Properties of long light filaments in natural environment

The multiple filamentation of terawatt femtosecond （fs） laser pulses is experimentally studied in a natural environment. A more than 30-m long plasma filament with a millimeter diameter is formed by the collimated fs laser pulse freely propagating in an open atmosphere. This study provides the first quantitative experimental data about the electron density of a long range light filament in the atmosphere. The electron density of such a filament is quantitatively detected by using an electric method, showing that it is at the 1011-cm -3 level.

Fire Intumescent,High-Temperature Resistant,Mechanically Flexible Graphene Oxide Network for Exceptional Fire Shielding and Ultra-Fast Fire Warning

Smart fire alarm sensor(FAS)materials with mechanically robust,excellent flame retardancy as well as ultra-sensitive temperature-responsive capability are highly attractive platforms for fire safety application.However,most reported FAS materials can hardly provide sensitive,continuous and reliable alarm signal output due to their undesirable temperature-responsive,flame-resistant and mechanical performances.To overcome these hurdles,herein,we utilize the multi-amino molecule,named HCPA,that can serve as triple-roles including cross-linker,fire retardant and reducing agent for decorating graphene oxide(GO)sheets and obtaining the GO/HCPA hybrid networks.Benefiting from the formation of multi-interactions in hybrid network,the optimized GO/HCPA network exhibits significant increment in mechanical strength,e.g.,tensile strength and toughness increase of~2.3and~5.7 times,respectively,compared to the control one.More importantly,based on P and N doping and promoting thermal reduction effect on GO network,the excellent flame retardancy(withstanding~1200℃flame attack),ultra-fast fire alarm response time(~0.6 s)and ultra-long alarming period(>600 s)are obtained,representing the best comprehensive performance of GO-based FAS counterparts.Furthermore,based on GO/HCPA network,the fireproof coating is constructed and applied in polymer foam and exhibited exceptional fire shielding performance.This work provides a new idea for designing and fabricating desirable FAS materials and fireproof coatings.

Traversing the singularity hypersurface by applying the input disturbances to 6-SPS parallel manipulator

The singular points of a 6-SPS Stewart platform are distributed on the multi-dimensional singularity hypersurface in the task-space, which divides the workspace of the manipulator into several singularity-free regions. Because of the motion un- certainty at singular points, while the manipulator traverses this kind of hypersurface from one singularity-free region to another, its motion cannot be predetermined. In this paper, a detailed approach for the manipulator to traverse the singularity hypersurface with its non-persistent configuration is presented. First, the singular point transfer disturbance and the pose disturbance, which make the perturbed singular point transfer horizontally and vertically, respectively, are constructed. Through applying these disturbances into the input parameters within the maximum loss control domain, the perturbed persistent configuration is transformed into its corresponding non-persistent one. Under the action of the disturbances, the manipulator can traverse the singularity hypersurface from one singularity-flee region to another with a desired configuration.

Silicone/graphene oxide co-cross-linked aerogels with wide-temperature mechanical flexibility,super-hydrophobicity and flame resistance for exceptional thermal insulation and oil/water separation

Development of multifunctional and high-performance silicone aerogel is highly required for various promising applications.However,unstable cross-linking structure and poor thermal stability of silicone network as well as complicated processing restrict the practical use significantly.Herein,we report a facile and versatile ambient drying strategy to fabricate lightweight,wide-temperature flexible,super-hydrophobic and flame retardant silicone composite aerogels modified with low-content functionalized graphene oxide(FGO).After optimizing silane molecules,incorporation ofγ-aminopropyltriethoxysilane functionalization is found to promote the dispersion stability of GO during the hydrolysis-polymerization process and thus produce the formation of unique strip-like co-cross-linked network.Consequently,the aerogels containing∼2.0 wt%FGO not only possess good cyclic compressive stability under strain of 70%for 100 cycles and outstanding mechanical reliability in wide temperature range(from liquid nitrogen to 350℃),but also display excellent flame resistance and super-hydrophobicity.Further,the optimized silicone/FGO aerogels display exceptional thermal insulating performance superior to pure aerogel and hydrocarbon polymer foams,and they also show efficient oil absorption and separation capacity for var-ious solvents and oil from water.Clearly,this work provides a new route for the rational design and development of advanced silicone composite aerogels for multifunctional applications.

Upper-limit power for self-guided propagation of intense lasers in underdense plasma

It is found that there is an upper-limit critical power for self-guided propagation of intense lasers in plasma in addition to the well-known lower-limit critical power set by the relativistic effect.Above this upper-limit critical power,the laser pulse experiences defocusing due to expulsion of local plasma electrons by the transverse ponderomotive force.Associated with the upper-limit power,a lower-limit critical plasma density is also found for a given laser spot size,below which self-focusing does not occur for any laser power.Both the upper-limit power and the lower-limit density are derived theoretically and verified by two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations.The present study provides new guidance for experimental designs,where self-guided propagation of lasers is essential.

Upper-limit power for self-guided propagation of intense lasers in underdense plasma-CORRIGENDUM

The authors would like to apologize for an error found in the acknowledgement section on page 79.The acknowledgement should read:This work is supported in part by National Basic Research Program of China(Grant No.2013CBA01501)and

Temperature-induced resistance transition behaviors of melamine sponge composites wrapped with different graphene oxide derivatives

Temperature-re s ponsive resistance transition behaviors of the melamine sponges wrapped with different graphene oxide derivatives(i.e.nanoribbon,wide-ribbon and sheet)were investigated.Melamine sponge composites coated by three types of GO derivatives were prepared by a simple dip-coating approach.All these composites show good mechanical flexibility and reliability(almost unchanged compressive stress at 70%strain after 100 cycles),high hydrophobicity(water contact angle>120°),excellent flame resistance(self-extinguishing)and structural stability even after burning,which was used to construct the resistance-based fire alarm/warning sensor.Notably,the different resistance response behaviors of such sensors are strongly dependent on the GO size and network formed on the MF skeleton surface.Typically,at a fixed high temperature of~350℃,the three fire alarm sensors show different response time(to trigger the alarm light)of 6.3,8.4 and 11.1 s for nanoribbon,wide-ribbon and sheet at the same concentration,respectively.The structural observation and chemical analysis demonstrated that the discrepancy of temperature-responsive resistance transition behaviors of various GO derivatives was strongly determined by their different thermal reduction degrees during the high-tempe rature or flame treating process.This work offers a design and development for construction of smart fire alarm device for potential fire prevention and safety applications.

Non-scanning systems for far-infrared radiation detection from laser-induced plasmas

With the development of ultraintense terawatt(TW) and petawatt(PW) laser systems, powerful terahertz(THz) radiation from laser–plasma interactions has been reported. Plasma-based THz systems, which are usually operated at extremely low repetition rates, call for single-shot diagnostics. In this paper, various state-of-the-art single-shot detection methods are introduced or designed for measurements and applications involved in high-power plasma-based THz sciences.

An ROS-Responsive Antioxidative Macromolecular Prodrug of Caffeate for Uveitis Treatment

Uveitis is a sophisticated syndrome showing a high relevance with reactive oxygen species(ROS).Herein,an ROS-responsive PEGylated polypeptide based macromolecular prodrug of herbaceous antioxidant ethyl caffeate(EC)is designed via phenylboronic esters with improved solubility for the alleviation of uveitis.The antioxidative 4-hydroxybenzyl alcohol(HBA)and EC can be released from the macromolecular EC prodrug under the stimulation of ROS,which can effectively protect cells against oxidative stress-induced injury in an ROS-depletion way.The antioxidative and protective effects of the macromolecular EC prodrug in vivo are further verified in a uveitis mouse model.Overall,this work not only provides a handy method to synthesize a phenylboronic ester-bearing EC prodrug which is highly sensitive to pathological ROS,but also depicts a promising future to apply macromolecular antioxidative prodrugs in the treatment of uveitis as well as other ROS-related diseases.

Laboratory astrophysics with laser-driven strong magnetic fields in China

In this paper, the recent studies of laboratory astrophysics with strong magnetic fields in China have been reviewed.On the Shenguang-II laser facility of the National Laboratory on High-Power Lasers and Physics, a laser-driven strong magnetic field up to 200 T has been achieved. The experiment was performed to model the interaction of solar wind with dayside magnetosphere. Also the low beta plasma magnetic reconnection(MR) has been studied. Theoretically, the model has been developed to deal with the atomic structures and processes in strong magnetic field. Also the study of shock wave generation in the magnetized counter-streaming plasmas is introduced.