Exploring China’s Soft Power: Manifestations of the Chinese Dream in Contemporary Practices of Cultural Diplomacy

This thesis offers two contributions to the literature on Chinese soft power and practices of cultural diplomacy. Firstly, it clarifies the relationship between soft power and cultural diplomacy, situating 'attraction' and 'persuasion' as important mechanisms through which cultural diplomacy builds soft power. To gain analytic traction over the topic of cultural diplomacy, a three-dimensional framework is introduced that explores manifestations through the spheres of media, education, and cultural exchange. Secondly, the thesis develops a comparative review of Chinese cultural diplomacy with three significant global and regional powers, namely Japan, Russia, and the United States. This comparison explores the correspondence between contemporary practices and the 'Chinese Dream' framework that purportedly guides foreign policy action. Overall, the thesis argues that the practices of China’s cultural diplomacy toward Japan, Russia and the United States broadly correspond with Xi Jinping’s Chinese Dream. Practice and paradigm both demonstrate a broad commitment to more confident leadership and projection of Chinese leadership within international politics. However, instead of adopting a one-size-fits-all approach, both the narratives of the Chinese Dream and the practices of China’s cultural diplomacy vary in different cases depending on the targeted country’s culture, political values, and the unique cultural and diplomatic relations with China. This shows the importance of disaggregated case study analysis to reveal the nuances of Chinese cultural diplomacy

Assembly of PbTe/Pb-based nanocomposite and photoelectric property

PbTe/Pb-based nanocomposite was assembled by combining the regular PbTe/Pb nanostructure and the Zn(x)Mn(1−x)S nanoparticles; the photoelectric property of the nanocomposite was measured in situ. The results showed that the through current of the nanocomposite had an obvious increase compared to that of the individual PbTe/Pb nanomaterial under the same irradiation conditions. The improvement of photoelectric performance would be attributed to the synergistic effect brought by the incident light and exciting light of the Zn(x)Mn(1−x)S nanoparticles. The result implied that the underlying mechanism could be used to improve the performance of nano-optoelectronic devices and the light-use efficiency of solar devices

Bis(1,3-thiazol-2-aminium) hexachloridostannate(IV)

The asymmetric unit of the title compound, (C3H5N2S)2[SnCl6], contains one cation in a general position and one-half of the dianion situated on an inversion center. The geometry of the [SnCl6]2− dianion is almost regular octahedral. In the crystal, weak N—H...Cl and N—H...S hydrogen bonds and electrostatic forces link cations and anions into a three-dimensional framework

A fast fluorescence background suppression method for Raman spectroscopy based on stepwise spectral reconstruction

Raman spectroscopy is a rapid and non-destructive technique for detecting unique spectral fingerprints from biological samples. Raw Raman spectra often come with strong fluorescence background that makes spectral interpretation challenging. Although fluorescence background can be suppressed experimentally, this approach requires sophisticated and costly instruments. For convenience and cost-effectiveness, numerical methods have been used frequently to remove fluorescence background. Unfortunately, many of such methods suffer from long computation time. Therefore, a fast numerical method for fluorescence suppression is highly desirable especially in Raman spectroscopic imaging where Raman measurements from many pixels need to be processed rapidly. In response to this demand, we propose a fast numerical method for fluorescence background suppression based on the strategy of stepwise spectral reconstruction that we previously developed. Compared with traditional computational methods, including polynomial fitting, wavelet transform, Fourier transform, and peak detection, our results consistently show significant advantages in both accuracy and computational efficiency when tested on Raman spectra measured from phantoms and cells as well as surfaced enhanced Raman spectra from blood serum samples. In particular, our method yields clean Raman spectra closest to the reference results generated by polynomial fitting while several orders of magnitude faster than others. Therefore, the proposed fast fluorescence suppression method is promising in Raman spectroscopic imaging or related application in which high-computation efficiency is critical and a calibration dataset is available.MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore)Published versio

Stable Temperature Characteristics of InAs/GaAs Quantum Dots at Long Wavelength Emission

The time-resolved photoluminescence and steady photoluminescence (TRPL and PL) spectra on self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots (QDs) are investigated. By depositing GaAs/InAs short period superlattices (SLs), 1. 48 μtm emission is obtained at room temperature. Temperature dependent PL measurements show that the PL intensity of the emission is very steady. It decays only to half as the temperature increases from 15 K to room temperature, while at the same time, the intensity of the other emission decreases by a factor of 5 orders of magnitude. These two emissions are attributed to large-size QDs and short period superlattices (SLs), respectively. Large-size QDs are easier to capture and confine carriers,which benefits the lifetime of PL, and therefore makes the emission intensity insensitive to the temperature

Temperature dependent and time-resolved photoluminescence studies of InAs self-assembled quantum dots with InGaAs strain reducing layer structure

Zhejiang Education Department [Y200804735]; National Taiwan University; NSC [NSC 96-2221-E002-166, NSC 97-2221-E002-026]; NSF [HRD-0420516]Four types of self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots (QDs) were grown by molecular beam epitaxy and studied via temperature-dependent and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy measurements. A thin InGaAs stain reducing layer (SRL) is adopted which extends the emission wavelength to 1.3 mu m and the influence of strain on QDs is investigated. The SRL releases the strain between the wetting layer and QDs, and enlarges the size of QDs, as shown by atomic force microscopy measurements. As the thickness of InAs layer decreases to 1.7 ML, the QDs with the SRL are chained to strings and the density of QDs increases significantly, which leads to an abnormal redshift of 1.3 mu m PL peak at room temperature. PL peaks of InAs QDs with the SRL show redshift compared with the QDs directly deposited on GaAs matrix. The dependences of PL lifetime on the QD size, density and temperature (T) are systematically studied. It is observed that the PL lifetime of QDs is insensitive to T below 50 K. Beyond 50 K, increases and then drops at higher temperature, with a peak at T(C), which was determined by the SRL and the thickness of InAs. We have also observed an obvious PL spectral redshift of the QDs with 1.7 ML InAs coverage on SRL at low T as the measuring time delays. The PL lifetime of QDs with the SRL is smaller than that of QDs without the SRL. The QDs with different densities have different PL lifetime dependence on the QDs size. These observations can be explained by the competition between the carrier redistribution and thermal emission

Photoluminescence characteristics of InAs self-assembled quantum dots in InGaAs/GaAs quantum well

Three different InAs quantum dots (QDs) in an InGaAs/GaAs quantum well were formed and investigated by time-resolved and temperature dependent photoluminescence (PL). A strong PL signal emitting at similar to 1.3 mu m can be obtained at room temperature with a full width at half maximum of only 28 meV. Dots-in-a-well structures result in strong stress release and large size InAs QDs which lead to narrowing and redshifting of PL emissions, enhancement of carrier migration, increasing carrier density in QDs, achievement of good PL lifetime stability on temperature, and improving the QD quality. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics