Periodic Spatial Structure Research Articles

The Abrikosov vortex structure revealed through near-field radiative heat exchange

The Abrikosov lattice is a property of type II superconductors in which normal and superconducting carriers coexist and arrange in a regular pattern. Here, we address the question on whether vortex matter, particularly the Abrikosov lattice, influences the local thermal properties of high-temperature superconductors. We find that their optical properties are not only dictated by the order parameter, but also that the near-field radiative heat flux acquires a periodic spatial structure inherited from the Abrikosov lattice. Surprisingly, we predict a radial displacement of the heat flux maxima with respect to the vortexes cores, for temperatures well below the critical one.

Periodic Stratification of Colloids in a Liquid Phase Produced by a Precipitation Reaction and Gel Swelling.

Pattern formation is a frequent phenomenon occurring in animate and inanimate systems. The interplay between the mass transport of the chemical species and the underlying chemical reaction networks generates most patterns in chemical systems. Periodic precipitation is an emblematic example of reaction-diffusion patterns, in which the process generates a spatial periodic structure in porous media. Here, we use the dormant reagent method to produce colloidal particles of Prussian blue (PB) and PB analogues at the liquid-gel interface. The generated particles produced a stable periodic stratification pattern in time in the liquid phase placed on top of the solid hydrogel. The phenomenon is governed by periodic swelling of the gel driven by the osmotic stress and stability of the formed particles. To illustrate the phenomenon, we developed an extended reaction-diffusion model, which incorporated the gel swelling and sedimentation effect of the formed colloids and could qualitatively reproduce the pattern formation in the liquid phase.

A highly homogeneous electrorheological fluid with potential applications in optics

A new type of electrorheological fluid (ERF) with high ER efficiency, low zero-field viscosity and high uniformity was synthesized by a hydrolysis method, based on modified titanium and succinic acid. The electro-responsive performance of ERF under electric field 0–3 kV mm−1 were studied in detail. In addition to traditional research methods to explore the morphology of the ER particles, we also utilized optical diffraction imaging to study the uniformity of the chain-like structure formed by the ER particles. Due to the relatively uniform size, the particles aggregate into a periodic spatial modulation structure parallel to the electric field direction and similar to a grating on the macroscopic scale, which can further manufacture liquid controllable gratings. The observed diffraction spots, up to six levels, indicate the ERFs have potential applications in the field of optics.

Spatial structure of a Bose–Einstein condensate in a combined trap* *Projects supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (2016JJ6020), the Scientific Research Fund of Hunan Provincial Education Department (18A436), and the Scientific Research Fund of Hunan First normal University (XYS13N16).

We study the spatial structure of a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) with a space-dependent s-wave scattering length in a combined trap. There exists a space-dependent nonlinear atomic current in the system. The atomic current has an important influence on the spatial structure of the BEC. Research findings reveal that a large chemical potential can effectively suppress the chaotic spatial structure in the BEC system. Due to the large chemical potential, a strong atomic current is necessary to make the system lose its periodic spatial structure and lead the system into a chaotic spatial structure. But when the atomic current intensity exceeds a critical value, the chaotic spatial structure of the BEC will be completely eliminated and the system will always be kept in a series of single-periodic states as the atomic current becomes stronger. For a very weak atomic current, the spatial structure of the BEC is very sensitive to the intensity of the atomic current and a very small change of the intensity can dramatically change the spatial structure of the BEC. The effects of the combined trap parameters on the spatial structure of BECs are also discussed.

Recent Progress of Three-dimensionally Ordered Macroporous (3DOM) Materials in Photocatalytic Applications: A Review.

In recent years, three-dimensionally ordered macroporous (3DOM) materials have attracted tremendous interest in the field of photocatalysis due to the periodic spatial structure and unique physicochemical properties of 3DOM catalysts. In this review, the fundamentals and principles of 3DOM photocatalysts are briefly introduced, including the overview of 3DOM materials, the photocatalytic principles based on 3DOM materials, and the advantages of 3DOM materials in photocatalysis. The preparation methods of 3DOM materials are also presented. The structure and properties of 3DOM materials and their effects on photocatalytic performance are briefly summarized. More importantly, 3DOM materials, as a supported catalyst, are extensively employed to combine with various common materials, including metal nanoparticles, metal oxides, metal sulfides, and carbon materials, to enhance photocatalytic performance. Finally, the prospects and challenges for the development of 3DOM materials in the field of photocatalysis are presented.

Symbiotic solitons in quasi-one- and quasi-two-dimensional spin-1 condensates.

We study the formation of spin-1 symbiotic spinor solitons in a quasi-one- (quasi-1D) and quasi-two-dimensional (quasi-2D) hyperfine spin F=1 ferromagnetic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). The symbiotic solitons necessarily have a repulsive intraspecies interaction and are bound due to an attractive interspecies interaction. Due to a collapse instability in higher dimensions, an additional spin-orbit coupling is necessary to stabilize a quasi-2D symbiotic spinor soliton. Although a quasi-1D symbiotic soliton has a simple Gaussian-type density distribution, novel spatial periodic structure in density is found in quasi-2D symbiotic SO-coupled spinor solitons. For a weak SO coupling, the quasi-2D solitons are of the (-1,0,+1) or (+1,0,-1) type with intrinsic vorticity and multiring structure, for Rashba or Dresselhaus SO coupling, respectively, where the numbers in the parentheses are angular momenta projections in spin components F_{z}=+1,0,-1, respectively. For a strong SO coupling, stripe and superlattice solitons, respectively, with a stripe and square-lattice modulation in density, are found in addition to the multiring solitons. The stationary states were obtained by imaginary-time propagation of a mean-field model; dynamical stability of the solitons was established by real-time propagation over a long period of time. The possibility of the creation of such a soliton by removing the trap of a confined spin-1 BEC in a laboratory is also demonstrated.

Cascaded-tapered silica photonic crystal fiber for supercontinuum generation

We propose the two-stage cascaded-tapered silica photonic crystal fiber (PCF) for the supercontinuum (SC) generation. The cascaded-tapered silica PCF is designed to have a spatial periodic structure. The physical scenarios of the spectral broadening due to the interaction between the structure-induced periodic dispersion and Kerr nonlinearity under different pulse widths and peak powers are investigated. It is found that when the pump pulses with width of <100 fs and peak power of not more than 10 kW are propagated in the cascaded-tapered silica PCF, the SC with good coherence can be generated. It is believed that the research results have potential applications in the nonlinear photonics and spectroscopy.

Assessment of Temperature Effects in Interior Orientation Parameters Calibration of Optoelectronic Devices

A digital micromirror device (DMD) micromirrors periodic spatial structure is a measuring scale in interior orientation parameters calibration of optoelectronic devices problems, when using a DMD as a testobject. It is important that DMD micromirrors periodic spatial structure remains constant. Change in a DMD micromirrors spatial structure may occur due to heating. In addition to heating a DMD, an optoelectronic device photodetector is also subject to heating and, accordingly, change in its spatial structure. It is necessary to estimate change in a spatial structure of DMD micromirrors and an optoelectronic device photodetector.A DMD micromirrors spatial drift and a DMD micromirrors spatial drift together with a digital camera photodetector pixels spatial drift for operation 4 h are analyzed. The drift analysis consisted in the points array position assessing formed by a DMD and projected onto a digital camera. When analyzing only a DMD micromirrors drift, a digital camera was turned on only for shooting time for exclude digital camera influence. A digital camera did not have time to significantly heat up, during this time. After a digital camera it cooled to a room temperature.Average drift of all DMD micromirrors determines the accuracy of interior orientation parameters calibration of optoelectronic devices using a DMD in time. Maximum drift of all micromirrors after switching on is observed. Minimum DMD warm-up time is 60 min for average drift of all micromirrors less than 1 μm is necessary. Minimum DMD warm-up time is 120 min when using a DMD together with a digital camera is necessary.A DMD expansion uniformity determines the accuracy of interior orientation parameters calibration of optoelectronic devices using a DMD, because irregular expansion disturbs micromirrors periodicity. The average change in distance of neighboring points is less than 0.1 μm for every 20 min.Thus, a DMD can be used as a test-object in interior orientation parameters calibration of optoelectronic devices. The results can be used as compensation coefficients of change in DMD micromirrors spatial structure due to temperature effects during operation, if more accurate are necessary.

Evolution of microstructures on stainless steel induced by ultra-short pulsed laser ablation

Ultra-short pulsed laser ablation of stainless steel is accompanied by the evolution of different microstructures. Depending on the fluence, accumulated energy and number of laser passes cones from impurities, laser induced periodic surface structures, cone-like protrusion (CLP), and thermal bumps evolve at the surface. These often unwanted morphologies can be induced or inhibited by carefully choosing the strategy and laser parameters. The investigated range reveals a small processing window for defined 515 nm sub 1 ps ablation leading to low surface roughness using circular polarization. Hitherto, the origin and dependencies of CLP are still not well understood and for the first time a precursor ripple structure reported. These precursor ripples reveal supra-wavelength periodicity with about $$2\,\upmu \hbox {m}$$ spacing and evolve earliest after the second layer of ablation. Potentially, low spatial frequency laser-induced periodic surface structure generated with the first laser pass with pulse and hatch overlap are the root cause of CLP evolution. Moreover, the CLP growth is grain orientation and strongly polarization state dependent. Preferentially, CLP start to evolve at the {110} planes of the face-centered cubic crystals of the inspected austenitic stainless steel and linear polarized laser radiation revealing a 1:1 aspect ratio of $$10\,\upmu \hbox {m}$$ . A nanoindentation study at the interface near region on cross-sections reveals robust mechanical properties of this CLP structure.

Alignment of morphology during high spatial frequency periodic structure formation in GaAs

The interaction between multiple intense ultrashort laser pulses and solids is known to produce a regular nanoscale surface corrugation. A coupled mechanism has been identified that operates in a specific range of fluences in GaAs that exhibits transient loss of the imaginary part of the dielectric function and Χ2, which produces a unique corrugation known as high spatial frequency laser induced periodic surface structures (HSFL). The final structures have 180 nm periods, and their alignment perpendicular to the laser polarization is first observed in an intermediate morphology with correlation distances of 150 ± 40 nm. Quantum molecular dynamics simulations suggest that HSFL self-assembly is initiated when the intense laser field softens the interatomic binding potential, which leads to an ultrafast generation of point defects. The morphological evolution begins as self-interstitial diffusion, driven by stress relaxation, to the surface producing 1–2 nm tall islands. An ab initio calculation of excited electron concentration combined with a Drude-Lorentz model of the excited GaAs dielectric function is used to determine that the conditions for SPP coupling at HSFL formation fluences are both satisfied and occur at wavelengths that are imprinted into the observed surface morphologies. The evolution of these morphologies is explained as the interplay between surface plasmon polaritons that localize defect generation within the structures present on the previous laser exposure and stress relaxation driven defect diffusion.

Termination Mechanisms of Turing Patterns in Growing Systems

The question of the termination of a periodic spatial structure of Turing type in a growing system is addressed in a chemical engineering perspective and a biomimetic approach. The effects of the dynamical parameters on the stability and the wavelength of the structure are analytically studied and used to propose experimental conditions for which a Turing pattern stops by itself with a decreasing wavelength. The proposed mechanism is successfully checked by the numerical integration of the equations governing the dynamics of the activator and the inhibitor. We conclude that a local increase of the concentration of the reservoir which controls the injection rate of the inhibitor into the system can be used to achieve the appropriate termination of a Turing pattern.

Bragg Diffraction in Atomic Systems in Quantum Degeneracy Conditions

Studies of the scattering of light on systems of identical atoms under conditions of their quantum degeneracy have been reviewed. The formation of a periodic spatial structure caused by the interference of material waves is responsible for coherent resonance scattering similar to Bragg diffraction on regular spatial inhomogeneities. The interference of macroscopic material waves that is observed in experiments with a Bose–Einstein condensate forms a dielectric medium in the region of optical transparency of the sample that has the properties of a photonic crystal. Common characteristics and differences between the scattering of light on atomic systems under quantum degeneracy conditions and scattering on one-dimensional atomic lattices where the positions of atoms are described by classical statistics have been discussed.

Scaling of submicrometric Turing patterns in concentrated growing systems

The wavelength of a periodic spatial structure of Turing type is an intrinsic property of the considered reaction-diffusion dynamics and we address the question of its control at the microscopic scale for given dynamical parameters. The direct simulation Monte Carlo method, initially introduced to simulate particle dynamics in rarefied gases, is adapted to the simulation of concentrated solutions. We perform simulations of a submicrometric Turing pattern with appropriate boundary conditions and show that taking into account the role of the solvent in the chemical mechanism allows us to control the wavelength of the structure. Typically, doubling the concentration of the solution leads to decreasing the wavelength by two. The results could be used to design materials with controled submicrometric properties in chemical engineering. They could also be considered as a possible interpretation of proportion preservation of embryos in morphogenesis.

Flexible thin broadband microwave absorber based on a pyramidal periodic structure of lossy composite

Microwave absorber with broadband absorption and thin thickness is one of the main research interests in this field. A flexible ultrathin and broadband microwave absorber comprising multiwall carbon nanotubes, spherical carbonyl iron, and silicone rubber is fabricated in a newly proposed pyramidal spatial periodic structure (SPS). The SPS with equivalent thickness of 3.73mm covers the -10 dB and -15 dB absorption bandwidth in the frequency range 2-40GHz and 10-40GHz, respectively. The excellent absorption performance is achieved by concentration and dissipation of the electromagnetic field inside different parts of the magnetic-dielectric lossy protrusions in different frequency ranges.

Experimental investigation of detonation waves instabilities in liquid high explosives

Experimental investigation of unstable detonation front structure in mixtures of liquid high explosives (nitromethane and FEFO—bis-(2-fluor-2.2-dinitroethyl)-formal) with inert diluents (acetone, methanol, DETA—diethylene triamine) has been carried out. Inhomogeneities have been registered by electro-optical camera NANOGATE 4BP allowing to make 4 frames with the exposure time 10 ns. According to experimental results the detonation front in nitromethane–acetone mixture is unstable. It is evident that pulsations on detonation front do not form spatial periodic structure and their dimensions differ several times. But mean longitudinal size of pulsation is about 500 μm at 20 wt% of acetone concentration. This means that the typical size of cell equals to reaction zone width. The same structure of cellular front have been registered in 70/30 FEFO–methanol mixture. Second kind of instability, failure waves, was observed in neat nitromethane at the free surface. In this case the stability loss result in turbulent flow which is clearly detected in the shots obtained. Adding small amount of DETA (0.5 wt%) results in disappearance of the failure waves and flow stabilization. The effect is caused by the fact that DETA sharply accelerates initial rate of chemical reaction because it is sensitizer for nitromethane.

飞秒激光诱导硅表面高频周期结构

飞秒激光诱导硅表面高频周期结构

Morphology control of laser-induced periodic surface structure on the surface of nickel by femtosecond laser

An interesting transition between low spatial frequency laser-induced periodic surface structure (LIPSS) and high spatial frequency LIPSS (HSFL) on the surface of nickel is revealed by changing the scanning speed and the laser fluence. The experimental results show the proportion of HSFL area in the overall LIPSS (i.e., K) presents a quasi-parabola function trend with the polarization orientation under a femtosecond (fs) laser single-pulse train. Moreover, an obvious fluctuation dependence of K on the pulse delay is observed under a fs laser dual-pulse train. The peak value of the fluctuation is found to be determined by the polarization orientation of the dual-pulse train.

Orientation-Dependent Pinning and Homoclinic Snaking on a Planar Lattice

We study homoclinic snaking of one-dimensional, localized states on two-dimensional, bistable lattices via the method of exponential asymptotics. Within a narrow region of parameter space, fronts connecting the two stable states are pinned to the underlying lattice. Localized solutions are formed by matching two such stationary fronts back-to-back; depending on the orientation relative to the lattice, the solution branch may “snake” back and forth within the pinning region via successive saddle-node bifurcations. Standard continuum approximations in the weakly nonlinear limit (equivalently, the limit of small mesh size) do not exhibit this behavior, due to the resultant leading-order reaction-diffusion equation lacking a periodic spatial structure. By including exponentially small effects hidden beyond all algebraic orders in the asymptotic expansion, we find that exponentially small but exponentially growing terms are switched on via error function smoothing near Stokes lines. Eliminating these otherwise...

Effect of long-term mechanical perturbation on intertidal soft-bottom meiofaunal community spatial structure

Situated at the interface of the microbial and macrofaunal compartments, soft-bottom meiofauna accomplish important ecological functions. However, little is known of their spatial distribution in the benthic environment. To assess the effects of long-term mechanical disturbance on soft-bottom meiofaunal spatial distribution, we compared a site subjected to long-term clam digging to a nearby site untouched by such activities, in Bourgneuf Bay, on the Atlantic coast of France. Six patterned replicate samples were taken at 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21 and 24cm lags, all sampling stations being separated by 5m. A combined correlogram–variogram approach was used to enhance interpretation of the meiofaunal spatial distribution; in particular, the definition of autocorrelation strength and its statistical significance, as well as the detailed characteristics of the periodic spatial structure of nematode assemblages, and the determination of the maximum distance of their spatial autocorrelation. At both sites, nematodes and copepods clearly exhibited aggregated spatial structure at the meso scale; this structure was attenuated at the impacted site. The nematode spatial distribution showed periodicity at the non-impacted site, but not at the impacted site. This is the first explicit report of a periodic process in meiofaunal spatial distribution. No such cyclic spatial process was observed for the more motile copepods at either site.This first study to indicate the impacts of long-term anthropogenic mechanical perturbation on meiofaunal spatial structure opens the door to a new dimension of mudflat ecology. Since macrofaunal predator search behaviour is known to be strongly influenced by prey spatial structure, the alteration of this structure may have important consequences for ecosystem functioning.

Reaction-diffusion approach to prevertebrae formation: Effect of a local source of morphogen

Periodic structure formation is an essential feature of embryonic development. Many models of this phenomenon, most of them based on time oscillations, have been proposed. However, temporal oscillations are not always observed during development and how a spatial periodic structure is formed still remains under question. We investigate a reaction-diffusion model, in which a Turing pattern develops without temporal oscillations, to assess its ability to account for the formation of prevertebrae. We propose a correspondence between the species of the reaction scheme and biologically relevant molecules known as morphogens. It is shown that the model satisfactorily reproduces experiments involving grafting of morphogen sources into the embryos. Using a master equation approach and the direct simulation Monte Carlo method, we examine the robustness of the results to internal fluctuations.