Growth and optical properties of Pr<Superscript>3+</Superscript>:KLu(WO<Subscript>4</Subscript>)<Subscript>2</Subscript> laser crystal: a candidate for red emission laser

A Pr³⁺:KLu(WO₄)₂ crystal with dimension of 30 × 30 × 15 mm³ was grown in the K₂W₂O₇ flux. A slice was cut from the crystal, and the polarized absorption and fluorescence spectra were measured at room temperature. Based on the J-O theory, the oscillator intensity parameters Ω _t (t = 2, 4, 6), spontaneous emission probabilities and branch ratios were estimated and good results had been obtained. Furthermore, the crystal has a relatively large emission cross-section in the region of 615–630 nm with the highest value of 14.5 × 10^?20 cm², which indicates that the crystal is good for the application in red emission laser. The emission decay time for ¹D₂ and ³P₀ multiplets was discussed. By adapting the I-H model to fit the emission decay curves, the lifetime for ¹D₂ at 607 nm and ³P₀ at 615 nm are 19.72 μs and 8.95 μs, respectively. Then the corresponding fluorescence quantum efficiencies of the two multiplets reach 83.7 % and 87.9 %, respectively. All the studies illustrate that this crystal is potential in red emission laser application.     

Rician noise reduction in magnetic resonance images using adaptive non-local mean and guided image filtering

This paper proposes a Rician noise reduction method for magnetic resonance (MR) images. The proposed method is based on adaptive non-local mean and guided image filtering techniques. In the first phase, a guidance image is obtained from the noisy image through an adaptive non-local mean filter. Sobel operators are applied to compute the strength of edges which is further used to control the spread of the kernel in non-local mean filtering. In the second phase, the noisy and the guidance images are provided to the guided image filter as input to restore the noise-free image. The improved performance of the proposed method is investigated using the simulated and real data sets of MR images. Its performance is also compared with the previously proposed state-of-the art methods. Comparative analysis demonstrates the superiority of the proposed scheme over the existing approaches.     

Improving signal-to-noise ratio performance of compressive imaging based on spatial correlation

In this paper, compressive imaging based on spatial correlation (CISC), which uses second-order correlation with the measurement matrix, is introduced to improve the signal-to-noise ratio performance of compressive imaging (CI). Numerical simulations and experiments are performed as well. Referred to the results, it can be seen that CISC performs much better than CI in three common noise environments. This provides the great opportunity to pave the way for real applications.     

Observation of Non-Hermitian Quantum Correlation Criterion in Mesoscopic Optomechanical System

Although many quantum correlation criteria have been proposed successively in recent years, it is still an open question how to observe these criteria with the non–Hermitian terms in themselves. We propose an indirect scheme in this paper to observe non-Hermitian criteria and to judge whether or not quantum correlation exists in the system even though the expectation value measurement of non-Hermitian operator is invalid in quantum mechanics system. Our idea is to establish a critical state of mesoscopic oscillator under mean–field approximation, and the oscillator state will take place transition when the quantum correlation destroys the mean–field approximation. The non–Hermitian measurement will replace the position measurement in this process and it can be seen as a non–destructive detection. We give an example to explain this idea in a designed mesoscopic optomechanical system.     

An Efficient Quantum Private Comparison of Equality over Collective-Noise Channels

This article proposes a collective-noise resistant QPC protocol with the help of an almostdishonest third party (TP) who may try to perform any sort of attacks to derive participants’ private secrets except colluding with any participant. The proposed scheme has some considerable advantages over the state-of-the-art QPC protocols over collective-noise channels, where it does not require any pre-shared key between the participants (Alice and Bob). Nevertheless, the proposed scheme can resist Trojan horse attacks without consuming half of the transmitted qubits and any additional equipment (wavelength filter and PNS) support. As a consequence, the proposed QPC protocol can guarantee higher qubit efficiency as compared to the others over collective noise channels.     

Controlled Dense Coding Using the Maximal Slice States

In this paper we investigate the controlled dense coding with the maximal slice states. Three schemes are presented. Our schemes employ the maximal slice states as quantum channel, which consists of the tripartite entangled state from the first party(Alice), the second party(Bob), the third party(Cliff). The supervisor(Cliff) can supervises and controls the channel between Alice and Bob via measurement. Through carrying out local von Neumann measurement, controlled-NOT operation and positive operator-valued measure(POVM), and introducing an auxiliary particle, we can obtain the success probability of dense coding. It is shown that the success probability of information transmitted from Alice to Bob is usually less than one. The average amount of information for each scheme is calculated in detail. These results offer deeper insight into quantum dense coding via quantum channels of partially entangled states.     

Even and Odd Charge Coherent States: Higher-Order Nonclassical Properties and Generation Scheme

We examine the higher-order nonclassical properties of the even and odd charge coherent states as well as proposing a scheme to generate these states whose modes can freely travel in open space. We show that the even and odd charge coherent states exhibit both higher-order antibunching and higher-order squeezing. While the two-mode higher-order antibunching occurs in any order and essentially depends on the charge number, the two-mode higher-order squeezing appears only in the even orders. We also prove that these states are genuinely entangled, and they can be generated by means of cross-Kerr media, beam splitters, phase shifts and threshold detectors. We find that the fidelity and the corresponding success probability to generate these states are dependent on the correlative parameters.     

Studies on Structural,Morphological and Optical Properties of Chemically Deposited CdS<Subscript>1-x</Subscript>Se<Subscript>x</Subscript> Thin Films

The thin films of CdS_1-xSe_x were successfully deposited over glass substrates by chemical bath deposition technique. Cadmium acetate, thiourea and sodium selenosulfate were used as source materials for Cd²⁺, S^2? and Se^2? ions, while 2-mercaptoethanol was used as capping agent. The various deposition conditions such as precursor concentration, deposition temperature, pH and deposition time were optimized for the deposition of CdS_1-xSe_x thin films of good quality and the films were annealed at 200° and 300 °C. The structural, morphological, chemical and optical properties were examined by various characterization techniques and discussed in detail. The optical band gap of CdS_1-xSe_x thin film samples were estimated and found in the range from 2.11 to 1.79 eV for as-deposited and annealed thin films.     

Synthesis and Properties of a Novel FRET-Based Ratiometric Fluorescent Sensor for Cu<Superscript>2+</Superscript>

A novel FRET-based probe LS3 was designed and synthesized. As expected, it exhibited high selectivity and sensitivity for detecting Cu²⁺ over other commonly coexistent metal ions. The detection limit was measured to be 0.0423 μM for Cu²⁺, which can meet the selective requirements for practical application. In addition, the newly synthesized compound 3a/b have potential value of further synthesizing more analogous FRET-based probes.     

Synthesis of 2-Mercaptonicotinic Acid-Capped CdSe Quantum Dots and its Application to Spectrofluorometric Determination of Cr(VI) in Water Samples

The CdSe quantum dots (QDs) capped with 2-mercaptonicotinic acid (H₂MN) were prepared through a controllable process at 80 °C. The prepared QDs were characterized by XRD, TEM, IR, UV–Vis and fluorescence (FL) techniques. It was found that the QDs were nearly mono-disperse with the diameters in the range of 8–10 nm. These QDs are capable to exhibit strong FL even in concentrated acidic media. They exhibit an enhanced fluorescence in the presence of Cr(VI), which was used for the determination of Cr(VI) in water samples. The linear range was found to be 1?×?10^?7–6.0?×?10^?6 M with the RSD and DL of 0.92 % and 5?×?10^?8 M, respectively. Except that Ca²⁺ and Fe³⁺ which can be eliminated through a simple precipitation process, the other co-existent ions present in natural water were not interfered. The recoveries obtained for the added amounts of Cr(VI) were in the range of 96.9–103.2 %, which denote on application of the method, satisfactorily.