Humidity-tolerant and highly sensitive gas sensor for hydrogen sulfide based on WO3 nanocubes modified with CeO2.

The influence of ambient humidity on the gas-sensing characteristics of metal oxide semiconductors has been one of the greatest obstacles for gas-sensing applications. In this paper, the pure WO3 and CeO2-modified WO3 nanocubes were prepared by a simple hydrothermal method, and their gas-sensing characteristics in dry and humid atmospheres were investigated. The results show that CeO2/WO3 demonstrated excellent gas-sensing properties toward H2S with high sensitivity and high selectivity at 115 °C. Noteworthy, the humidity independence of the CeO2/WO3 increased compared to the WO3. The response retentions over the whole humidity range of the CeO2/WO3-6 and CeO2/WO3-15 sensors were 70.3, and 76%, respectively, which were much higher than the WO3 sensor (17.9%). The gas-sensing mechanism of CeO2-modified WO3 is discussed based on the gas sensitivity properties. The obtained results provide a promising route to enhance the anti-humidity properties of metal oxide semiconductor gas sensors.

A high-performance room-temperature NH3 gas sensor based on WO3/TiO2 nanocrystals decorated with Pt NPs.

In this work, a high-performance room-temperature ammonia (NH3) gas sensor based on Pt-modified WO3-TiO2 nanocrystals was synthesized via a two-step hydrothermal method. The structural properties were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The 10 at% Pt@WO3-TiO2 nanocrystals present the highest NH3 sensing performance at room temperature. Compared with the nanocrystals without Pt modification, the sensitivity of the Pt@WO3-TiO2 sensor is tenfold higher, with the lowest concentration threshold reaching the 75 ppb level. The response is approximately 92.28 to 50 ppm, and response and recovery times are 23 s and 8 s, respectively. The improved sensing was attributed to a synergetic mechanism involving the space charge layer effect and Pt metal sensitization, enhancing the electron transfer efficiency, oxygen vacancy and specific surface area. This study is expected to guide the development of high-performance room-temperature ammonia sensors for clinical breath testing.

Soliton-sinc optical pulse propagation in the presence of high-order effects.

We investigate the propagation dynamics of the soliton-sinc, a kind of novel hybrid pulse, in the presence of higher-order effects with emphasis on the third-order dispersion (TOD) and Raman effects. At variance with the fundamental sech soliton, the traits of the band-limited soliton-sinc pulse can effectively manipulate the radiation process of dispersive waves (DWs) induced by the TOD. The energy enhancement and the radiated frequency tunability strongly depend on the band-limited parameter. A modified phase-matching condition is proposed for predicting the resonant frequency of the DWs emitted by soliton-sinc pulses, which is verified by the numerically calculated results. In addition, Raman-induced frequency shift (RIFS) of the soliton sinc pulse increases exponentially with a decrease of the band-limited parameter. Finally, we further discuss the simultaneous contribution of the Raman and TOD effects to the generation of the DWs emitted from the soliton-sinc pulses. The Raman effect can then either reduce or amplify the radiated DWs depending on the sign of the TOD. These results show that soliton-sinc optical pulses should be relevant for practical applications such as broadband supercontinuum spectra generation as well as nonlinear frequency conversion.

An integrative analysis revealing POLD2 as a tumor suppressive immune protein and prognostic biomarker in pan-cancer.

Introduction: POLD2 is an indispensable subunit of DNA polymerase δ, which is responsible for the synthesis of the backward accompanying strand in eukaryotic organisms. Current studies have found an association between POLD2 and the development of a variety of cancers. However, its value in cancer immunotherapy has not been fully established. Methods: POLD2 expression was analyzed using RNA expression and clinical data from TCGA and GTEx databases. The prognostic impact of POLD2 on tumor patients was analyzed using clinical survival data from TCGA. Gene enrichment analysis was performed using the R package "cluster analyzer" to explore the role of POLD2. We used the TIMER2 database to analyze the relationship between immune cell infiltration and POLD2 expression in TCGA. We downloaded relevant data from TCGA and analyzed the relationship between POLD2 and immune checkpoints, immunosuppressive genes, immune activating genes, chemokines and chemokine receptors. Results: POLD2 was significantly overexpressed in most tumors compared to normal tissue. High POLD2 expression was significantly associated with advanced tumor stage, significantly shorter overall survival and progression-free survival. Also, we found that POLD2 expression correlated strongly with immunomodulatory genes, and significantly negatively with most immune checkpoints (PD-L1, CTLA4, TIM3, and CD28). Pathway enrichment analysis suggests that low expression of POLD2 promotes immune regulation-related pathways and high expression promotes metabolic and DNA repair-related pathways. Furthermore, tumor microenvironment analysis suggests that high POLD2 expression inhibits infiltration of CD8+ T cells and CD4+ memory T cells. Discussion: In conclusion, POLD2 may be a molecular biomarker for pan-cancer prognosis and immunotherapy. It may serve as a potential target for new insights in human tumor prognosis prediction and immunotherapy assessment.

Ethanol-Induced Flash Sintering of ZnO Ceramics at Room Temperature.

Ceramic flash sintering with a strong electric field at room temperature is the most attractive method. This paper presents the flash sintering of ZnO ceramics at room temperature by the application of a 3-kV/cm electric field after a dropwise addition of ethanol. This method is simple and easy to control. The density of the specimen exceeded 96% after 30 s of sintering. No significant difference was observed in the initiation voltage of flash sintering with and without the dropwise addition of ethanol. Ethanol burns upon dropwise addition, causing a discharge to first occur far from the location of the dropwise addition, followed by glowing and heating up, which causes the temperature of the entire specimen to rise.

Spatiotemporal doubly periodic waves in a phase-mismatched second-harmonic generation.

In this Letter, we present an analytical and numerical investigation to characterize the formation of quadratic doubly periodic waves originating from coherent modulation instability in a dispersive quadratic medium in the regime of cascading second-harmonic generation. To the best of our knowledge, such an endeavor has not been undertaken before, despite the growing relevance of doubly periodic solutions as the precursor of highly localized wave structures. Unlike the case with cubic nonlinearity, the periodicity of quadratic nonlinear waves can also be controlled by the wave-vector mismatch in addition to the initial input condition. Our results may impact widely on the formation, excitation, and control of extreme rogue waves and the description of modulation instability in a quadratic optical medium.

Correlation between geometric parametric instability sidebands in graded-index multimode fibers.

The spectral analysis of the light propagating in normally dispersive graded-index multimode fibers is performed under initial noisy conditions. Based on the obtained spectra with multiple simulations in the presence of noise, we investigate the correlation in energy between the well-separated spectral sidebands through both the scattergrams and the frequency-dependent energy correlation map and find that conjugate couples are highly correlated while cross-combinations exhibit a very poor degree of correlation. These results reveal that the geometric parametric instability processes associated with each sideband pair occur independently from each other, which can provide significant insights into the fundamental dynamical effect of the geometric parametric instability and facilitate the future implementation of high-efficiency photon pair sources with reduced Raman decorrelations.

Emission of multiple resonant radiations by spatiotemporal oscillation of multimode dark pulses.

In this paper, we illustrate how the periodically modulated nonlinear parameter induced by the spatial beam oscillation can be used to generate broadband resonant radiations, through a train of dark pulses in normally dispersive graded-index multimode fibers under the efficient quasi-phase-matching schemes. More precisely, we demonstrate that two co-propagating waves with equal intensities and certain temporal delays can induce the formation of a train of dark solitons, with each emitting multiple resonant radiation lines, which can possibly form multiple radiation continuums based on vast amount of excited dark solitons. The nonlinear-interaction-aided excitation of dark pulses and their radiations appear to occur through a deterministic pathway, in sharp contrast to the situation for bright pulses in the anomalous dispersion region. The quasi-phase-matching condition via periodic oscillation of spatial beam in the normal-dispersion regime adds a unique dimension to the physical design of multimode waveguides, allowing the spectrum to be engineered for specific applications.

Graded-index breathing solitons from Airy pulses in multimode fibers.

Breathing solitons, as localized wave packets with a periodic evolution in amplitude and duration, are able to model extreme wave events in complex nonlinear dispersive systems. We have numerically studied the formation and manipulation of graded-index breathing solitons embedded in nonlinear multimode fibers based on a single nonlinear Schrödinger equation that includes the spatial self-imaging effect through a periodically varying nonlinear parameter. Through changing specific parameters of the input optical field, we can manipulate the period and depth of graded-index breathing soliton dynamics under different relative strengths between the dispersion length and the self-imaging period of the multimode fiber. Our study can explicitly derive a robust mechanism to control the behavior of the breathing localized structure directly and contribute to a better understanding of the much more complex nonlinear graded-index soliton dynamics in multimode fibers.

Optical event horizon-based complete transformation and control of dark solitons.

We propose a manipulation approach to vary the wave speed, as well as the grayness, of dark solitons under the optical event horizon arising from the interaction between a dark soliton and a probe wave. To the best of our knowledge, the optical event horizon effect is demonstrated for the first time to be capable of inducing a reversible conversion between a black soliton and a gray one. This reversible soliton transformation and control process originates from the intrinsic competition between the probe-induced nonlinear phase shift and the internal phase of the dark soliton. In a cascaded system consisting of two optical event horizons, we also observe the new optical soliton tunneling phenomena where a dark soliton can be reset longitudinally purposely. The results may find applications in information cloaking such as effectively hiding the presence of intermediate fiber section to the receiver.

Dark solitons manipulation using optical event horizon.

We demonstrate that the optical event horizon can provide an effective technique to actively control the propagation properties of a dark soliton with another weak probe wave. Careful power adjustment of the probe wave enables the black soliton converted into a gray one with varying grayness through the nonlinear interaction, corresponding to a nearly adiabatic variation of the soliton's speed. The sign of the phase angle for the newly formed gray soliton at optical event horizon is significantly dependent on the frequency of the launched probe wave. Linear-stability analysis of dark solitons under the perturbation of a weak probe wave is performed to clarify the intrinsic mechanism of the nonlinear interaction. The probe wave manipulated collisional dynamics between both dark solitons are investigated as an analogue of the combined white-hole and black-hole horizons which provides some insights into exploring the transition between integrable and non-integrable systems.

Average intensity and beam quality of optical coherence lattices in oceanic turbulence with anisotropy.

Based on the extended Huygens-Fresnel principle, we have derived the analytical expression of the average intensity of optical coherence lattices (OCLs) in oceanic turbulence with anisotropy, and then the beam quality parameters including the Strehl ratio (SR) and the power-in-the-bucket (PIB) are obtained. One can find that the OCLs will eventually evolve into Gaussian shape with the periodicity reciprocity gradually breaking down when propagating through the anisotropic ocean water, and that the trend of evolving into Gaussian can be accelerated for increasing the ratio of temperature and salinity contributions to the refractive index spectrum ω, the lattice constant a and the rate of dissipation of mean square temperature χT or decreasing the anisotropic factor ξ and the rate of dissipation of turbulent kinetic energy per unit mass of fluid ε. Further, the SR and PIB in the target plane under the effects of oceanic parameters are discussed in detail, and the SR and PIB can be increased for the larger ξ and ε or the smaller χT and ω, namely, the beam quality becomes better. Our results can find potential application in the future optical communication system in an oceanic environment.

Effects of a modulated vortex structure on the diffraction dynamics of ring Airy Gaussian beams.

The evolution of the ring Airy Gaussian beams with a modulated vortex in free space is numerically investigated. Compared with the unmodulated vortex, the unique property is that the beam spots first break up, and then gather. The evolution of the beams is influenced by the parameters of the vortex modulation, and the splitting phenomenon gets enhanced with multiple rings becoming light spots if the modulation depth increases. The symmetric branch pattern of the beam spots gets changed when the number of phase folds increases, and the initial modulation phase only impacts the angle of the beam spots. Moreover, a large distribution factor correlates to a hollow Gaussian vortex shape and weakens the splitting and gathering trend. By changing the initial parameters of the vortex modulation and the distribution factor, the peak intensity is greatly affected. In addition, the energy flow and the angular momentum are elucidated with the beam evolution features being confirmed.

Trapping and controlling the dispersive wave within a solitonic well.

We have numerically studied the effect of mutual interactions between soliton and dispersive waves and the possibility to create a solitonic well consisting of initial twin-solitons moving away from each other to trap the incident dispersive wave. Different from the case of the solitonic cage formed by the velocity-matched twin-solitons, the intense dispersive wave can break up into small pulses, which are almost completely trapped within the solitonic well. Moreover, the corresponding spectrum of the trapped dispersive wave can be narrowed firstly and then expanded, and a new dispersive wave can be generated as the twin-solitons collision occurred. By adjusting either the peak power or temporal width of incident dispersive wave, both the intensity of the collision-induced dispersive wave and the position where it is generated can be controlled.