstruct at best the heat source fields. The influence of both the dimension and the level of a localised heat source is discussed. Obtained results are also compared with another type of processing based on an averaging filter. The second part of this study presents an application to experimental temperature fields measured with an infrared camera on a thin plate in aluminium alloy. Heat sources are generated with an electric heating patch glued on the specimen surface. Heat source fields reconstructed from measured temperature fields are compared with the imposed heat sources. Obtained results illustrate the relevancy of the derivative Gaussian filter to reliably extract heat sources from noisy temperature fields for the experimental thermomechanics of materials.     

Electron waveguide devices

The discovery of electron waveguiding in one-dimensional (1D) semiconductor nanostructures has uncovered a new regime of electron transport with fascinating physics. The device potential of electron waveguides, however, remains largely unexplored. Over the last few years, our interuniversity team has been conducting research on the physics, technology and opportunities for device applications of split-gate AlGaAs/GaAs electron waveguides. We have examined electronic devices based on electron transport, tunneling and interference. Many problems have been identified in transport-type devices, but much more research is required before the engineering potential of tunneling and interference devices is understood. We have also investigated the potential of electron waveguides in photonic applications, with emphasis on far-infrared (or THz) photodetectors. Our research to date has revealed strong photon-induced currents in antenna-coupled electron waveguides that arise from quantum thermopower. Far-infrared photodetectors based on photon-induced quantum transport remain an interesting opportunity for the application of electron waveguides.     

光学图像伪装效果评估研究现状及关键问题

基于光学图像分析的目标伪装效果评估对于提高现役主战装备在战场上的生存能力有重要的指导意义,是军事国防领域中研究的热点问题之一。为了给目标探测与识别、伪装方案设计等相关领域研究学者提供参考,对传统光学伪装效果评估模型、神经网络评估模型、基于人眼视觉注意机制模型以及多属性决策模型进行了介绍,阐述了目前国内外典型评估方法的基本思路及应用,分析了不同模型的特点和不足以及光学伪装效果评估面临的问题。在此基础上,指出模型训练样本的获取和模型参数的自适应性以及运动目标伪装评估的时效性是未来伪装效果评估的研究重点。     

Fabrication of Josephson parameter amplifier and its applicationin squeezing vacuum fluctuations

Josephson parameter amplifier (JPA) is a microwave signal amplifier device with near-quantum-limit-noise performance. It has important applications in scientific research fields such as quantum computing and dark matter detection. This work reports the fabrication and characterization of broadband JPA devices and their applications in multi-qubit readout and squeezing of vacuum state. We use a process in which transmission lines and electrodes are made of niobium thin film and aluminum Josephson junctions are made by Dolan bridge technique. We believe this process is more convenient than the process we used previously. The whole production process adopts electron beam lithography technology to ensure high structural resolution. The test result shows that the gain value of the manufactured JPA can exceed 15 dB, and the amplification bandwidth is about 400 MHz. The noise temperature is about 400 mK at the working frequency of 6.2 GHz. The devices have been successfully used in experiments involving superconducting multi-qubit quantum processors. Furthermore, the device is applied to squeeze vacuum fluctuations and a squeezing level of 1.635 dB is achieved.     

While rotating while cloaking

Invisible optical and thermal cloaking have been explored as the typical demonstrations of the transformation optics and thermotics theory. However, the existing cloaks are realized by only one-coordinate transformation, and the cloaking layout, i.e. the form of electromagnetic wave/heat passing around the invisible region, is single for a long time. Here, we propose a new rotated thermal cloak which can unify the conventional cloaking and rotating together, and realize the while-rotating–while-cloaking effect. The required anisotropic thermal conductivity tensor is deduced from the new geometric mapping. Though rotated, the heat flux can be tuned around the central invisible region perfectly by the proposed rotated thermal cloak. The underlying physics is explored by comprehensive analysis of the distribution of the thermal conductivity tensor, which is further compared with those of the conventional cloak and rotator. The experimental feasibility is also discussed by validating the practical while-rotating–while-cloaking effect through a proof-of-concept design. The proposed rotated thermal cloak is expected to extend the possibility of cloaking scheme, and open avenues for the multiple coordinate transformation in counterpart physical fields, like optics, electrics, acoustics, magnetics, mechanics, etc.     

激光等离子体X射线源的应用

激光等离子体作为X射线光源，具有光源体积小、亮度高、脉冲短等优点。因此，激光等离子体X射线光源在时间分辨诊断测量等方面具有重要的应用。文章简单介绍了这种光源在软X射线投影光刻技术、医学成像、晶体研究以及惯性约束核聚变（ICF）研究等方面的应用。这四个方面分别属于信息，生物，材料和能源等四个科学领域。作者的目的在于让这些科研领域及其对应工业界的研究同行了解我们的工作，从而能够实现跨学科、跨领域的合作。     

TERA-MIR radiation: materials,generation, detection and applications

This special edition is dedicated to original papers covering topics with the areas of interest of COST ACTION MP1204 whose main objective is to advance novel materials, concepts and device designs for generating and detecting THz (0.3–10 THz) and Mid Infrared (10–100 THz) radiation using semiconductor, superconductor, metamaterials and lasers and to beneficially exploit their common aspects within a synergetic approach. The results achieved benefit from the unique networking and capacity-building capabilities provided by the COST framework to unify these two spectral domains from their common aspects of sources, detectors, materials and applications. We are building a platform to investigate interdisciplinary topics in Physics, Electrical Engineering and Technology, Applied Chemistry, Materials Sciences and Biology and Radio Astronomy. In this sense THz and MIR are considered jointly, the driving force for both regimes being applications. The main emphasis of the research presented here is on new fundamental material properties, concepts and device designs that are likely to open the way to new products or to the exploitation of new technologies in the fields of sensing, healthcare, biology, and industrial applications. End users are: research centres, academic, well-established and start-up companies and hospitals. The strong coupling of THz radiation and material excitations has potential to improve the quantum efficiency of THz devices.     

Clinical Plasma Medicine: State and Perspectives of in Vivo Application of Cold Atmospheric Plasma

Driven by extensive basic research on plasma effects on living cells and microorganisms, plasma medicine has been developed as innovative medical research field during the last years. Besides partially established applications of plasma to treat materials or devices to allow effective medical applications with respect to biocompatibility or microbiological safety, respectively, the primary focus of plasma‐medical research is the direct application of plasma as part of therapeutic concepts. Even if a huge number of atmospheric pressure plasma sources for biomedical applications are described in the literature and characterized by in vitro microbiology and cell biology, there is only a limited number of in vivo experience with animals or human beings up to now. Research in plasma medicine has been mainly focused on applications in dermatology and aesthetic surgery with the aim to support tissue regeneration to improve healing of infected and/or chronic wounds as well as to treat infective and inflamed skin diseases. In general, there are four cold atmospheric plasma sources which were tested comprehensively in animals as well as human beings with respect both to its therapeutic potential and the safety of its application. Three clinical trials with cold atmospheric pressure plasma sources have been carried out yet. All three studies realized in Germany are focused on ulcer treatment. Two cold atmospheric pressure plasma sources got a CE marking as medical device in 2013. This marks a very important step to bring plasma medicine into the clinical daily routine! In future, it will become a general practical requirement to adapt special plasma sources to specific medical applications. Consequently, it is one of the main requirements for the physical and technical field of research and development in plasma medicine to find solutions for modular and flexible plasma devices which are adaptive to some extent e.g. to variable target areas. Based on this as well as together with comprehensive basic research to get much more insight into detailed mechanisms of plasma‐induced effects on living structures and the particular role of single plasma components, further fields of plasma application in vivo will be opened or extended, respectively, with both new targets like cancer treatment or new application sites like teeth, lung, eyes, nasal cavity or gastrointestinal tract. (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Electro-Optic Polymer Integrated Optic Devices and Future Applications

Recent developments in electro-optic polymer materials and devices have led to new opportunities for integrated optic devices in numerous applications. The results of numerous tests have indicated that polymer materials have many properties that are suitable for use in high-speed communications systems, various sensor systems, and space applications. These results, coupled with recent advances in device and material technology, will allow very large bandwidth modulators and switches with low drive voltages, improved loss, long-term stability, and integration with other microelectronic devices such as MEMS. Low drive voltage devices are very important for space applications where power consumption scales as the square of the modulator half-wave voltage. In addition, we have demonstrated novel dual polymer modulators for mixing RF signals to produce sum and difference frequency modulation on an optical beam. This novel approach allows the suppression of the modulation at the two input RF signals, and only the mixing signals remain superposed on the optical beam. The dual modulator can be used for various encoding/decoding and frequency conversion schemes that are frequently used for both terrestrial and space communications. Another application of polymer integrated optics is in the field of optical sensing for high-frequency (GHz) electric fields.     

Reprint of : Three-terminal heat engine and refrigerator based on superlattices

We propose a three-terminal heat engine based on semiconductor superlattices for energy harvesting. The periodicity of the superlattice structure creates an energy miniband, giving an energy window for allowed electron transport. We find that this device delivers a large power, nearly twice than the heat engine based on quantum wells, with a small reduction of efficiency. This engine also works as a refrigerator in a different regime of the system's parameters. The thermoelectric performance of the refrigerator is analyzed, including the cooling power and coefficient of performance in the optimized condition. We also calculate phonon heat current through the system and explore the reduction of phonon heat current compared to the bulk material. The direct phonon heat current is negligible at low temperatures, but dominates over the electronic at room temperature and we discuss ways to reduce it.     

Electro-Optic Polymer Integrated Optic Devices and Future Applications

Recent developments in electro-optic polymer materials and devices have led to new opportunities for integrated optic devices in numerous applications. The results of numerous tests have indicated that polymer materials have many properties that are suitable for use in high-speed communications systems, various sensor systems, and space applications. These results, coupled with recent advances in device and material technology, will allow very large bandwidth modulators and switches with low drive voltages, improved loss, long-term stability, and integration with other microelectronic devices such as MEMS. Low drive voltage devices are very important for space applications where power consumption scales as the square of the modulator half-wave voltage. In addition, we have demonstrated novel dual polymer modulators for mixing RF signals to produce sum and difference frequency modulation on an optical beam. This novel approach allows the suppression of the modulation at the two input RF signals, and only the mixing signals remain superposed on the optical beam. The dual modulator can be used for various encoding/decoding and frequency conversion schemes that are frequently used for both terrestrial and space communications. Another application of polymer integrated optics is in the field of optical sensing for high-frequency (GHz) electric fields.     

Similarity solutions for boundary layer flow and heat transfer of a FENE-P fluid with thermal radiation

This Letter presents a numerical study of the flow and heat transfer of an incompressible FENE-P fluid over a non-isothermal surface. The governing partial differential equations are converted into ordinary differential equations by a similarity transformation. The effects of the thermal radiation are considered in the energy equation, and the variations of dimensionless surface temperature and dimensionless surface temperature gradient, as well as the heat transfer characteristics with various physical parameters are graphed and tabulated. Two cases are studied, namely, (i) the sheet with prescribed surface temperature (PST case) and (ii) the sheet with prescribed heat flux (PHF case). Moreover, the mechanical characteristics of the corresponding flow are also presented.     

Heat source reconstruction from noisy temperature fields using a gradient anisotropic diffusion filter

This paper presents a post-processing technique for noisy temperature maps based on a gradient anisotropic diffusion (GAD) filter in the context of heat source reconstruction. The aim is to reconstruct heat source maps from temperature maps measured using infrared (IR) thermography. Synthetic temperature fields corrupted by added noise are first considered. The GAD filter, which relies on a diffusion process, is optimized to retrieve as well as possible a heat source concentration in a two-dimensional plate. The influence of the dimensions and the intensity of the heat source concentration are discussed. The results obtained are also compared with two other types of filters: averaging filter and Gaussian derivative filter. The second part of this study presents an application for experimental temperature maps measured with an IR camera. The results demonstrate the relevancy of the GAD filter in extracting heat sources from noisy temperature fields.     

Rotational manipulation of massive particles in a 2D acoustofluidic chamber constituted by multiple nonlinear vibration sources

Rotational manipulation of massive particles and biological samples is essential for the development of miniaturized lab-on-a-chip platforms in the fields of chemical, medical, and biological applications. In this paper, a device concept of a two-dimensional acoustofluidic chamber actuated by multiple nonlinear vibration sources is proposed. The functional chamber enables the generation of acoustic streaming vortices for potential applications that include strong mixing of multi-phase flows and rotational manipulation of micro-/nano-scale objects without any rotating component. Using numerical simulations, we find that diversified acoustofluidic fields can be generated in the chamber under various actuations, and massive polystyrene beads inside can experience different acoustophoretic motions under the combined effect of an acoustic radiation force and acoustic streaming. Moreover, we investigate and clarify the effects of structural design on modulation of the acoustofluidic fields in the chamber. We believe the presented study could not only provide a promising potential tool for rotational acoustofluidic manipulation, but could also bring this community some useful design insights into the achievement of desired acoustofluidic fields for assorted microfluidic applications.     

Understanding of temperature and size dependences of effective thermal conductivity of nanotubes

The anomalous thermal transport properties of nanotubes may lead to many important applications, but the mechanisms are still unclear. In this work, we present new governing equations for non-Fourier heat conduction in nanomaterials based on the concept of thermomass. The effective thermal conductivities of nanotubes are therefore predicted which agree very well with the available experimental data. Analysis suggests that the inertial effect of heat and the confined heat flux by nanostructured surfaces are two key mechanisms causing the anomalous temperature and size dependences of effective thermal conductivity of nanotubes.     

Progress of microscopic thermoelectric effects studied by micro- and nano-thermometric techniques

Heat dissipation is one of the most serious problems in modern integrated electronics with the continuously decreasing devices size. Large portion of the consumed power is inevitably dissipated in the form of waste heat which not only restricts the device energy-efficiency performance itself, but also leads to severe environment problems and energy crisis. Thermoelectric Seebeck effect is a green energy-recycling method, while thermoelectric Peltier effect can be employed for heat management by actively cooling overheated devices, where passive cooling by heat conduction is not sufficiently enough. However, the technological applications of thermoelectricity are limited so far by their very low conversion efficiencies and lack of deep understanding of thermoelectricity in microscopic levels. Probing and managing the thermoelectricity is therefore fundamentally important particularly in nanoscale. In this short review, we will first briefly introduce the microscopic techniques for studying nanoscale thermoelectricity, focusing mainly on scanning thermal microscopy (SThM). SThM is a powerful tool for mapping the lattice heat with nanometer spatial resolution and hence detecting the nanoscale thermal transport and dissipation processes. Then we will review recent experiments utilizing these techniques to investigate thermoelectricity in various nanomaterial systems including both (two-material) heterojunctions and (single-material) homojunctions with tailored Seebeck coefficients, and also spin Seebeck and Peltier effects in magnetic materials. Next, we will provide a perspective on the promising applications of our recently developed Scanning Noise Microscope (SNoiM) for directly probing the non-equilibrium transporting hot charges (instead of lattice heat) in thermoelectric devices. SNoiM together with SThM are expected to be able to provide more complete and comprehensive understanding to the microscopic mechanisms in thermoelectrics. Finally, we make a conclusion and outlook on the future development of microscopic studies in thermoelectrics.     

硅基底石墨烯器件的现状及发展趋势

石墨烯是一种由单层碳原子紧密排列而形成的具有蜂窝状结构的二维晶体材料,特殊的结构赋予了其优异的性能,如高载流子迁移率、电导率、热导率、力学强度以及量子反常霍尔效应.由于石墨烯优异的特性,迅速激起了人们对石墨烯研究以及应用的热情.石墨烯沉积或转移到硅片后,其器件构建与集成和传统硅基半导体工艺兼容.基于石墨烯的硅基器件与硅基器件的有机结合,可以大幅度提高半导体器件的综合性能.随着石墨烯制备工艺和转移技术的优化,硅基底石墨烯器件将呈现出潜在的、巨大的实际应用价值.随着器件尺寸的纳米化,器件的发热、能耗等问题成为硅基器件与集成发展面临的瓶颈问题,石墨烯的出现为解决这些问题提供了一种可能的解决方案.本文综述了石墨烯作为场效应晶体管研究的进展,为解决石墨烯带隙为零、影响器件开关比的问题,采用了量子限域法、化学掺杂法、外加电场调节法和引入应力法.在光电器件研究方面,石墨烯可以均匀吸收所有频率的光,其光电性能也受到了广泛的关注,如光电探测器、光电调制器、太阳能电池等.同时,石墨烯作为典型的二维材料,其优越的电学性能以及超高的比表面积,使其作为高灵敏度传感器的研究成为纳米科学研究的前沿和热点领域.