Interconnect Architecture Research Articles

Double percolation behavior through the preferential distribution of conductive black in polymer blends to boost electrical properties and EMI shielding effectiveness

The preferential distribution of the filler in the polymer blends leads to a lower percolation threshold in comparison to a single polymer matrix with random filler distribution. Poly(ethylene methyl acrylate) (EMA) and carboxylated acrylonitrile butadiene rubber (XNBR) composites of EMA-XNBR (EX) with a variable amount of conductive carbon black (Vulcan XC 72; VXC) has been prepared by conventional melt blending. These composites have superior electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding effectiveness to attenuate the hazardous effects and save society from proliferating electromagnetic radiation. The suitable distribution of carbon black lowers the electrical percolation threshold of 12.5 phr by the formation of interconnected architecture following the two-step percolation phenomenon and results in an improved EMI SE of 33.5 dB. The morphological analysis demonstrates that the formation of a polymer-filler network of VXC in an EX technologically compatible blend increases the mechanical and thermal stability of composites by retaining their flexibility, which facilitates the application of EXV composites in techno-commercial fields.

Designing an asymmetric device based on 3D hierarchical tri-metal Co-Mn-Fe selenide/NF porous nano-flowers electrode for efficient energy storage

The construction of high-performance supercapacitors (SC) requires the development of an electrode material with a highly porous structure. Further, rational engineering and designing electrodes with multi-component and promising architectures can substantially enhance their electrochemical performance. Transition metal dichalcogenides have recently received considerable attention due to their unique electronic structure and superior electrical conductivity, emerging as an application in conversion and energy storage devices. Herein, we present a novel hierarchical synthesis for a 3D hierarchical tri-metal Co-Mn-Fe selenide/NF (CMFSe/NF) nano-flowers with porous petals, in which the 3D tri-metal Co-Mn-Fe LDH/NF (CMF LDH/NF) nanoflowers uniformly grow on the whole surface of nickel foam (NF). A one-step ion-exchange selenidization process was used to convert the hierarchical Co-Mn-Fe LDH/NF to Co-Mn-Fe selenide/NF, which exhibits superior structural integrity. Simultaneously, the surface of the uniform nano-flowers becomes velvety and significantly porous, promoting the specific surface area and robustness structure and providing a fast electron pathway. Thanks to their three-dimensional interconnected architecture and nanoporous nature, the CMFSe/NF electrode shows an exceptional capacity of 671.2 C g−1 and outstanding rate performance, demonstrated by a 76.1 % capacity retention at 48 A g−1. The CMFSe/NF hybrid supercapacitor was constructed using activated carbon (AC) as the anode and the CMFSe/NF as the cathode in a solution of 6 M KOH. The constructed asymmetric supercapacitor device of CMFSe/NF (+)||AC(-) achieved a high capacity of 265.1 C g−1 at 1 A g−1, a prominent rate capability of ∼68.5 % at 48 A g−1, a high specific energy of 62.8 Wh kg−1, and a specific power up to 40,735.1 W kg−1.

A kaolin/calcium incorporated shape memory and antimicrobial chitosan-dextran based cryogel as an efficient haemostatic dressing for uncontrolled hemorrhagic wounds

Increased mortalities associated with uncontrolled and excessive bleeding is still of paramount concern in the clinics, caregivers and military medics. Herein, we designed a shape memory cryogel based on chitosan (C) and functionalized-dextran (D), incorporated with Kaolin (K) and calcium (Ca2+) as haemostatic agents. The developed cryogel (CDKCa) exhibits a uniform interconnected porous architecture with profound fluid absorption ability, rapid blood clotting, stable clot formation and good antibacterial activity. The CDKCa elucidates significantly less clotting time (~30 s; in-vitro) and increased aggregation and activation of platelets/red blood cells in comparison to the control groups and commercial dressings (Axiostat and QuikClot). The developed CDKCa also significantly reduced the aPTT and PT values by ~58 % and 31 % respectively, leading to the activation of intrinsic and extrinsic coagulation cascades. The CDKCa cryogel displays enhanced mechanical stability, flexibility and a good shape memory, a property quintessential to cease uncontrolled bleeding in irregular and non-compressible wounds. Further, the Kaolin and Ca2+ incorporated shape memory CDKCa cryogel demonstrates a rapid blood coagulation and stable clot formation in different compressible and non-compressible rat liver and femur hemorrhagic models. In summary, the endorsed results of CDKCa suggest that the design, fabrication and excellent clotting ability may attribute to high haemostatic efficiency of CDKCa dressing and have a great potential to prevent uncontrollable hemorrhages.

Preparation and characterization of carboxymethyl chitosan/polyvinyl alcohol composite hydrogel with improved mechanical and antibacterial properties

Biopolymer-based antibacterial hydrogels have attracted considerable interest in biomedical field. Herein, we report on an effective strategy for the preparation of carboxymethyl chitosan/polyvinyl alcohol (CMCh/PVA) composite hydrogel with improved mechanical and antibacterial properties by using poly(ethylene glycol) diglycidyl ether (PEGDE) as crosslinking agent and zinc acetate (ZnAc2) as catalyst, respectively. FT-IR and gelation time measurements confirm that the introduction of both PVA and ZnAc2 can accelerate the formation of ester bonds between CMCh and PEGDE. SEM images reveal the interconnected macroporous inner architecture in the current CMCh/PVA composite. While the hydrogels exhibit pH-sensitive swelling behaviors in the pH range from 3 to 11, they remain relatively stable in phosphate buffered saline buffer. Compression mechanical tests show that, when increasing the PVA concentration to 1.0%, the resultant CMCh/PVA composite hydrogel shows a compressive strength of 1.96 MPa. The dried composite sample prepared with 1.0% PVA has a water absorption capacity of 1860%. The antibacterial activities of the CMCh/PVA hydrogel are studied against both Gram-negative Escherichia coli and Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus by inhibition zone method, indicating that the composite hydrogel exhibits improved antibacterial activity after the adsorption of zinc ions.

NeuSB: A Scalable Interconnect Architecture for Spiking Neuromorphic Hardware

Neuromorphic systems are typically designed as a tile-based architecture where inter-tile data communication is facilitated using a shared global interconnect. Congestion on this interconnect can increase both interconnect energy, which increases the total energy consumption of the hardware and latency, which impacts the performance e.g., accuracy of the application that is being executed on the hardware. Mesh-based Network-on-Chip (NoC) that is used in most hardware prototypes is not the optimal interconnect solution for neuromorphic systems. This is because of the following two reasons. First, power consumption and average latency of a NoC increases exponentially with the number of tiles in the hardware. Second, a NoC cannot exploit an application’s data communication pattern efficiently. Once designed for a target hardware, the bandwidth on each NoC link stays the same, independent of the volume of data traffic between different tile pairs of the NoC. In other words, a NoC cannot be customized at a finer granularity based on an individual application running on the hardware. We show that these NoC limitations prevent opportunities to further improve energy and latency of a neuromorphic hardware. To address these limitations, we propose Dynamic Segmented Bus (SB) interconnect for neuromorphic systems. Here, a bus lane is partitioned into segments with each segment connecting a few tiles. Connection of tiles to segments and those between segments are bridged using our novel three-way segmentation switches that are programmed using the software before admitting an application to the hardware. We partition an application by analyzing its workload and place partitions intelligently onto segments. This exploits application characteristics to use the segments without any routing collisions while exploiting the latency and energy savings in the design-time mapping phase. At a high-level, our mapping algorithm places tiles that communicate the most on shorter segments utilizing fewer number of switches, thereby reducing network congestion. It can adjust the bandwidth by controlling the number of segments connected to a destination tile. At run time, our controller dynamically executes the predefined routing paths without requiring any additionally routing decisions, unlike a NoC. This allows us to improve both energy and latency. Using parallel segmented busses, our proposed interconnect architecture can support a large number of tiles without significantly increasing the design cost, energy, and latency. Simulation results show that compared to the most widely-used mesh-based NoC design, our interconnect architecture, which we call NeuSB, reduces the switch area by 20x, average interconnect energy by 6.2x, and latency by 23%.

Binder- and conductive additive-free Ga2O3 nanowires as a self-healing anode for lithium storage

High-capacity anode materials have stimulated much attention to developing high-performance lithium-ion batteries. However, high-capacity anode materials commonly suffer from the pulverization matter that greatly hinders their practical applications, especially in terms of the high proportion of active materials. In this work, a Ga2O3 nanowire electrode is synthesized by thermal evaporation and immediately used as an anode without the aid of binders and conductive additives. The 3D interconnected architecture of the Ga2O3 nanowire electrode shortens lithium diffusion lengths and expedites reaction kinetics. The Ga2O3 nanowires exhibit high elasticity and a self-healing ability which is inherited from metallic Ga formed during the electrochemical transition process, thus circumventing the formidable pulverization issue to a certain extent. Benefiting from the unique structural, mechanical, and chemical attributes, the as-grown Ga2O3 nanowire electrode gives a high initial lithiation capacity of 1462 mAh g−1 under a current density of 0.1 ​A ​g−1. It delivers good cyclic stability with a reversible capacity of 445 mAh g−1 after 200 cycles at 0.5 ​A ​g−1. Furthermore, the investigation of lithium storage behaviors indicates the high rate capability of Ga2O3 nanowires. This paper contributes to understanding binder- and conductive additive-free electrodes consisting of high-capacity active materials from various viewpoints.

Experimental and Theoretical Indagation of Binder-Free N-Graphene Coupling Vanadium Tetrasulfide Aerogel Cathode for Promoting Aqueous Zn-Ion Storage

Aqueous Zn-ion batteries (AZIBs) have acquired great attention owing to their nontoxicity, high safety, and sustainable Zn resources. Nevertheless, the deficiency of applicable electrode materials hampers the advancement of the electrochemical performance for AZIBs. Herein, a N-graphene coupling vanadium tetrasulfide aerogel (VS4@NGA) forming a sponge-like heterostructured architecture is constructed through a hydrothermal and a following freeze-dehydration approach. The unique composite is evaluated as a binder-free electrode for AZIBs and presents competitive zinc storage performance (two times improvement in specific capacity over pristine VS4). The calculations based on density functional theory and electrochemical experimental studies demonstrate that the interconnected porous architecture, meliorated electrical conductivity, decreased adsorption energy, and Zn2+ diffusion energy barrier driven by the combination of VS4 with NGA synergistically realize the enhanced energy storage dynamics and exceptional electrochemical properties of the composite. The reversible Zn ion insertion/extraction reaction mechanism of the composite is clarified by a sequence of ex-situ elemental and structural characterizations. Moreover, the soft-packaged batteries assembled using the composite aerogel suggest the practical application ability of the material in electronic devices. This research offers a simple avenue for constructing a binder-free aerogel-based cathode, which provides a progressive paradigm for the advancement of AZIBs.

Biomimetic cellulose/collagen/silk fibroin as a highly interconnected 3D hybrid matrix for bone tissue engineering

The limitations of the existing graft materials in the bone reconstruction practice will be met by the porous polymeric scaffolds with osteoconductive property. In this study, microcrystalline cellulose (CEL) and collagen (COL) along with the silk fibroin (SF) protein were fabricated into a porous hybrid matrix (CEL-COL-SF). The fabricated 3D hybrid matrix possesses interconnected porous architecture which helps in the cell adhesion, proliferation, migration and minerals deposition with excellent oxygen permeability. In addition, the CEL-COL-SF hybrid matrix showed excellent biocompatibility and cell proliferation when seeded with NIH 3T3 fibroblast cells and MG-63 osteoblast like cells. The osteogenic potential of the hybrid matrix was evaluated with MG-63 cells to reveal the sequence of events related to bone regeneration. The matrix exhibited increased alkaline phosphatase expression on day 7 as an initial event of bone regeneration process and paves way for the calcification process. As a result of the alizarin red activity, the calcium deposition on day 14 increases. Biomineralization activity reveals the atomic ratio of calcium to phosphate in the hybrid matrix with 1.65, which mimics the atomic ratio of Ca/P of bone. Thus, results suggest that the hybrid matrix is a promising bone construct in bone tissue engineering.

Facile and green fabrication of porous chitosan aerogels for highly efficient oil/water separation and metal ions removal from water

Recently, bio-based materials from natural source have attracted more attention in water treatment, but the viable usage of bio-based materials is a new challenge in the treatment of increasingly complicated water pollution. The multifunctional bio-based materials with high performance are desired to be obtained. In this study, chitosan aerogels with three dimensional (3D) interconnected porous architectures were designed and prepared through a feasible and facile strategy, that is, the integration of chitosan gelation and microbubble templates. With the assistance of ultrasound technology, abundant microbubbles were generated and solidified into chitosan gel. As anticipated, the porous chitosan aerogels exhibited the robust superhydrophilicity/underwater oleophobicity and low-adhesion performance, displaying the high-efficiency selective separation for various oil-water mixtures. Moreover, origination from the interconnected porous architectures, not only high permeation flux was achieved during oil/water separation, but also copper ions can be adsorbed from water more quickly by this material, with high adsorption capacity (116.7 mg/g). Consequently, the oil contaminants and copper ions can be energy-savingly removed from wastewater simultaneously. The facile and green fabrication process of porous chitosan aerogels provides a feasible avenue to prepare bio-based materials with outstanding performances, while it opens up new prospects for the high-efficiency complicated wastewater treatment.

A Scalable Many-core Overlay Architecture on an HBM2-enabled Multi-Die FPGA

The overlay architecture enables to raise the abstraction level of hardware design and enhances hardware-accelerated applications’ portability. In FPGAs, there is a growing awareness of the overlay structure as typified by many-core architecture. It works in theory; however, it is difficult in practice, because it is beset with serious design issues. For example, the size of FPGAs is bigger than before. It is exacerbating the issue of the place-and-route. Besides, a single FPGA is actually the sum of small-to-middle FPGAs by advancing packaging technology like silicon interposers. Thus, the tightly coupled many-core designs will face this covert issue that the wires among the regions are extremely restricted. This article proposes efficient essential processing elements, micro-architecture design, and the interconnect architecture toward a scalable many-core overlay design. In particular, our work proposes a novel compact buffering technique to reduce memory resource utilization in tightly connected overlays while preserving computational efficiency. This technique reduces the utilization of BlockRAM to nearly 50% while achieving a best-case computational efficiency of 91.93% in a three-dimensional Jacobi benchmark. Besides, the proposed enhancements led to around 2× and 3× improvement in performance and power efficiency, respectively. Moreover, the improved scalability allowed increasing compute resources and delivering around 4× better performance and power efficiency, as compared to the baseline Dynamically Re-programmable Architecture of Gather-scatter Overlay Nodes overlay.

Enhanced strength and toughness of Ni/graphene composite via three-dimensional graphene-like nanosheets network

This paper reports a novel strategy for fabricating the three-dimensional graphene-like nanosheets network (3D-GLNN) in a nickel (Ni) matrix composite through spark plasma sintering induced welding between graphene-like nanosheets grown on the surface of Ni foams. The in-situ constructed 3D interconnected GLNN architecture can significantly improve the load transfer capacity, thereby increasing the yield strength of the bulk composite. The crack bridging in the fracture process induced by the 3D-GLNN blocks the crack propagation during tensile deformation and results in significant strengthening and toughening. This study provides an innovative design idea (using the 3D-connected Ni foam as a template) to synergistically enhance the strength and strain-hardening capacity, thereby breaking the strength-ductility trade-off of graphene-reinforced metal matrix composites.

Wortgeschichte digital : A Historical Dictionary of German on the Internet

ABSTRACT: This article presents a new historical online dictionary of German: Wortgeschichte digital ('digital word history'). WGd focuses on New High German, the most recent period of German ranging from 1600 to the present, for which no specific historical dictionary is available so far. WGd differs from current historical lexicography most notably in three respects: first, its entirely digital nature; second, its onomasiological approach to lemma selection; and, third, its "narrative" style. Because WGd does not derive from a printed dictionary, it is in a position to make extensive use of all the instruments provided by digital humanities. For WGd , this results in a densely interconnected dictionary architecture with internal and external links and visual presentations of lexical structures. In contrast to many other historical dictionaries, WGd pursues an onomasiological approach to lemma selection, concentrating on those lexical domains that have appeared to be highly dynamic in recent language history, such as the vocabularies of society and politics, economy, traffic, natural science, everyday culture, and so forth. These fields are dealt with in separate work units of several years each, allowing for a consistent lexicographical description. The most significant feature of WGd , however, is its style of presentation: Instead of providing a traditional entry structure consisting of definitions and quotations, the entries of WGd are written as continuous texts charting the semantic evolution of a word within its intra- and extra-linguistic context.

Canal: A Flexible Interconnect Generator for Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Arrays

The architecture of a coarse-grained reconfigurable array (CGRA) interconnect has a significant effect on not only the flexibility of the resulting accelerator, but also its power, performance, and area. Design decisions that have complex trade-offs need to be explored to maintain efficiency and performance across a variety of evolving applications. This paper presents Canal, a Python-embedded domain-specific language (eDSL) and compiler for specifying and generating reconfigurable interconnects for CGRAs. Canal uses a graph-based intermediate representation (IR) that allows for easy hardware generation and tight integration with place and route tools. We evaluate Canal by constructing both a fully static interconnect and a hybrid interconnect with ready-valid signaling, and by conducting design space exploration of the interconnect architecture by modifying the switch box topology, the number of routing tracks, and the interconnect tile connections. Through the use of a graph-based IR for CGRA interconnects, the eDSL, and the interconnect generation system, Canal enables fast design space exploration and creation of CGRA interconnects.

Structural engineering of electrodes for flexible energy storage devices.

The emergence of multifunctional wearable electronics over the past decades has triggered the exploration of flexible energy storage devices. As an important component of flexible batteries, novel electrodes with good flexibility, mechanical stability and high energy density are required to adapt to mechanical deformation while powering devices. Electrodes with sophisticated designed structures are key to achieving novel batteries and supercapacitors with extended lifetimes under long-term deformation exposures. Many different novel structures including serpentine, auxetic and biomimetic are explored to construct electrodes thanks to their excellent mechanical deformability in three dimensions. This paper considers the various design strategies established for fabricating flexible electrodes using novel structural modifications. The current state-of-the-art developments of novel structures made of two-dimensional (2D) planar and three-dimensional (3D) cellular, interconnected architectures for flexible energy storage with different functionalities, are discussed. The key tunable geometrical parameters of structures for achieving high performance are critically assessed, and the challenges and limitations of electrodes facing their practical application are revealed, to offer new insights into future prospects of this field.

Hydroxyapatite nanoparticle-modified porous bone grafts with improved cell attachment.

Emulsion-templated foams have displayed promise as injectable bone grafts; however, the use of a surfactant as an emulsifier resulted in relatively small pores and impedes cell attachment. Hydroxyapatite nanoparticles were explored as an alternative stabilizer to address these limitations. To this end, hydroxyapatite nanoparticles were first modified with myristic acid to generate the appropriate balance of hydrophobicity to stabilize a water-in-oil emulsion of neopentyl glycol diacrylate and 1,4-butanedithiol. In situ surface modification of the resulting foam with hydroxyapatite was confirmed with elemental mapping and transmission electron microscopy. Nanoparticle-stabilized foams displayed improved human mesenchymal stem cell viability (91 ± 5%) over surfactant-stabilized foams (23 ± 11%). Although the pore size was appropriate for bone grafting applications (115 ± 71 μm), the foams lacked the interconnected architecture necessary for cell infiltration. We hypothesized that a co-stabilization approach with both surfactant and nanoparticles could be used to achieve interconnected pores while maintaining improved cell attachment and larger pore sizes. A range of hydroxyapatite nanoparticle and surfactant concentrations were investigated to determine the effects on microarchitecture and cell behavior. By balancing these interactions, a co-stabilized foam was identified that possessed large, interconnected pores (108 ± 67 μm) and improved cell viability and attachment. The co-stabilized foam was then evaluated as an injectable bone graft including network formation, microscale integration with bone, push out strength, and compressive properties. Overall, this work demonstrated that in situ surface modification with nHA improved cell attachment while retaining desirable bone grafting features and injectability.

Worst-Case Communication Time Analysis for On-Chip Networks With Finite Buffers

Network-on-Chip (NoC) is the ideal interconnection architecture for many-core systems due to its superior scalability and performance. An NoC must deliver critical messages from a real-time application within specific deadlines. A violation of this requirement may compromise the entire system operation. Therefore, a series of experiments considering worst-case scenarios must be conducted to verify if deadlines can be satisfied. However, simulation-based experiments are time-consuming, and one alternative is schedulability analysis. In this context, this work proposes a schedulability analysis to accelerate design space exploration in real-time applications on NoC-based systems. The proposed worst-case analysis estimates the maximum latency of traffic flows assuming direct and indirect blocking. Besides, we consider the size of buffers to reduce the analysis’ pessimism. We also present an extension of the analysis, including self-blocking. We conduct a series of experiments to evaluate the proposed analysis using a cycle-accurate simulator. The experimental results show that the proposed solution presents tighter results and runs four orders of magnitude faster than the simulation.

Tuning pyridinic-N and graphitic-N doping with 4,4′-bipyridine in honeycomb-like porous carbon and distinct electrochemical roles in aqueous and ionic liquid gel electrolytes for symmetric supercapacitors

Doping engineering in nanostructured carbon materials is an effective approach to modify heteroatom species and surface electronic structures. Herein, an advanced electrode material based on a honeycomb-like porous carbon matrix with tunable N-doped configurations is prepared via 4,4′-bipyridine (4,4′-bpy)-assisted pyrolysis of SiO2@ZIF-8 templates and subsequent etching treatment. Interestingly, the amounts of pyridinic-N and graphitic-N can be controlled by rationally varying the content of 4,4′-bpy which acts as the N source in the pyrolysis process. Both experimental results and density functional theory calculations have revealed that synergistically with 3D interconnected porous architecture, pyridinic-N and graphitic-N have different effects on the electrochemical performances in aqueous and ionic liquid gel electrolytes for symmetric supercapacitors. Highly exposed pyridinic-N endows the carbon electrode with a strengthened pseudocapacitance contribution manifested as a high specific capacitance of 436.1 F g−1 and exceptional stability of almost 100% capacitance retention after 5000 cycles at 10 A g−1 in the KOH/polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) electrolyte. By contrast, graphitic-N is propitious for reinforced electrical double-layer capacitance contribution, reflected by a maximum energy density of 125.4 Wh kg−1 in the 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate/poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (EMIMBF4/PVDF-HFP) electrolyte. This work offers an in-depth insight into the understanding of the energy storage mechanism of N-rich carbon electrodes in different electrolyte media.

Highly proton conductive and mechanically robust SPEEK composite membranes incorporated with hierarchical metal–organic framework/carbon nanotubes compound

The preparation of composite proton exchange membranes (PEMs) by incorporating metal- organic frameworks (MOFs) into polymeric substrates has become a hot research topic in the field of fuel cells in recent years. In this work, ZSC was prepared by in-suit reacted with the precursor of ZIF-8 (Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework 8) and silica coated carbon nanotubes (SiO2@CNTs). The as-prepared ZSC was introduced into sulfonated poly (ether ether ketone) (SPEEK) to fabricate a series of composite proton exchange membranes SPEEK/ZSC-x (where x is the mass percentage between ZSC and SPEEK). The coating treatment of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) by silica not only can avoid the direct contacting among CNTs and enhance the dispersion in SPEEK matrix, but also realize the regulation of nucleation and crystallization process of ZIF-8 particles along the morphology of CNTs. The obtained SPEEK/ZSC composite membranes show improved performance owing to construction of interconnected network architecture and the compositional advantages of the ZSC materials. The proton conductivity of SPEEK/ZSC-0.5 membrane was up to 38.10 mS/cm at 80 °C, which was 1.8 times that of the pure SPEEK membrane (21.12 mS/cm) under the same condition. Moreover, the SPEEK/ZSC-0.5 showed better performance with peak power density of 38.9 mW/cm2 in 2 M methanol solution, which was 1.3 times that of the pure SPEEK membrane of 30.3 mW/cm2, the further stability tests confirmed that the composite film maintained good voltage stability even after 100 h of continuous operation at 80 °C. These results indicate that the strategy of construction MOFs and functional CNTs hybrid materials show promising application prospects in the preparation of high performance PEMs.

A quantum-bit encoding converter

From telecommunications to computing architectures, the realm of classical information hinges on converter technology to enable the exchange of data between digital and analogue formats, a process now routinely performed across a variety of electronic devices. A similar exigency also exists in quantum information technology, where different frameworks are being developed for quantum computing, communication and sensing. Thus, efficient quantum interconnects are a major need to bring these parallel approaches together and scale up quantum information systems. So far, however, the conversion between different optical quantum-bit encodings has remained challenging due to the difficulty of preserving fragile quantum superpositions and the demanding requirements for postselection-free implementations. Here we demonstrate such a conversion of quantum information between the two main paradigms, namely discrete- and continuous-variable qubits. We certify the protocol on a complete set of single-photon qubits, successfully converting them to cat-state qubits with fidelities exceeding the classical limit. Our result demonstrates an essential tool for enabling interconnected quantum devices and architectures with enhanced versatility and scalability. A conversion of quantum information between single-photon and cat-state qubits is demonstrated by teleportation using optical hybrid entanglement. The classical limit of conversion is exceeded over the full Bloch sphere, with an average fidelity above 79%.

Extraction of Hydroxyapatite from Camel Bone for Bone Tissue Engineering Application.

Waste tissues such as mammalian bone are a valuable source from which to extract hydroxyapatite. Camel bone-based hydroxyapatite (CBHA) was extracted from the femur of camel bones using a defatting and deproteinization procedure. The extracted CBHA was mechanically, chemically, physically, morphologically and structurally characterized. Fourier-Transform Infra-Red (FTIR) spectra, Micro-Raman, and X-ray diffraction analysis confirmed successful extraction of hydroxyapatite. The mechanical properties of the CBHA scaffold were measured using a Universal Instron compression tester. Scanning electron microscopy showed the presence of a characteristic interconnected porous architecture with pore diameter ranging from 50-600 µm and micro-computer tomography (Micro-CT) analysis identified a mean porosity of 73.93. Thermogravimetric analysis showed that the CBHA was stable up to 1000 °C and lost only 1.435% of its weight. Inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and Energy-dispersive-X-ray (EDX) analysis demonstrated the presence of significant amounts of calcium and phosphorus and trace ions of sodium, magnesium, zinc, lead and strontium. Following 21 days of incubation in simulated body fluid (SBF), the pH fluctuated between 10-10.45 and a gradual increase in weight loss was observed. In conclusion, the extracted CBHA is a promising material for future use in bone tissue regeneration applications.