To develop NaYF(4) as bulk luminescence material, transparent glass ceramics containing Er(3+): NaYF(4) nanocrystals were fabricated for the first time, and the influences of heat-treatment temperature and Er(3+) doping level on their upconversion luminescence were investigated. With increasing heating temperature, the upconversion intensity enhanced accordingly, attributing to the incorporation of more Er(3+) into the grown NaYF(4). Notably, when the heating temperature reached 650 degrees C, the upconversion intensity augmented drastically due to the occurrence of phase transition from the cubic NaYF(4) to the hexagonal one. Interestingly, for the samples heat-treated at 620 degrees C, when the Er(3+) doping level was increased from 0.05 to 2.0 mol %, the upconversion emission was whole-range tunable from monochromatic green to approximately monochromatic red, which could be mainly attributed to the cross-relaxation between Er(3+) ions. The excellent optical properties and its convenient, low-cost synthesis of the present glass ceramic imply that it is an excellent substitution material for the unobtainable bulk NaYF(4) crystal, potentially applicable in many fields.

Ag–Fe3O4@chitin microspheres were developed as a retrievable catalyst and a potential chromatography column packing material for organic synthesis.

In this paper, we theoretically discuss the combined chirp effects on the isolated attosecond generation when a model Ar is exposed to an intense 5-fs, 800-nm fundamental chirped pulse combined with a weak 10-fs, 1200-nm controlling chirped pulse. It shows that for the case of the chirp parameters β 1 = 6.1 (corresponding to the 800-nm field) and β 2 = 4.0 (corresponding to the 1200-nm field), both the harmonic cutoff energy and the supercontinuum can be remarkably extended resulting in a 663-eV bandwidth. Moreover, due to the introduction of the chirps, the short quantum path is selected to contribute to the harmonic spectrum. Finally, by superposing a properly selected harmonic spectrum in the supercontinuum region, an isolated pulse as short as 31 as (5 as) is generated without (with) phase compensation.

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By using multidimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we study the electromagnetic emission from radiation pressure acceleration of ultrathin mass-limited foils. When a circularly polarized laser pulse irradiates the foil, the laser radiation pressure pushes the foil forward as a whole. The outer wings of the pulse continue to propagate and act as a natural undulator. Electrons move together with ions longitudinally but oscillate around the latter transversely, forming a self-organized helical electron bunch. When the electron oscillation frequency coincides with the laser frequency as witnessed by the electron, betatronlike resonance occurs. The emitted x rays by the resonant electrons have high brightness, short durations, and broad band ranges which may have diverse applications.

The propagation of tightly focused femtosecond laser pulse with numerical aperture of 0.12 in air is investigated experimentally. The formation and evolution of the filament bunch are recorded by time-resolved shadowgraph with laser energy from 2.4 mJ to 47 mJ. The distribution of electron density in breakdown area is retrieved using Nomarski interferometer. It is found that intensity clamping during filamentation effect still play a role even under strong external focusing. The electron density in some interaction zones is higher than 3 × 10(19) cm(-3), which indicates that each air molecule there is ionized.

Molecular vibrations of methane molecules in the structure I clathrate hydrate from ab initio molecular dynamics simulation J. Chem. Phys. 136, 044508 (2012) Many-body effects are essential in a physically motivated CO2 force field J. Chem. Phys. 136, 034503 (2012) Phonon-mediated path-interference in electronic energy transfer J. Chem. Phys. 136, 024112 (2012) Rotational dynamics of solvated carbon dioxide studied by infrared, Raman, and time-resolved infrared spectroscopies and a molecular dynamics simulation J. Chem. Phys. 136, 014508 (2012) Vibrationally averaged post Born-Oppenheimer isotopic dipole moment calculations approaching spectroscopic accuracy J. Chem. Phys. 135, 244313 (2011) Additional information on J. Chem. Phys. In this paper, we theoretically investigate the nuclear signatures effects, i.e., the initial vibrational state and the isotopic effects on the generations of the molecular high-order harmonics and the attosecond pulses when the model H 2 + /D 2 + ions are exposed to a 5 fs/800 nm chirp pulse. The numerical solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for these vibrating molecule ions shows that the intensities of the harmonic spectra are reinforced with the enhancement of the initial vibrational state. Moreover, through the investigation of the isotopic effect, we find that more intense harmonics are generated in the lighter nucleus. Furthermore, by optimizing the chirp pulse under the optimal initial vibrational state, an intense ultrabroad supercontinuum with a 325 eV bandwidth can be obtained. By properly superposing the harmonic spectrum, an attosecond pulse as short as 57 as (16 as) is generated without (with) phase compensation.

The echo-enabled harmonic generation (EEHG) scheme holds promising prospects for efficiently generating intense coherent radiation at very high harmonics of a conventional ultraviolet seed laser. We report the lasing of the EEHG free-electron laser (FEL) at an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) wavelength with a seeded FEL facility, the Shanghai soft x-ray FEL. For the first time, we have benchmarked the basic theory of EEHG by measuring the bunching factor distributions over one octave down to the EUV region. Our results demonstrated the key advantages of the EEHG FEL, i.e., generation of very high harmonics with a small laser-induced energy spread and insensitivity to beam imperfections, and marks a great step towards fully coherent x rays with the EEHG scheme.