自振荡凝胶的仿生运动

定向运动是生命体最基本的功能,是其进化、生存和繁衍的前提。近年来为了研究生命体的运动机制,许多人工系统被相继开发并用于模拟部分生命体的运动行为。在诸多人工仿生系统里,自振荡凝胶由于同时具有内部驱动产生动能、运动定向性、无缆化和环境自适应等性能而备受瞩目。本文介绍了自振荡凝胶仿生运动的化学-机械能转换的理论根源并综述了仿生运动模式研究近期的进展,在此基础上展望了自振荡凝胶运动研究面临的机遇、挑战和未来发展方向。     

Spin–orbit stiffness of the spin‐polarized electron gas

In a spin‐polarized electron gas, Coulomb interaction couples the spin and motion degrees of freedom to build propagating spin waves. The spin wave stiffness S_sw quantifies the energy cost to trigger such excitation by perturbing the kinetic energy of the electron gas (i.e. putting it in motion). Here we introduce the concept of spin–orbit stiffness, S_so, as the energy necessary to excite a spin wave with a spin polarization induced by spin–orbit coupling. This quantity governs the Coulombic enhancement of the spin–orbit field acting of the spin wave. First‐principles calculations and electronic Raman scattering experiments carried out on a model spin‐polarized electron gas, embedded in a CdMnTe quantum well, demonstrate that S_so = S_sw. Through optical gating of the structure, we demonstrate the reproducible tuning of S_so by a factor of 3, highlighting the great potential of spin–orbit control of spin waves in view of spintronics applications. (© 2016 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

双原子正方晶格光子晶体边界模式的光传输特性

利用平面波展开法,发现双原子正方晶格光子晶体中ΓM方向边界面存在着快慢两类边界模式,并且通过计算色散关系和电场分布研究了边界参量对这两类边界模式传输特性的影响.依据两种模式的色散关系,计算了群指数和群速度色散参量,结果表明边界参量的变化对第一类边界模式传输特性的影响较小,该模式的平均群指数始终维持在5.0左右;第二类边界模式与第一类模式明显不同,边界参量的变化能够有效地影响到这种模式的传输特性,该模式的最大平均群指数可达178左右.利用时域有限差分法记录了不同时刻电场强度在边界附近的分布及监测点处的电场幅度变化情况,结果表明,两类模式都能够被限制在边界附近并向前传播,时域有限差分法得到的群速度与平面波展开法的结果完全吻合.     

Research activities at the PALS research infrastructure

The Prague Asterix Laser System (PALS) Research Infrastructure (RI) in Prague, one of only four kJ-class laser facilities in EU, has been offering its beam time to European researchers for already 14 years, since 2004 in the framework of the LASERLAB-Europe consortium. Till June 2014, the PALS RI has provided 4313 experimental days for a total of 41 projects with 303 international users from 42 different research institutions. Its principal experimental facility is a terawatt sub-ns iodine laser (1315?nm) with an optional plasma-based zinc XUV laser (21.2?nm), and an auxiliary Ti:Sapphire fs laser (1?J, 70?fs) exploited for femtosecond plasma probing and experiments with synchronised femtosecond and sub-nanosecond laser pulses at mean laser intensities of up to 30?PW/cm². The lasers are equipped with several target facilities and rich sets of instruments for both active and passive plasma diagnostics. The PALS main research areas include development and applications of secondary laser sources of high-energy ions and both coherent and non-coherent high-intensity XUV radiation, laboratory astrophysical and inertial fusion-relevant studies. In this paper, the main results having been achieved at PALS in the framework of LASERLAB-EUROPE international access activities during the last four years are highlighted.     

Evanescent Wave-Guided Growth of an Organic Supramolecular Nanowire Array

The ordered assembly of molecules within a specific space of nanoscale, such as a surface, holds great promise in advanced micro-/nanostructure fabrication for various applications. Herein, we demonstrate the evanescent wave (EW)-guided organization of small molecules into a long-range ordered nanowire (NW) array. Experiment and simulation revealed that the orientation and periodicity of the NW array were feasibly regulated by altering the propagation direction and the wavelength of EW. The generality of this approach was demonstrated by using different molecule precursors. While existing studies on EW often took advantages of its near-field property for optical sensing, this work demonstrated the photochemical power of EW in the guided-assembly of small molecules for the first time. It also provides an enlightening avenue to periodic structure with fluorescence, promising for super-resolution microscopy and important devices applicable to optical and bio-related fields.     

LOBSTER: Local orbital projections,atomic charges,and chemical-bonding analysis from projector-augmented-wave-based density-functional theory

We present an update on recently developed methodology and functionality in the computer program Local Orbital Basis Suite Toward Electronic-Structure Reconstruction (LOBSTER) for chemical-bonding analysis in periodic systems. LOBSTER is based on an analytic projection from projector-augmented wave (PAW) density-functional theory (DFT) computations (Maintz et al., J. Comput. Chem. 2013 , 34, 2557), reconstructing chemical information in terms of local, auxiliary atomic orbitals and thereby opening the output of PAW-based DFT codes to chemical interpretation. We demonstrate how LOBSTER has been improved by taking into account time-reversal symmetry, thereby speeding up the DFT and LOBSTER calculations by a factor of 2. Over the recent years, the functionalities have also been continually expanded, including accurate projected densities of states (DOSs), crystal orbital Hamilton population (COHP) analysis, atomic and orbital charges, gross populations, and the recently introduced k -dependent COHP. The software is offered free-of-charge for non-commercial research.     

Boussinesq方程行波解的存在性

利用平面动力系统方法的分支理论,研究了Boussinesq方程,通过对Boussinesq方程进行行波变换,得到了相应行波系统的首次积分和平衡点,给出了不同参数条件下的相图,证实了Boussinesq方程存在孤立波解和周期波解。     

Structure formation in turbulence as an instability of effective quantum plasma

Structure formation in turbulence can be understood as an instability of “plasma” formed by fluctuations serving as effective particles. These “particles” are quantumlike in the sense that their wavelengths are non-negligible compared to the sizes of background coherent structures. The corresponding “kinetic equation” describes the Wigner matrix of the turbulent field, and the coherent structures serve as collective fields. This formalism is usually applied to manifestly quantumlike or scalar waves. Here, we show how to systematically extend it to more complex systems using compressible Navier–Stokes turbulence as an example. In this case, the fluctuation Hamiltonian is a five-dimensional matrix operator and diverse modulational modes are present. As an illustration, we calculate these modes for a sinusoidal shear flow and find two modulational instabilities. One of them is specific to supersonic flows, and the other one is a Kelvin–Helmholtz-type instability that is a generalization of the known zonostrophic instability. Our calculations are readily extendable to other types of turbulence, for example, magnetohydrodynamic turbulence in plasma.     

On the integrability aspects of nonparaxial nonlinear Schrödinger equation and the dynamics of solitary waves

The integrability nature of a nonparaxial nonlinear Schrödinger (NNLS) equation, describing the propagation of ultra-broad nonparaxial beams in a planar optical waveguide, is studied by employing the Painlevé singularity structure analysis. Our study shows that the NNLS equation fails to satisfy the Painlevé test. Nevertheless, we construct one bright solitary wave solution for the NNLS equation by using the Hirota's direct method. Also, we numerically demonstrate the stable propagation of the obtained bright solitary waves even in the presence of an external perturbation in a form of white noise. We then numerically investigate the coherent interaction dynamics of two and three bright solitary waves. Our study reveals interesting energy switching among the colliding solitary waves due to the nonparaxiality.