Experimental Demonstration of Unconditional Entanglement Swapping for Continuous Variables

The unconditional entanglement swapping for continuous variables is experimentally demonstrated. Two initial entangled states are produced from two nondegenerate optical parametric amplifiers operating at deamplification. Through implementing the direct measurement of Bell-state between two optical beams from each amplifier the remaining two optical beams, which have never directly interacted with each other, are entangled. The quantum correlation degrees of 1.23dB and 1.12dB below the shot noise limit for the amplitude and phase quadratures resulting from the entanglement swapping are straightly measured.Comment: new versio

Auxin efflux controls orderly nucellar degeneration and expansion of the female gametophyte in Arabidopsis

The nucellus tissue in flowering plants provides nutrition for the development of the female gametophyte (FG) and young embryo. The nucellus degenerates as the FG develops, but the mechanism controlling the coupled process of nucellar degeneration and FG expansion remains largely unknown. The degeneration process of the nucellus and spatiotemporal auxin distribution in the developing ovule before fertilization were investigated in Arabidopsis thaliana. Nucellar degeneration before fertilization occurs through vacuolar cell death and in an ordered degeneration fashion. This sequential nucellar degeneration is controlled by the signalling molecule auxin. Auxin efflux plays the core role in precisely controlling the spatiotemporal pattern of auxin distribution in the nucellus surrounding the FG. The auxin efflux carrier PIN1 transports maternal auxin into the nucellus while PIN3/PIN4/PIN7 further delivers auxin to degenerating nucellar cells and concurrently controls FG central vacuole expansion. Notably, auxin concentration and auxin efflux are controlled by the maternal tissues, acting as a key communication from maternal to filial tissue

Undifferenced and uncombined GNSS time and frequency transfer with integer ambiguity resolution

Precise point positioning (PPP) has been a competitive global navigation satellite system (GNSS) technique for time and frequency transfer. However, the classical PPP is usually based on the ionosphere-free combination of dual-frequency observations, which has limited flexibility in the multi-frequency scenario. More importantly, the unknown integer ambiguities are not restored to the integer nature, making the advantage of high-precision carrier phase observations underutilized. In this contribution, using the undifferenced and uncombined (UDUC) observations, we derive the time and frequency transfer model suitable for multi-constellation and multi-frequency scenarios. Notably, in short- and medium-baseline time and frequency transfer, the ionosphere-fixed and ionosphere-weighted UDUC models are derived, respectively, by making full use of the single-differenced (SD) ionospheric constraints. The proposed model can be applied to short-, medium- and long-baseline time and frequency transfer. The ambiguities are solved in a double-differenced (DD) form and can thus be restored to integers. To verify the feasibility of the model, GPS data from several time laboratories were collected, and the performance of the time and frequency transfer were analyzed with different baseline lengths. The results showed that the ionosphere-fixed and ionosphere-weighted UDUC models with integer ambiguity resolution could improve the frequency stability by 25–60% and 9–30% at an averaging time of several tens of seconds to 1 day for short- and medium-baseline, respectively. Concerning the long-baseline, the UDUC model is 10–25% more stable than PPP for averaging time below a few thousands second and over 1 day

Hierarchical microgrid energy management in an office building

A two-stage hierarchical Microgrid energy management method in an office building is proposed, which considers uncertainties from renewable generation, electric load demand, outdoor temperature and solar radiation. In stage 1, a day-ahead optimal economic dispatch method is proposed to minimize the daily Microgrid operating cost, with the virtual energy storage system being dispatched as a flexible resource. In stage 2, a two-layer intra-hour adjustment methodology is proposed to smooth the power exchanges at the point of common coupling by coordinating the virtual energy storage system and the electric vehicles at two different time scales. A Vehicle-to-Building control strategy was developed to dispatch the electric vehicles as a flexible resource. Numerical studies demonstrated that the proposed method is able to reduce the daily operating cost at the day-ahead dispatch stage and smooth the fluctuations of the electric power exchanges at the intra-hour adjustment stage

Plasmon-phonon coupling in large-area graphene dot and antidot arrays

Nanostructured graphene on SiO2 substrates pave the way for enhanced light-matter interactions and explorations of strong plasmon-phonon hybridization in the mid-infrared regime. Unprecedented large-area graphene nanodot and antidot optical arrays are fabricated by nanosphere lithography, with structural control down to the sub-100 nanometer regime. The interaction between graphene plasmon modes and the substrate phonons is experimentally demonstrated and structural control is used to map out the hybridization of plasmons and phonons, showing coupling energies of the order 20 meV. Our findings are further supported by theoretical calculations and numerical simulations.Comment: 7 pages including 6 figures. Supporting information is available upon request to author

Effective electro-optical modulation with high extinction ratio by a graphene-silicon microring resonator

Graphene opens up for novel optoelectronic applications thanks to its high carrier mobility, ultra-large absorption bandwidth, and extremely fast material response. In particular, the opportunity to control optoelectronic properties through tuning of Fermi level enables electro-optical modulation, optical-optical switching, and other optoelectronics applications. However, achieving a high modulation depth remains a challenge because of the modest graphene-light interaction in the graphene-silicon devices, typically, utilizing only a monolayer or few layers of graphene. Here, we comprehensively study the interaction between graphene and a microring resonator, and its influence on the optical modulation depth. We demonstrate graphene-silicon microring devices showing a high modulation depth of 12.5 dB with a relatively low bias voltage of 8.8 V. On-off electro-optical switching with an extinction ratio of 3.8 dB is successfully demonstrated by applying a square-waveform with a 4 V peak-to-peak voltage.Comment: 12 pages, including 7 figure

New Method to Prepare Mitomycin C Loaded PLA-Nanoparticles with High Drug Entrapment Efficiency

The classical utilized double emulsion solvent diffusion technique for encapsulating water soluble Mitomycin C (MMC) in PLA nanoparticles suffers from low encapsulation efficiency because of the drug rapid partitioning to the external aqueous phase. In this paper, MMC loaded PLA nanoparticles were prepared by a new single emulsion solvent evaporation method, in which soybean phosphatidylcholine (SPC) was employed to improve the liposolubility of MMC by formation of MMC–SPC complex. Four main influential factors based on the results of a single-factor test, namely, PLA molecular weight, ratio of PLA to SPC (wt/wt) and MMC to SPC (wt/wt), volume ratio of oil phase to water phase, were evaluated using an orthogonal design with respect to drug entrapment efficiency. The drug release study was performed in pH 7.2 PBS at 37 °C with drug analysis using UV/vis spectrometer at 365 nm. MMC–PLA particles prepared by classical method were used as comparison. The formulated MMC–SPC–PLA nanoparticles under optimized condition are found to be relatively uniform in size (594 nm) with up to 94.8% of drug entrapment efficiency compared to 6.44 μm of PLA–MMC microparticles with 34.5% of drug entrapment efficiency. The release of MMC shows biphasic with an initial burst effect, followed by a cumulated drug release over 30 days is 50.17% for PLA–MMC–SPC nanoparticles, and 74.1% for PLA–MMC particles. The IR analysis of MMC–SPC complex shows that their high liposolubility may be attributed to some weak physical interaction between MMC and SPC during the formation of the complex. It is concluded that the new method is advantageous in terms of smaller size, lower size distribution, higher encapsulation yield, and longer sustained drug release in comparison to classical method