Tun Cao

Current all-optical chiral sorting approaches are ineffective for nanoscale drug molecules with weak chirality, as their faint optical response cannot maintain the chiral sorting mechanism. To overcome this physical limitation, the theoretical study proposes a core–shell composite chiral sensing microsphere, in which a drug crystal core is encapsulated by a nematic liquid crystal shell, acting as a chirality-amplifying carrier for optofluidic detection. Using a sodium ibuprofen nanocrystal as a representative weakly chiral drug, the optimal core–shell sensing structure was determined to consist of a nematic liquid crystal E7 shell with a radius of 19 μm and a sodium ibuprofen crystal core with a radius of 9.5 μm. This optimized configuration amplifies the molecular chirality parameter from 10⁻⁶ to 6.5 × 10⁻³ and yields the maximum transverse separation velocity of 1.19 μm/s. Hydrodynamic calculations demonstrate that when the optimized composite sensing microsphere accumulates an absolute transverse displacement greater than 19 μm within a microfluidic channel, the maximum longitudinal flow velocity of the system reaches 2.4 μm/s, satisfying the geometric threshold required for continuous sensing and sorting. This study provides a design strategy to advance optofluidic sensing and sorting systems for nanoscale chiral drugs.

The exponential rise in data exchange and cyber threats in next‐generation 6G networks demands communication systems that are inherently secure at the physical layer. Terahertz (THz) waves combine huge bandwidth with strong directionality, offering a fertile platform for high‐capacity and covert data transfer. Here, we introduce a deep‐learning‐enabled inverse‐design framework that enables the creation of dynamically reconfigurable THz metadevices capable of adaptive, multidimensional encryption. By using a residual neural network trained to directly map target electromagnetic responses to device geometries across continuous material phase transitions, our approach eliminates traditional iterative design bottlenecks and enables rapid, high‐precision generation of versatile meta‐architectures. The resulting devices exhibit multiplexed control over polarization, depth, and phase transitions in Ge ₂ Sb ₂ Te ₅ (GST), enabling eight‐channel encrypted holography with minimal crosstalk and near‐diffraction‐limited fidelity. Furthermore, we realize a reconfigurable diffractive THz neural metadevice that performs universal logic operations under a dual‐key security protocol, requiring both the physical hardware and a digital key sequence for accurate decryption. This combination of intelligent design automation and physical‐layer encryption establishes a new paradigm for secure, high‐capacity, and adaptive THz communication, paving the way for dynamically reconfigurable wireless architectures in 6G and beyond.

Biplane single-molecule localization microscopy (SMLM) enables three-dimensional (3D) super-resolution imaging by extracting the axial position of fluorophores from a pair of emission patterns detected at two axially separated planes. The separation between these two imaging planes, termed the biplane distance, is a key parameter that determines axial localization precision, yet a systematic investigation of its optimal selection remains lacking. Here, we calculate the theoretical localization precision across a range of biplane distances and identify an optimal value, construct a tunable biplane detection module and experimentally evaluate axial localization precision at three different biplane distances using both fluorescent beads and biological specimens. Experimental results confirm the theoretical predictions and provide a practical framework for optimizing the biplane distance in 3D-SMLM systems.

Twisted photonic lattices that form moiré superlattices have attracted significant attention owing to their unique properties, in which the localized optical modes can serve as efficient light sources. However, in conventional moiré lattices, the emission direction of confined modes is typically fixed, and achieving a broad range of emission angles remains a significant challenge. Here, we design and fabricate single-layer moiré photonic lattices into cylindrical geometries using a nanomembrane origami technique. This approach enables wide-angle localized-mode emission while maintaining stable single-mode operation and excellent spectral uniformity. The moiré supercells support localized flat-band modes under various effective twist angles, resulting in the observation of periodic localized-mode emission over a wide range of azimuthal angles. Our research provides an approach for developing moiré light sources on curved surfaces, offering significant potential in applications that demand spatial light control, including three-dimensional imaging, light detection and ranging, and topological state manipulation.

Ultrafast lasers have garnered significant interest in the realm of surface nanofabrication. However, their dynamic electric field distribution is influenced by the polarization direction when pursuing high machining precision, which leads to high polarization dependence of laser nanostructuring. Here, polarization-independent surface nanostructuring is realized on Sb ₂ S ₃ thin films by femtosecond laser irradiation via a microsphere in the far field and ambient air. The formation of nanogrooves is ascribed to surface thermal stress during melting, re-solidification, and super-cooling under high-repetition-rate femtosecond laser irradiation. The influence of materials melting and ablation on the electric field distribution during the laser processing is analyzed. In the molten state, the distribution of the electric field remains unaffected by polarization, enabling the realization of polarization-independent nanoprocessing based on the thermal stress induced by a temperature gradient. The feature sizes of surface nanostructures can be precisely adjusted by varying laser fluence, and the minimum size down to approximately 38 nm (λ/27) is achieved. This innovative laser nanostructuring technique, operating in the far field and ambient air, holds considerable promise for advancing next-generation nanofabrication.

A Si ₃ N ₄ photonic crystal cavity coupled with CsPbBr ₃ quantum dots achieves a 12-fold photoluminescence enhancement and highly directional surface emission within ±3.6°, offering an efficient nanoscale light source.

Topological insulator originally found in electronic systems has inspired an analogue in phononic crystals, which has revolutionized fundamental concepts of elastic and acoustic transmission, offering one-way propagation edge modes immune to backscattering. Nevertheless, for traditional topological phononic crystal (TPC), once the structure is made, only a particular bandgap frequency can occur. Realization of reconfigurability and frequency tuning of topological one-way transmission is challenging. To solve the problem, the TPC is made active on penetration with thermosensitive acoustic hydrogels to produce a reconfigurable bandgap of acoustic wave. We explore that at a certain frequency range, the topological edge state (TES) within the TPC can be reversibly turned on/off as changing the state of (vinyl alcohol) poly-N-isopropylacrylamide (PVA-PNI-PAm) hydrogel between hydrophilic and hydrophobic. In addition, the topology of the TPC does not vary as the TES was tuned by varying the sound group velocity of PVA-PNI-PAm rather than the structural geometry. Such a feature enables a continuous tuning of the central frequency of phononic bandgap and TES by gradually changing the state of PVA-PNI-Pam. The state transition of PVA-PNI-Pam thermal-acoustic hydrogel from hydrophilic to hydrophobic and vice versa has been experimentally realized. Our proposed proof of concept may provide a platform for intelligent acoustic devices with dynamically programmable and reconfigurable functionalities, leading to various potential applications in acoustic wave guiding and control, integrated acoustics, acoustic security, and information processing etc.