Understanding the ultrafast carrier dynamics and the mechanism of two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) is key to their applications in the field of optoelectronic devices. In this work, a single pulse pump probe method is introduced to detect the layer-dependent ultrafast carrier dynamics of monolayer and few-layer WS2 excited by a femtosecond pulse. Results show that the ultrafast carrier dynamics of the layered WS2 films can be divided into three stages: the fast photoexcitation phase with the characteristic time of 2–4 ps, the fast decay phase with the characteristic time of 4–20 ps, and the slow decay phase lasting several hundred picoseconds. Moreover, the layer dependency of the characteristic time of each stage has been observed, and the corresponding mechanism of free carrier dynamics has been discussed. It has been observed as well that the monolayer WS2 exhibits a unique rising time of carriers after photoexcitation. The proposed method can be expected to be an effective approach for studying the dynamics of the photoexcited carriers in 2D TMDs. Our results provide a comprehensive understanding of the photoexcited carrier dynamics of layered WS2, which is essential for its application in optoelectronics and photovoltaic devices.

Applying an ultrafast vortex laser as the pump, optical parametric amplification can be used for spiral phase-contrast imaging with high gain, wide spatial bandwidth, and high imaging contrast. Our experiments show that this design has realized the 1064 nm spiral phase-contrast idler imaging of biological tissues (frog egg cells and onion epidermis) with a spatial resolution at several microns level and a superior imaging contrast to both the traditional bright- or dark-field imaging under a weak illumination of 7 nW/cm2. This work provides a powerful way for biological tissue imaging in the second near-infrared region.

We propose and numerically demonstrate a simple and background-free all-optical chiral spectroscopy technique for gas molecules. Our approach is based on high harmonic generation driven by a new type of laser beam that is produced by one linearly polarized single-color beam passing through a lens and a prism. It is shown that chiral and achiral signals are completely separated in frequency, indicating strong background-free and highly sensitive chirality detection. We believe this all-optical method can open new opportunities for ultrafast detection for chiral dynamics in the femtoseond to attosecond time scale.

The dephasing of molecular alignment can lead to the deformation of the alignment signal during its periodic revivals. Most studies are concentrated on the first few rotational revival periods of the molecular alignment and neglect the dephasing effect. However, study of the alignment dephasing is still of great significance for both the long-term dynamics of the molecular alignment and the dephasing itself. In this work, we theoretically demonstrate that the dephasing effect is correlated with both the rotational temperature and the rotational revival period of the molecules. The results present that the dephasing is especially significant for those molecules with long rotational revival period at high rotational temperatures. The physics behind it is explored by taking advantage of the coherence of the rotational quantum state population. This work deepens our understanding of rotational dynamics and rotational spectroscopy in molecular alignment.

Ultrafast lasers with high repetition rate, high energy, and ultrashort pulse duration have enabled numerous applications in science and technology. One efficient route to generate such pulses is postcompression of high-power Yb-doped lasers. Here, we report on the generation of 24.5 fs pulses with an output energy of 1.6 µJ and a repetition rate of 500 kHz. The pulses are obtained by using a hybrid cascaded nonlinear compression of the pulses delivered by a Yb-based fiber chirped pulse amplification (CPA) system. In the first stage, the initial 390 fs laser pulses are compressed to 100.7 fs based on spectral broadening in three fused silica plates. In the second stage, the pulses have been shortened to sub-30 fs by means of nonlinear compression in a hollow-core fiber. Overall, we could achieve ∼16 times temporal shortening with the proposed approach. The results show that our system can effectively generate few-cycle pulses at a relatively high repetition rate and high energy, which can benefit future possible applications.

Motivated by the major role funneling dynamics plays in light-harvesting processes, we built some laser control strategies inspired from basic mechanisms such as interference and kicks, and applied them to the case of pyrazine. We are studying the internal conversion between the two excited states, the highest and directly reachable from the initial ground state being considered as a donor and the lowest as an acceptor. The ultimate control objective is the maximum population deposit in the otherwise dark acceptor from a two-step process: radiative excitation of the donor, followed by a conical-intersection-mediated funneling towards the acceptor. The overall idea is to first obtain the control field parameters (individual pulses leading frequency and intensity, duration, and inter-pulse time delay) for tractable reduced dimensional models basically describing the conical intersection branching space. Once these parameters are optimized, they are fixed and used in full-dimensional dynamics describing the electronic population transfer. In the case of pyrazine, the reduced model is four-dimensional, whereas the full dynamics involves 24 vibrational modes. Within experimentally achievable electromagnetic field requirements, we obtain a robust control with about 60% of the ground state population deposited in the acceptor state, while about 16% remains in the donor. Moreover, we anticipate a possible transposition to the control of even larger molecular systems, for which only a small number of normal modes are active, among all the others acting as spectators in the dynamics.

This study shows the unexpected and counterintuitive possibility of simultaneously orienting a molecule while delocalizing its molecular axis in a plane in field-free conditions. The corresponding quantum states are characterized, and different control strategies using shaped terahertz (THz) laser pulses are proposed to reach such states at zero and nonzero temperatures. The robustness against temperature effects of a simple control procedure combining a laser and a THz pulse is shown. Such control strategies can be applied not only to linear molecules but also to symmetric top molecules.

The aggregation and photoinduced excited state dynamics of organic π-conjugated molecules play a vital role in solar energy conversion and applications. This work investigates how solvent polarity affects the aggregation behavior and the photophysical process of perylene diimide dimer (PDI-II). The results show that the conjugations between PDI intramolecular chromophores are more likely to generate excimer, and the conjugations between PDI intermolecular chromophores are more likely to experience symmetry-breaking charge separation. Our study can provide a reference for the design of high-efficiency solar energy conversion materials.

Two-dimensional Dion–Jacobson (D-J) phase perovskites are prospective photovoltaic and optoelectronic materials. To study their mechanical properties and carrier-lattice interactions, we conduct femtosecond spectroscopic experiments on the films of a D-J perovskite. After optical excitation, a ∼33 meV bandgap oscillation is observed in the film by transient absorption spectroscopy. With the help of transient reflection methods, we reveal that the oscillation originates from the transport of coherent longitudinal acoustic phonons through the film. Large bandgap oscillation indicates a strong coupling between carriers and lattice, and significant bandgap modulation by strains in D-J perovskites.

We demonstrate a portable system integrated with time comparison, absolute distance ranging, and optical communication (TRC) to meet the requirements of space gravitational wave detection. A 1 km free-space asynchronous two-way optical link is performed. The TRC realizes optical communication with 7.7×10-5 bit error rate with a Si avalanche photodiode single-photon detector, while the signal intensity is 1.4 photons per pulse with the background noise of 3×104 counts per second. The distance measurement uncertainty is 48.3 mm, and time comparison precision is 162.4 ps. In this TRC system, a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser diode with a power of 9.1 µW is used, and the equivalent receiving aperture is 0.5 mm. The TRC provides a miniaturization solution for ultra-long distance inter-satellite communication, time comparison, and ranging for space gravitational wave detectors.

A home-made low loss Bi/P co-doped silica fiber was fabricated using the modified chemical vapor deposition (MCVD) technique combined with the solution doping method, where the background loss at 1550 nm was as low as 17 dB/km. We demonstrated for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, an all-fiber amplifier using the home-made Bi/P co-doped fiber achieving broadband amplification in the E-band. The amplifying performance was evaluated and optimized with different pumping patterns and fiber length. A maximum net gain at 1355 nm close to 20 dB and a minimum noise figure of 4.6 dB were obtained for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, using two 1240 nm laser diodes under bidirectional pumping with the input pump and signal powers of 870 mW and -30 dBm, respectively.

We design and fabricate an unbalanced Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) via electron beam lithography and inductively coupled plasma etching on lithium niobate thin film. The single unbalanced MZI exhibits a maximum extinction ratio of 32.4 dB and a low extra loss of 1.14 dB at the telecommunication band. Furthermore, tunability of the unbalanced MZI by harnessing the thermo-optic and electro-optic effect is investigated, achieving a linear tuning efficiency of 42.8 pm/°C and 55.2 pm/V, respectively. The demonstrated structure has applications for sensing and filtering in photonic integrated circuits.

We experimentally built a photonics-aided long-distance large-capacity millimeter-wave wireless transmission system and demonstrated a delivery of 40 Gbit/s W-band 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signal over 4600 m wireless distance at 88.5 GHz. Advanced offline digital signal processing algorithms are proposed and employed for signal recovery, which makes the bit-error ratio under 2.4×10-2. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first field-trial demonstration of >4 km W-band 16QAM signal transmission, and the result achieves a record-breaking product of wireless transmission capacity and distance, i.e., 184 (Gbit/s)·km, for high-speed and long-distance W-band wireless communication.

Metasurfaces are ultrathin metamaterials constructed by planar meta-atoms with tailored electromagnetic responses. They have attracted tremendous attention owing to their ability to freely control the propagation of electromagnetic waves. With active elements incorporated into metasurface designs, one can realize tunable and reconfigurable metadevices with functionalities controlled by external stimuli, opening up a new platform to dynamically manipulate electromagnetic waves. In this article, we review the recent progress on tunable and reconfigurable metasurfaces, focusing on their operation principles and practical applications. We describe the approaches to the engineering of reconfigurable metasurfaces categorized into different classes based on the available active materials or elements, which can offer uniform manipulations of electromagnetic waves. We further summarize the recent achievements on programmable metasurfaces with constitutional meta-atoms locally tuned by external stimuli, which can dynamically control the wavefronts of electromagnetic waves. Finally, we discuss time-modulated metasurfaces, which are meaningful to exploit the temporal dimension by applying a dynamic switching of the coding sequence. The review is concluded by our outlook on possible future directions and existing challenges in this fast developing field.

Light beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) have inspired various advanced applications, and such abundant practical applications in turn demand complex generation and manipulation of optical vortices. Here, we propose a multifocal graphene vortex generator, which can produce broadband angular momentum cascade containing continuous integer non-diffracting vortex modes. Our device naturally embodies a continuous spiral slit vortex generator and a zone plate, which enables the generation of high-quality continuous vortex modes with deep depths of foci. Meanwhile, the generated vortex modes can be simultaneously tuned through incident wavelength and position of the focal plane. The elegant structure of the device largely improves the design efficiency and can be fabricated by laser nanofabrication in a single step. Moreover, the outstanding property of graphene may enable new possibilities in enormous practical applications, even in some harsh environments, such as aerospace.