The 2021 Top Ten Social Impact Events in China's Optics Field (Light10) is the annual list launched by Light: Science & Applications (https://www.nature.com/lsa/), a leading journal of the China Science journal Excellence Action Plan, and https://www.sciencenet.cn/, the flagship brand of science communication under China Science Newspaper.
2021 has come to an end, this year, China's scientific and technological circles with a number of important historical breakthroughs to the Cpc Centennial Birthday presented. The annual Light10 selection aims to find those high "light" moments in the field of optics in China, those moments that make us move, proud and will always be remembered. This year's selection results were officially released, and the number of article readers exceeded 200,000 and the number of voters exceeded 100,000, which aroused widespread concern from the public and strengthened our determination to carry out optical science to the end. Regardless of whether it is finally selected or not, each candidate event is the result of years of hard work by researchers and represents a major breakthrough in the field of scientific research. Finally, I wish that the level of scientific research in our country will rise steadily.
| | about Light: Science & Applications
Light: Science & Applications (Chinese light: Science and Applications, https://www.nature.com/lsa/) was published in March 2012 and is China's first full peer-reviewed book sponsored by the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and published in collaboration with Springer Nature. Light, a fully open-access English-language international optical journal, has a latest impact factor of 17.782, ranking in the top three among 99 optical journals and ranking third in the world optical journals list for seven consecutive years.
| | about the Science Network
Science Network (https://www.sciencenet.cn/) science network with the core mission of "building a global Chinese science community" was officially launched in January 2007 and operated by China Science Newspaper. As the world's largest Chinese science community, Science Network is committed to serving the Chinese science and higher education community in an all-round way, building a new network of online media for Chinese scientists around the world based on the network community, and promoting scientific and technological innovation and academic exchanges.
Enter the list
Description: Ranked in no particular order by the release date of the original report
1
Drones do optical relays, "threading needles" in mobile quantum networks
Drones are always behind high-speed vehicles to provide secure quantum network signals. This scene may appear in science fiction films, or become a reality in the near future. In an experiment, the research group of Professor Xie Zhenda and Professor Gong Yanxiao of the State Key Laboratory of Solid State Microstructure Physics of Nanjing University, led by Zhu Shining, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, built a small quantum communication network between two UAVs weighing about 35 kilograms at a distance of 200 meters and the ground, and sent a photon to two telescopes 1 km apart from the ground, and finally measured a photon pair with entanglement characteristics in high fidelity. It shows the feasibility of multi-node mobile quantum networking, marking a key step towards the practical application of quantum networks.
2
The new flexible X-ray imaging technology is expected to break through the limitations of foreign technology
Since the discovery of X-rays more than a hundred years ago, "X-rays" have been closely related to people's lives. From simple chest X-ray to complex industrial non-destructive flaw testing, X-ray imaging technology plays a huge role in many fields. At present, China's high-end X-ray medical imaging equipment and key components mainly rely on imports. Professors Yang Huanghao, Chen Qiushui and their collaborators of Fuzhou University invented rare earth nanocrystalline scintillators with long-life X-ray luminescence, proposed the mechanism of high-energy X-ray photons inducing defects to produce long afterglow luminescence, and developed a flexible X-ray luminescence imaging device based on the principle of new technology. This research breaks the inherent limitations of traditional X-ray flat panel detectors and provides new ideas and ways for the preparation of a new generation of flexible X-ray imaging equipment. This achievement marks that China has entered the international advanced ranks in flexible X-ray imaging technology, and is expected to break through foreign technical restrictions and promote the localization of high-end X-ray imaging equipment.
3
China has achieved a new breakthrough in the field of whole-brain optical high-definition imaging
Professor Luo Qingming, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, President of Hainan University and Director of the Wuhan National Research Center for Optoelectronics of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, developed high-definition fluorescence microscopic micro-slice tomography based on line illumination modulated optical tomography, which raised the whole brain optical imaging from high resolution to high definition to a new standard. Luo Qingming's team introduced that related technologies not only greatly improve the data quality of whole-brain optical imaging, but also open up a new solution to the big data problems faced in the field, significantly improve efficiency in data storage, transmission, processing and analysis, and are expected to play a huge role in standardized and large-scale brain science research.
4
Clothes change to screen! "Wear" the monitor on the body, have you ever imagined?
If the clothes on a person's body are turned into an electronic display, what applications can be generated? For example, is it possible to browse information, send and receive messages, and navigate in real time directly on clothes? In field work scenarios such as polar expeditions and geological exploration, location information can be displayed in real time with just a few taps on clothing; people with language barriers can "wear" the display as a tool for efficient and convenient communication and expression. This kind of imagination may become a real application scenario in the near future. Professor Peng Huisheng of the Department of Polymer Science of Fudan University successfully integrated the preparation of the display device with the fabric weaving process, realizing the preparation of large-area flexible display fabrics and intelligent integrated systems.
5
Wearing it can cool down nearly 5 ° C, Chinese scientists have developed an optical metamaterial fabric that can be passively cooled
The Tao Guangming team of Huazhong University of Science and Technology and the team of Ma Yaoguang of Zhejiang University focused on the needs of people's lives, and breakthroughly developed an optical metamaterial fabric with a morphological grading structure that can be prepared in large quantities, which can not only protect against suns, but also reduce the body surface temperature by nearly 5 degrees Celsius, have excellent wearability, and are compatible with the entire textile industry, suitable for large-scale promotion of preparation and industrial application.
6
Chinese scholars use the communication fiber network to achieve rapid response after the earthquake
Major earthquakes are followed by a large number of aftershocks, which often cause secondary damage to buildings and infrastructure, hindering the development of post-earthquake relief work. Studies have shown that after an earthquake of magnitude 6 or greater, there is still a certain probability (about 5%) that it will follow a larger earthquake, resulting in more severe disasters. Therefore, close monitoring of the aftershock sequence is essential to track subsequent earthquake disasters and improve understanding of the law of aftershocks. Although the existing traditional regional and global permanent seismic stations have achieved great success in large seismic monitoring, their spatial coverage is not enough to provide high-resolution aftershock monitoring, while the existing traditional seismometers cannot take into account the observation density, response speed, and real-time transmission, and have great limitations in rapid post-earthquake response. How to quickly deploy a dense seismic observation network after an earthquake is one of the core problems of post-earthquake monitoring and disaster relief. Li Zefeng, a special researcher at the University of Science and Technology of China, worked with collaborators to use distributed optical fiber arrays (DAS) to combine with other traditional seismic monitoring technologies to greatly improve the ability of the rapid response system after the earthquake and provide important technical support for the follow-up disaster relief after the earthquake.
7
Observe molecules like counting stars: A new type of chemical microscope was introduced at Zhejiang University
Chemistry creates a kaleidoscopic world of matter in which each single molecule plays a fundamental role. Traditional chemistry and biology study the reactions and changes in which a large number of molecules are involved. The famous physicist Erwin Schrödinger once commented: "We have never done an experiment with a single electron, a single atom or a single molecule." We assume that we can achieve this in thought experiments, but this leads to very ridiculous consequences. "Observing, manipulating and measuring the most microscopic single-molecule chemical reactions is a long-standing scientific challenge for scientists. In view of this challenge, Feng Jiandong, a researcher at the Department of Chemistry of Zhejiang University, is committed to the development of interdisciplinary single-molecule measurement methods and instruments to achieve multi-dimensional single-molecule physical and chemical process observation, research and application of new phenomena in solution systems. His team invented a microscopy technique that can directly image single-molecule chemical reactions in solution and enabled ultra-high space-time resolution imaging. This technique has important application value in the field of chemical imaging and biological imaging, allowing for clearer microscopic structures and cell images.
8
Scientists are the first to realize six-dimensional optical information multiplexing technology
The report of the International Data Center shows that by 2025, the total amount of human social data will reach 175 ZB. As one of the important carriers of information, the wavelength, polarization, amplitude and other physical dimensions of light can establish orthogonal data channels, and the physical dimension multiplexing of light can improve the capacity and security of optical information technology. With the development of optical information technology, the encoding of data has almost exhausted the existing relevant physical dimensions, and the capacity of optical information multiplexing is rapidly approaching the limit. Since scientists in the early 20th century recognized that photon-carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) can be used as a new dimension for photon multiplexing, the reuse technology for developing photon OAM using phase vortex light fields has been in the ascendant. However, the manipulation and multiplexing of photonic OAM at the micro-nano scale are completely different from the free space and optical fiber corresponding to the macroscopic scale, and the new mechanism and new technology of the interaction between the OAM light field and matter at the deep sub-wavelength scale have become the key scientific problems to be solved urgently in the development of the next generation of photonic devices. The joint team from Jinan University, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology and other institutions has realized large-capacity information multiplexing technology with light as the carrier, which is expected to provide new ideas for the next generation of high-density optical storage technology. The study opens up new avenues for developing the OAM dimension of light to control the interaction of light with matter, and its mechanisms can also be applied to other related optical systems.
9
Computational microscopic imaging algorithms: 60 nm and 564 Hz fluorescence super-resolution imaging of living cells
The Chen Liangyi Research Group of Peking University and the Li Haoyu Research Group of Harbin Institute of Technology have made breakthroughs in the field of optical super-resolution microscopy imaging technology. Invent computational fluorescence super-resolution imaging based on new principles. This paper proposes that "the improvement of fluorescence image resolution is equivalent to the increase of relative sparsity of images", combined with the general prior knowledge of signal space-time continuity, a two-step iterative sparse convolution algorithm is invented, which breaks through the optical hardware limitations of existing fluorescence microscopes and realizes general computing super-resolution fluorescence imaging for the first time. Combined with ultrafast structured light super-resolution microscopy, the highest resolution (60 nm), the fastest speed (564Hz), and the longest imaging time (>1 h) in live-cell imaging are achieved, revealing new dynamic changes in the early fusion pores of nuclear pores and insulin vesicles. Combined with other fluorescence microscopes, such as expansion, point scanning, turntable confocal, stimulated radiation loss, and miniaturized two-photon microscopy, sparse deconvolution can steadily increase their resolution by twice, helping biomedical researchers better distinguish fine dynamic structures in cells. Different from the fluorescence super-resolution microscopy technology that won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, this work proposes for the first time a method that breaks through the optical diffraction limit from the computational point of view to achieve general computational fluorescence super-resolution imaging. On the one hand, it will open up new avenues for advancing the limits of microscopic resolution, and on the other hand, it will also help a wide range of biomedical researchers see it more clearly.
10
China's first 100 kW ultra-high power industrial fiber laser was officially launched
From the establishment of the project to the successful development to the delivery and use, the first 100-kilowatt industrial fiber laser in China took only 6 months. The laser launch ceremony was held at the University of South China. As the largest industrial fiber laser in China, it is also the second most powerful industrial laser in the world, which will play a huge role in advanced manufacturing, aerospace, medical equipment, etc., especially in the decommissioning and dismantling of nuclear facilities in the radiation environment, and the surface decontamination of nuclear contaminating devices.
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Source: China Optics
Edit: fiufiu