Recently, synthetic optical materials represented via non-Hermitian Hamiltonians have attracted significant attention because of their nonorthogonal eigensystems, enabling unidirectionality, nonreciprocity and unconventional beam dynamics. Such systems demand carefully configured complex optical potentials to create skewed vector spaces with a desired metric distortion. In this paper, we report optically generated non-Hermitian photonic lattices with versatile control of real and imaginary sub-lattices. In the proposed method, such lattices are generated by vector-field holographic interference of two elliptically polarized pump beams on azobenzene-doped polymer thin films. We experimentally observe violation of Friedel's law of diffraction, indicating the onset of complex lattice formation. We further create an exact parity-time symmetric lattice to demonstrate totally asymmetric diffraction at the spontaneous symmetry-breaking threshold, referred to as an exceptional point. On this basis, we provide the experimental demonstration of reconfigurable non-Hermitian photonic lattices in the optical domain and observe the purest exceptional point ever reported to date.
Efficient outcoupling of surface-plasma waves to radiation modes by use of dielectric diffraction gratings on a flat metallic surface is discussed. The dielectric gratings, which have a surface-relief structure with only several tens of nanometers in peak-to-trough height on a flat metal surface, can efficiently extract radiation modes propagating in free space from the surface-plasmon modes. An outcoupling efficiency of 50% is estimated with the rigorous coupled-wave diffraction theory, and it is confirmed by the experiment.
Recently, thermoset vitrimer polymers have shown significant promise for structural applications because of their ability to be reshaped and remolded due to their covalent adaptive network (CAN). In these vitrimers, the transesterification reaction is responsible for the CAN, where the efficiency of the reaction is controlled either by organic or by organometallic catalysts. Understanding the mechanism of the transesterification reaction in the bulk phase using direct experimental techniques is extremely difficult due to the highly cross-linked complex structure of thermosetting vitrimers. Therefore, we use solution-phase experiments to investigate the catalytic efficiency and to guide density functional theory (DFT) simulations of the transesterification reaction mechanism with catalysts triazabicyclodecene (TBD), zinc acetate (Zn(OAc) 2 ), 1-methylimidazole (1-MI), and dibutyltin oxide (DBTO). The estimated catalytic efficiency from the detailed DFT reaction path calculations follows the order TBD ≳ DBTO ≳ Zn(OAc) 2 > 1-MI, which agrees with the experimental results. In addition to reaction path modeling, the mechanism and the relative rates of the transesterification reaction are analyzed with the assistance of Fukui indices as a measure of electrophilicity and nucleophilicity of atomic sites and with partial charges. It was found that the sum of the nucleophilicity index of the base and the electrophilicity index of the acid of the bifunctional catalysts correlates with the S N 2 transition state and tetrahedral intermediate energies, which are related to the barrier of the rate-limiting step. This correlation provides a hypothesis for computational prescreening of potentially better catalysts that have an index in a range of values. These results provide a basis for understanding an important part of the mechanism of transesterification in vitrimer systems and may assist with designing new catalysts.
Optical manipulation of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in aqueous solution was performed using a linearly polarized infrared tweezers system. Vertical and horizontal manipulation of single-walled and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs, MWNTs) was carried out by changing the size of the CNTs and the trapping position. Rotation of MWNT bundles was confirmed using a circular polarized infrared optical tweezers system. Patterning of dots and letters with CNTs was successfully carried out on glass substrates.
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