Optical continuous-variable quadratic phase gate via Faraday interaction.

The continuous-variable (CV) quadratic phase gate is one of the most fundamental CV quantum gates for universal CV quantum computation, while its experimental realization still remains a challenge. Here we propose a novel and experimentally feasible scheme to realize optical CV quadratic phase gate via Faraday interaction in an atomic ensemble. The gate is performed by simply sending an optical beam three times through an atomic medium prepared in coherent spin state. The fidelity of the gate can ideally run up to one. We show that the scheme also works well as a device to generate optical polarization squeezing. Considering the noise effects due to atomic decoherence and light losses, we find that the observed fidelities of gate operation and the attainable degree of polarization squeezing are still quite high.

Improving efficiency by hybrid TiO(2) nanorods with 1,10-phenanthroline as a cathode buffer layer for inverted organic solar cells.

We reported a significant improvement in the efficiency of organic solar cells by introducing hybrid TiO2:1,10-phenanthroline as a cathode buffer layer. The devices based on polymer thieno[3,4-b]thiophene/benzodithiophene:[6,6]-phenyl C71-butyric acid methyl ester (PTB7:PC71BM) with hybrid buffer layer exhibited an average power conversion efficiency (PCE) as high as 8.02%, accounting for 20.8% enhancement compared with the TiO2 based devices. The cathode modification function of this hybrid material could also be extended to the poly(3-hexylthiophene):[6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT:PC61BM) system. We anticipate that this study will stimulate further research on hybrid materials to achieve more efficient charge collection and device performance.