In this paper, we report 4 different saturable absorbers based on 4 transition metal dichalcogenides (MoS(2), MoSe(2), WS(2), WSe(2)) and utilize them to Q-switch a ring-cavity fiber laser with identical cavity configuration. It is found that MoSe(2) exhibits highest modulation depth with similar preparation process among four saturable absorbers. Q-switching operation performance is compared from the aspects of RF spectrum, optical spectrum, repetition rate and pulse duration. WS(2) Q-switched fiber laser generates the most stable pulse trains compared to other 3 fiber lasers. These results demonstrate the feasibility of TMDs to Q-switch fiber laser effectively and provide a meaningful reference for further research in nonlinear fiber optics with these TMDs materials.

Plasmonic effects associated with metallic nanostructures have been widely studied for color generation. It became apparent that highly saturated and bright colors are hard to obtain, and very small nanostructures need to be fabricated. To address this issue, in this study, we employ metal-insulator-metal sandwich nanodisks that support enhanced in-phase electric dipole modes, which are blue-shifted with respect to a single metal disk. The blue shift enables the generation of short wavelength colors with larger nanostructures. The radiation modes hybridize with the Wood's anomaly in periodic structures, creating narrow and high-resonance peaks in the reflection and deep valleys in the transmission spectra, thus producing vivid complementary colors in both cases. Full colors can be achieved by tuning the radius of the nanodisks and the periodicity of the arrays. Good agreement between simulations and experiments is demonstrated and analyzed in CIE1931, sRGB, and HSV color spaces. The presented method has potential for applications in imaging, data storage, ultrafine displays, and plasmon-based biosensors.

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The current focus of valleytronics research lies in how to produce valley polarization. Although many schemes have been broadly studied, spontaneous valley polarization is rarely explored. Here, we report the discovery of a two-dimensional material with the long-pursued spontaneous spin and valley polarizations. Using first-principles calculations, we reveal that single-layer LaBr2 is dynamically and thermally stable, which could be exfoliated from its bulk material. Single-layer LaBr2 is found to be a compelling two-dimensional ferromagnetic semiconductor. More interestingly, we show that single-layer LaBr2 harbors the extremely rare intrinsic valley polarization, owing to the coexistence of inversion symmetry and time-reversal symmetry breakings. Its spontaneous valley polarization reaches 33 meV, sizable enough for operating room-temperature valleytronic physics. Our work thus provides a promising material for experimental studies and practical applications of two-dimensional spintronics and valleytronics.

We report on the study of the fractional quantum Hall effect at the filling factor 5/2 using exact diagonalization method with torus geometry. The particle-hole symmetry breaking effect is considered using an additional three-body interaction. Both Pfaffian and anti-Pfaffian states can be the ground state depending on the sign of the three-body interaction. The results of the low-energy spectrum, the wave function overlap, and the particle-hole parity evolution, have shown clear evidence of a direct sharp transition ͑possibly first order͒ from the Pfaffian to the anti-Pfaffian state at the Coulomb point. A quantum phase diagram is established, where one finds further transitions from the Pfaffian or anti-Pfaffian state to the nearby compressible phases induced by a change of the pseudopotential.