Creation of Triple Hierarchical Micro-Meso-Macroporous N-doped Carbon Shells with Hollow Cores Toward the Electrocatalytic Oxygen Reduction Reaction

A series of triple hierarchical micro-mesomacroporous N-doped carbon shells with hollow cores have been successfully prepared via etching N-doped hollow carbon spheres with CO_2 at high temperatures.The surface areas, total pore volumes and microporepercentages of the CO_2-activated samples evidently increase with increasing activation temperature from 800 to950 °C, while the N contents show a contrary trend from7.6 to 3.8 at%. The pyridinic and graphitic nitrogen groups are dominant among various N-containing groups in the samples. The 950 °C-activated sample(CANHCS-950) has the largest surface area(2072 m^2 g^(-1)), pore volume(1.96 cm^3 g^(-1)), hierarchical micro-mesopore distributions(1.2, 2.6 and 6.2 nm), hollow macropore cores(*91 nm)and highest relative content of pyridinic and graphitic N groups. This triple micro-meso-macropore system could synergistically enhance the activity because macropores could store up the reactant, mesopores could reduce the transport resistance of the reactants to the active sites, and micropores could be in favor of the accumulation of ions.Therefore, the CANHCS-950 with optimized structure shows the optimal and comparable oxygen reduction reaction(ORR) activity but superior methanol tolerance and long-term durability to commercial Pt/C with a 4 e--dominant transfer pathway in alkaline media. These excellent properties in combination with good stability and recyclability make CANHCSs among the most promising metal-free ORR electrocatalysts reported so far in practical applications.

Polarization characteristics of chiral photonic crystal fibers with an elliptical hollow core

The theoretical study of dielectric-chiral photonic crystal fiber （PCF） with an elliptical hollow core is presented. The band structure of chiral photonic crystal （PhC） is calculated by using a modified plane-wave expansion （PWE） method. By examining the out-of-plane photonic bandgaps （PBGs） of chiral PhC, a kind of chiral PCF with a hollow core is designed and their eigenstates are calculated. The distributions of mode field and polarization state are demonstrated, and how the structural asymmetry of the core together with the chirality in the background affects the modal polarization is discussed. The dependences of birefringence on chirality for different ellipticities of core are investigated.

Vibration Serviceability of Large-Span Steel–Concrete Composite Beam with Precast Hollow Core Slabs Under Walking Impact

A large-span steel–concrete composite beam with precast hollow core slabs(CBHCSs)is a relatively new floor structure that can be applied to various long-span structures.However,human-induced vibrations may present serviceability issues in such structures.To alleviate vibrations,both the walking forces excited by humans and the associated floor responses must be elucidated.In this study,150 load–time histories of walking,excited by 25 test participants,are obtained using a force measuring plate.The dynamic loading factors and phase angles in the Fourier series functions for one-step walking are determined.Subsequently,walking tests are performed on seven CBHCS specimens to capture the essential dynamic properties of mode shapes,natural frequencies,damping ratios,and acceleration time histories.The CBHCS floor system generally exhibits a high frequency(>10 Hz)and low damping(damping ratio<2%).Sensitivity studies using the finite element method are conducted to investigate the vibration performance of the CBHCS floor system,where the floor thickness,steel beam type,contact time,and human weight are considered.Finally,analytical expressions derived for the fundamental frequency and peak acceleration agree well with the experimental results and are hence proposed for practical use.

Energetic few-cycle pulse compression in gas-filled hollow core fiber with concentric phase mask

The compression of high-energy, linearly polarized pulses in a gas-filled hollow core fiber(HCF) by using a concentric phase mask is studied theoretically. Simulation results indicate that using a properly designed concentric phase mask, a40-fs input pulse centered at 800 nm with energy up to 10.0 mJ can be compressed to a full width at half maximum(FWHM) of less than 5 fs after propagating through a neon-filled HCF with a length of 1 m and diameter of 500 μm with a transmission efficiency of 67%, which is significantly higher than that without a concentric phase mask. Pulses with energy up to 20.0 mJ can also be efficiently compressed to less than 10 fs with the concentric phase mask. The higher efficiency due to the concentric phase mask can be attributed to the redistribution of the transverse intensity profile, which reduces the effect of ionization. The proposed method exhibits great potential for generating few-cycle laser pulse sources with high energy by the HCF compressor.

Web Shear Strengthening Technique of Deep Precast Prestressed Hollow Core Slabs under Truck Loads

Precast prestressed Hollow Core Slabs (HCS), are one of the famous and widely used slabs for concrete structures all over the world and widely implemented in the Middle East. HCS are used in industrial, commercial, residential buildings, as well as, in the parking structures. This paper succeeded to present new special details for deep HCS to enhance and strengthen the web shear strength capacity of HCS 400 and 500 mm depths respectively at the open parking area. This is subjected to heavy truck wheel loads so as to achieve the LRFD Code’s requirements. However, it is noticed many web shear cracks of HCS are used at parking area at many projects in Gulf Region. On the other hand, ACI318-14 permits no shear reinforcement in prestressed HCS thickness of less than 12.5 in (320 mm). The paper presents experimental tests program, to verify the numerical finite element of deep HCS under maximum design uniform loads, in addition to the new strengthening techniques. New strengthening techniques succeed to enhance the web shear capacity by significant percentage, due to the new details for HCS 400 by 68% up to 256% increasing of the web shear capacity compared to the ordinary HCS section. Also, HCS 500 shear capacity is enhanced with different percentages of strengthening techniques by 55%, up to 197% based on the different cases of strengthening. Furthermore enhancing deep HCS shear performance;the new techniques have an advantage of an easy execution at the site;casting with structural topping, otherwise the preparation can be done in precast factory before site handover, which saves time and cost compared to the others traditional strengthening techniques.

Moment transfer factors for column-supported cast-in-situ hollow core slabs

Hollow core slabs are becoming of increasing interest as the construction industry attempts to minimise the impact of its activities on the environment. By forming voids in the interior of a concrete slab, the amount of concrete used can be reduced without significantly altering the capacity of the structure. In this study, we examined the inner force transfer mechanism of a column-supported cast-in-situ hollow core slab using finite element analysis. Both a hollow core slab and the corresponding solid slab were analysed using ANSYS and the results were compared. The orientation of the tube fillers causes the stiffness of the hollow slab to be orthotropic, potentially changing the distribution of load carried in the two orthogonal directions. Both the cross-section’s moments in the column strip and near the columns in the hollow core slab become larger than that in the solid floor. As well, the cross-section’s stiffness along the tube arrangement direction is larger than that of the radial cross-section, which causes the direction along the hole of the hollow core slab to carry more moment than the radial direction. The conversion factors of the two directions are proposed from the comparison for four typical areas of the hollow core slab, as are the moment distribution coefficients.

Lithium Storage Performance of Hollow and Core/Shell TiO_2 Microspheres Containing Carbon

TiO2 microspheres containing carbon have been synthesized viaa one-pot hydrothermal process using CTAB as the mesoporous template and nanoparticle stabilizer and Ti(SO4)2and sucrose as titanium and carbon precursors,respectively. Through well designed calcinations, Ti O2 microspheres with various amounts of carbon-residue,such as core/shell C@TiO2, hollow neat H–TiO2, and hollow C/TiO2 composites, are obtained. When these microspheres are used as anode materials for lithium ion batteries, the lithium storage performance is significantly influenced by the structure and carbon-residue. With a thin shell of TiO2 nanoparticles and carbon-residue, the capacity of hollow C/TiO2 composites maintains at 143.3 m A·h·g-1at 0.5 C(83.5 m A·g-1) after 100 cycles.Moreover, after high rate charge/discharge cycles from 0.2 C to 20 C and back to 0.2 C again, the reversible capacity recovers atas high as 195.1 m A·h·g-1with respect to its initial value of 205.0 m A·h·g-1. The results of cycle voltammograms and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy further reveal that Li+insertion/extraction processes are reversible, and the diffusion coefficient of Li+in the hollow C/TiO2 composites is much higher than those of others, because the hollow structure can act as the ion-buffering reservoir and facilitate Li+transfer from both sides of the shell, and the carbon-residue in the shell improves the conductivity as well.

Nonlinear compression of picosecond chirped pulse from thin-disk amplifier system through a gas-filled hollow-core fiber

We theoretically study the nonlinear compression of a 20-rnJ, 1030-nm picosecond chirped pulse from the thin-disk amplifier in a krypton gas-filled hollow-core fiber. The chirp from the thin-disk amplifier system has little influence on the initial pulse, however, it shows an effect on the nonlinear compression in hollow-core fiber. We use a large diameter hollow waveguide to restrict undesirable nonlinear effects such as ionization; on the other hand, we employ suitable gas pressure and fiber length to promise enough spectral broadening; with 600-μm, 6-bar （1 bar = 105 Pa）, 1.8-m hollow fiber, we obtain 31.5-fs pulse. Moreover, we calculate and discuss the optimal fiber lengths and gas pressures with different initial durations induced by different grating compression angles for reaching a given bandwidth. These results are meaningful for a compression scheme from picoseconds to femtoseconds.

Analysis of the special hollow-core photonic crystal fibre by finite element method

Two kinds of fabricated hollow-core photonic crystal fibres （HC-PCFs） arc studied using finite element method （FEM） because the structures of the fibres are special, Normalized transmission spectra and transverse intensity distribution of the modes are calculated and measured. And the dispersion characteristics of these two kinds of HC- PCFs were analysed from 400 nm to 800 nm. Simulated and measured results show that the special structure could affect the properties of HC-PCFs, By comparing the simulated values with the measured results, it can be clarified that FEM is feasible and accurate for analysing photonic crystal fibres whose structures are irregular and complex.

Picosecond pulses compression at 1053-nm center wavelength by using a gas-filled hollow-core fiber compressor

We theoretically study the nonlinear compression of picosecond pulses with 10-m J of input energy at the 1053-nm center wavelength by using a one-meter-long gas-filled hollow-core fiber（HCF） compressor and considering the third-order dispersion（TOD） effect. It is found that when the input pulse is about 1 ps/10 m J, it can be compressed down to less than20 fs with a high transmission efficiency. The gas for optimal compression is krypton gas which is filled in a HCF with a 400-μm inner diameter. When the input pulse duration is increased to 5 ps, it can also be compressed down to less than 100 fs efficiently under proper conditions. The results show that the TOD effect has little impact on picosecond pulse compression and the HCF compressor can be applied on compressing picosecond pulses efficiently with a high compression ratio, which will benefit the research of high-field laser physics.

Highly efficient Cherenkov radiation generation in the irregular point of hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

Highly efficient Cherenkov radiation （CR） is generated by the soliton self-frequency shift （SSFS） in the irregular point of a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber （HC-PCF） in our laboratory. The impacts of pump power and wavelength on the CR are investigated, and the corresponding nonlinear processes are discussed. When the average power of the 120 fs pump pulse increases from 500 mW to 700 mW, the Raman soliton shifts from 2210 nm to 2360 nm, the output power of the CR increases by 2.3 times, the maximum output power ratio of the CR at 539 nm to that of the residual pump is calculated to be 24.32：1, the width of the output optical spectrum at the visible wavelength broadens from 35 nm to 62 nm, and the conversion efficiency η of the CR in the experiment can be above 32%.

Femtosecond parabolic pulse nonlinear compression with gas-filled hollow-core fiber

We study theoretically the spectral intensity evolutions of the femtosecond Gaussian and parabolic pulses with different initial pulse energies and compare the nonlinear compressions of these pulses based on a meter-long hollow-core fiber filled with neon for different initial pulse durations. The pulses are first coupled into gas-filled hollow-core fiber for spectrum broadening, then compressed by the optimal chirp compensation. The parabolic pulse possesses a shorter pulse duration, larger peak power, and cleaner wings than Gaussian pulse. The properties are useful for compressing the pulses and thus generating the high-energy, short-duration pulses.

Generation of few-cycle radially-polarized infrared pulses in a gas-filled hollow-core fiber

We perform a numerical study for temporally compressing radially-polarized（RP） infrared pulses in a gas-filled hollow-core fiber（HCF）. The dynamic transmission and nonlinear compression of RP pulses centered at wavelengths of0.8 m, 1.8 m, 3.1 m, and 5.0 m in HCFs are simulated. By comparing the propagation of pulses with the same optical cycles and intensity, we find that under proper conditions these pulses can be compressed down to 2–3 cycles. In the transverse direction, the spatiotemporal beam profile ameliorates from 0.8-m to 1.8-m and 3.1-m pulses before the appearance of high-order dispersion. These results show an alternative method of scaling generation for delivering RP infrared pulses in gas-filled HCFs, which can obtain energetic few-cycle pulses, and will be beneficial for relevant researches in the infrared scope.

Self-compression of 1.8-μm pulses in gas-filled hollow-core fibers

We numerically study the self-compression of the optical pulses centered at 1.8-μm in a hollow-core fiber （HCF） filled with argon. It is found that the pulse can be self-compressed to 2 optical cycles when the input pulse energy is 0.2-mJ and the gas pressure is 500-mbar （1 bar=10^5 Pa）. Inducing a proper positive chirp into the input pulse can lead to a shorter temporal duration after self-compression. These results will benefit the generation of energetic few-cycle mid-infrared pulses.

Spatiotemporal propagation dynamics of intense optical pulses in loosely confined gas-filled hollow-core fibers

We numerically study the propagation dynamics of intense optical pulses in gas-filled hollow-core fibers（HCFs）. The spatiotemporal dynamics of the pulses show a transition from tightly confined to loosely confined characteristics as the fiber core is increased, which manifests as a deterioration in the spatiotemporal uniformity of the beam. It is found that using the gas pressure gradient does not enhance the beam quality in large-core HCFs, while inducing a positive chirp in the pulse to lower the peak power can improve the beam quality. This indicates that the self-focusing effect in the HCFs is the main driving force for the propagation dynamics. It also suggests that pulses at longer wavelengths are more suitable for HCFs with large cores because of the lower critical power of self-focusing, which is justified by the numerical simulations. These results will benefit the generation of energetic few-cycle pulses in large-core HCFs.

Modification of spontaneous emission rate of micrometer-sized light sources using hollow-core photonic crystal fibers

We investigate numerically and experimentally the modification of the spontaneous emission rate for micrometersized light sources embedded in a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber （HCPCF）. The diameter of the light source is deliberately chosen such that they could be easily introduced into the central hole of the hollow-core photonic crystal fiber by capillary force. The photoluminescence from the microparticles is measured by using an inverted microscope in combination with a spectrometer. The modification of the spontaneous emission rate is observed in a wavelength region where there is no band gap. The experimental observations are consistent with the simulation results obtained by the plane wave expansion and finite-difference time-domain techniques.

Zero dispersion wavelength and dispersion slope control of hollow-core photonic bandgap fibres

This paper investigates the zero dispersion wavelength and dispersion slope control of hollow-core photonic bandgap fibres （PBGFs） by using a full-vector finite element method. By simulation we found that theoretically the zero dispersion wavelength can be tailored by respectively changing the rounded diameter of air holes, pitch, refractive index, normalized thickness of core rings, and hole diameter to pitch ratio. At the same time the tailoring of dispersion slope can also be realized by changing the rounded diameter of air holes or pitch or normalized thickness of core rings. To illustrate the reasonability of fibre designs, this paper also gives the variance of normalized interface field intensity which measures the scattering loss relatively versus wavelength for different designs. From the viewpoint of loss, varying the rounded diameter and the thickness of core ring could shift zero wavelength but it is difficult to get the required parameters within so tiny range in practical drawing of PBGFs, on the other hand, it is possible in practice to respectively alter the pitch and refractive index to shift zero wavelength. But varying hole diameter to pitch ratio is not worthwhile because they each induce large increase of loss and narrowness of transmission bandwidth. The zero dispersion wavelength can be engineered by respectively varying the rounded diameter of air holes, pitch, refractive index, and normalized thickness of core rings without incurring large loss penalties.

Investigation of the guided-mode characteristics of hollow-core photonic band-gap fibre with interstitial holes

This paper investigates the guided-mode characteristics of hollow-core photonic band-gap fibre （HC-PBGF） with interstitial holes fabricated by an improved twice stack-and-draw technique at visible wavelengths. Based on the simulation model with interstitial holes, the influence of glass interstitial apexes on photonic band-gaps is discussed. The existing forms of guided-mode in part band gaps are shown by using the full-vector plane-wave method. In the experiment, the observed transmission spectrum corresponds to the part band gaps obtained by simulation. The fundamental and second-order guided-modes with mixture of yellow and green light are observed through choosing appropriate fibre length and adjusting coupling device. The loss mechanism of guided-modes in HC-PBGF is also discussed.

Polarization-dependent efficient Cherenkov radiation at visible wavelengths in hollow-core photonic crystal fiber cladding

Efficient Cherenkov radiation （CR） is experimentally generated by a soliton self-frequency shift （SSFS） in a knot of hollow-core photonic crystal fiber （HC-PCF）. When the angle of the half-wave plate is rotated from 0° to 45°, the Raman soliton shifts from 2227 to 2300 nm, the output power of the CR increases 8.15 times, and the maximum output power ratio of the CR at 556 nm to the residual pump is estimated to be 20：1. The width of the output optical spectrum at visible wavelengths broadens from 25 to 45 nm, and the conversion efficiency of the CR can be above 28%. Moreover, the influences of the pump polarization and wavelength on the CR are studied, and the corresponding nonlinear processes are discussed.

The Study on the Polycrystal Germanium Dioxide Hollow-core Fiber and Its Performances

A method of fabricating pure germanium dioxide hollow-core fibers has been introduced for the first time. The inner diameter of the fiber is φ0.8mm, with the transmission loss of 1.23dB/m at 10.6μm. The mechanism of transmitting CO_2 laser by the fiber is analyzed. The transmitting performances are discussed and its application fields are envisaged.