Inside a liquid solution, oriented attachment (OA) is now recognized to be as important a pathway to crystal growth as other, more conventional growth mechanisms. However, the driving force that controls the occurrence of OA is still poorly understood. Here, using in-situ liquid cell transmission electron microscopy, we demonstrate the ligand-controlled OA of citrate-stabilized gold nanoparticles at atomic resolution. Our data reveal that particle pairs rotate randomly at a separation distance greater than twice the layer thickness of adsorbed ligands. In contrast, when the particles get closer, their ligands overlap and guide the rotation into a directional mode until they share a common {111} orientation, when a sudden contact occurs accompanied by the simultaneous expulsion of the ligands on this surface. First-principle calculations confirm that the lower ligand binding energy on {111} surfaces is the intrinsic reason for the preferential attachment at this facet, rather than on other low-index facets.

One of the main challenges for highly sensitive surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) detection is the noise interference of fluorescence signals arising from the analyte molecules. Here we used three types of gold nanostars (GNSs) SERS probes treated by different surface modification methods to reveal the simultaneously existed Raman scattering enhancement and inhibiting fluorescence behaviors during the SERS detection process. As the distance between the metal nanostructures and the analyte molecules can be well controlled by these three surface modification methods, we demonstrated that the fluorescence signals can be either quenched or enhanced during the detection. We found that fluorescence quenching will occur when analyte molecules are closely contacted to the surface of GNSs, leading to a ~100 fold enhancement of the SERS sensitivity. An optimized Raman signal detection limit, as low as the level of 10−11 M, were achieved when Rhodamine 6 G were used as the analyte. The presented fluorescence-free GNSs SERS substrates with plentiful hot spots and controllable surface plasmon resonance wavelengths, fabricated using a cost-effective self-assembling method, can be very competitive candidates for high-sensitive SERS applications.

Optical gyroscopes with high sensitivity are important rotation sensors for inertial navigation systems. Here, we present the concept of integrated resonant optical gyroscope constructed by active long-range surface plasmon-polariton (LRSPP) waveguide resonator. In this gyroscope, LRSPP waveguide doped gain medium is pumped to compensate the propagation loss, which has lower pump noise than that of conventional optical waveguide. Peculiar properties of single-polarization of LRSPP waveguide have been found to significantly reduce the polarization error. The metal layer of LRSPP waveguide is electro-optical multiplexed for suppression of reciprocal noises. It shows a limited sensitivity of ~10−4 deg/h, and a maximum zero drift which is 4 orders of magnitude lower than that constructed by conventional single-mode waveguide.

In the open pit mine production systems, a certain number of trucks transport mine and rock between the power shovel and the unloading point. Due to the mining truck has characteristics of high height, long width and big size, it has a large blind zone and a long braking distance. Therefore, the probability of accidents in mining trucks is high, which results in huge loss of manpower, material resources and financial resources. In this paper, tiny-yolov3 is used to detect obstacles in the mine, its real-time performance is high enough, but the detection accuracy is not ideal. Therefore, this paper proposes an improved target detection model based on tiny-yolov3. The residual network structure based on convolutional neural network is added to the tiny-yolov3 structure, and the accuracy of obstacle detection is improved under the condition of real-time detection. The experimental results show that compared with tiny-yolov3, the detect precision of tiny-yolov3 with residual structure is improved, and the detection speed is reduced slightly, there is no particular impact on the real-time nature of the entire algorithm.INDEX TERMS Convolutional neural network, real-time, residual network, target detection, tiny-yolov3.

A silver nanoplate aggregation based plasmonic absorber layer with excellent light confinement and photothermic harvesting performance in the broadband range.

Propagation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) along the interface between a metal and a dielectric has attracted significant attention due to its unique optical properties, which has inspired a plethora of fascinating applications in photonics and optoelectronics. However, SPPs suffer from large attenuation because of the ohmic losses in the metal layer. It has become the main bottom-neck problem for the development of high performance plasmonic devices. This limitation can be overcome by providing the material adjacent to the metal with optical gain. In this paper, a review of gain compensation to SPPs is presented. We focus on the spontaneous radiation amplification and simulated radiation amplification. The ohmic loss of metal was greatly improved by introducing optical gain. Then we introduce several gain mediums of dye doped, quantum dots, erbium ion, and semiconductor to compensate optical loss of SPPs. Using gain medium mentioned above can compensate losses and achieve many potential applications, for example, laser, amplifier, and LRSPP discussed.

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