Impacts of Defoliation on Morphological Characteristics and Non-Structural Carbohydrates of Populus talassica × Populus euphratica Seedlings

Leaves are important‘source’organs that synthesize organic matter,providing carbon sources for plant growth.Here,we used Populus talassica×Populus euphratica,the dominant species in ecological and timber forests,to simulate carbon limitation through artificial 25%,50%,and 75%defoliation treatments and explore the effects on root,stem,and leaf morphology,biomass accumulation,and carbon allocation strategies.At the 60th d after treat-ment,under 25%defoliation treatment,the plant height,specific leaf weight,root surface area and volume,and concentrations of non-structural carbohydrates in stem and root were significantly increased by 9.13%,20.00%,16.60%,31.95%,5.12%,and 9.34%,respectively,relative to the control.There was no significant change in the growth indicators under 50%defoliation treatment,but the concentrations of non-structural carbohydrates in the leaf and stem significantly decreased,showing mostly a negative correlation between them.The opposite was observed in the root.Under 75%defoliation treatment,the plant height,ground diameter,leaf number,single leaf area,root,stem,and total biomass were significantly reduced by 14.15%,10.24%,14.86%,11.31%,11.56%,21.87%,and 16.82%,respectively,relative to the control.The concentrations of non-structural carbohydrates in various organs were significantly reduced,particularly in the consumption of the starch concentrations in the stem and root.These results indicated that carbon allocation strategies can be adjusted to increase the con-centration of non-structural carbohydrates in root and meet plant growth needs under 25%and 50%defoliation.However,75%defoliation significantly limited the distribution of non-structural carbohydrates to roots and stems,reduced carbon storage,and thus inhibited plant growth.Defoliation-induced carbon limitation altered the carbon allocation pattern of P.talassica×P.euphratica,and the relationship between carbon reserves in roots and tree growth recovery after defoliation was greater.This study provides a theoretical basis for the comprehen-sive management of P.talassica×P.euphratica plantations,as well as a reference for the study of plantation car-bon allocation strategies in the desert and semi-desert regions of Xinjiang under carbon-limitation conditions.

Observation of accurately designed bound states in the continuum in momentum space

Bound states in the continuum(BICs)in artificial photonic structures have received considerable attention since they offer unique methods for the extreme field localization and enhancement of light-matter interactions.Usually,the symmetry-protected BICs are located at high symmetric points,while the positions of accidental BICs achieved by tuning the parameters will appear at some points in momentum space.Up to now,to accurately design the position of the accidental BIC in momentum space is still a challenge.Here,we theoretically and experimentally demonstrate an accurately designed accidental BIC in a two-coupled-oscillator system consisting of bilayer gratings,where the optical response of each grating can be described by a single resonator model.By changing the interlayer distance between the gratings to tune the propagation phase shift related to wave vectors,the position of the accidental BIC can be arbitrarily controlled in momentum space.Moreover,we present a general method and rigorous numerical analyses for extracting the polarization vector fields to observe the topological properties of BICs from the polarization-resolved transmission spectra.Finally,an application of the highly efficient second harmonic generation assisted by quasi-BIC is demonstrated.Our work provides a straightforward strategy for manipulating BICs and studying their topological properties in momentum space.

Observation of maximal intrinsic chirality empowered by dual quasi-bound states in the continuum in a planar metasurface

Metasurfaces with spin-selective transmission play an increasingly critical role in realizing optical chiral responses,especially for strong intrinsic chirality,which is limited to complex three-dimensional geometry.In this paper,we propose a planar metasurface capable of generating maximal intrinsic chirality and achieving dual-band spinselective transmission utilizing dual quasi-bound states in the continuum(quasi-BICs)caused by the structural symmetry breaking.Interestingly,the value of circular dichroism(CD)and the transmittance of two kinds of circular polarization states can be arbitrarily controlled by tuning the asymmetry parameter.Remarkable CD approaching unity with the maximum transmittance up to 0.95 is experimentally achieved in the dual band.Furthermore,assisted by chiral BICs,the application in polarization multiplexed near-field image display is also exhibited.Our work provides a new avenue to flexibly control intrinsic chirality in planar structure and offers an alternative strategy to develop chiral sensing,multiband spin-selective transmission,and high-performance circularly polarized wave detection.The basic principle and design method of our experiments in the microwave regime can be extended to other bands,such as the terahertz and infrared wavelengths.

Steerable merging bound states in the continuum on a quasi-flatband of photonic crystal slabs without breaking symmetry

Optical resonators with high quality(Q)factors are paramount for the enhancement of light–matter interactions in engineered photonic structures,but their performance always suffers from the scattering loss caused by fabrication imperfections.Merging bound states in the continuum(BICs)provide us with a nontrivial physical mechanism to overcome this challenge,as they can significantly improve the Q factors of quasi-BICs.However,most of the reported merging BICs are found atΓpoint(the center of the Brillouin zone),which intensively limits many potential applications based on angular selectivity.To date,studies on manipulating merging BICs at off-Γpoint are always accompanied by the breaking of structural symmetry that inevitably increases process difficulty and structural defects to a certain extent.Here,we propose a scheme to construct merging BICs at almost an arbitrary point in momentum space without breaking symmetry.Enabled by the topological features of BICs,we merge four accidental BICs with one symmetry-protected BIC at theΓpoint and merge two accidental BICs with opposite topological charges at the off-Γpoint only by changing the periodic constant of a photonic crystal slab.Furthermore,the position of off-Γmerging BICs can be flexibly tuned by the periodic constant and height of the structure simultaneously.Interestingly,it is observed that the movement of BICs occurs in a quasi-flatband with ultra-narrow bandwidth.Therefore,merging BICs in a tiny band provide a mechanism to realize more robust ultrahigh-Q resonances that further improve the optical performance,which is limited by wide-angle illuminations.Finally,as an example of application,effective angle-insensitive second-harmonic generation assisted by different quasi-BICs is numerically demonstrated.Our findings demonstrate momentum-steerable merging BICs in a quasi-flatband,which may expand the application of BICs to the enhancement of frequency-sensitive light–matter interaction with angular selectivity.