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Micro-robotics is a burgeoning field, with potential applications in search and rescue, smart dust, advanced additive manufacturing and micro-surgery. A critical component enabling micro-robotic systems is efficient actuator materials. In this work we introduce thin films of NdNiO3, a prototypical perovskite nickelate, as a potential material for MEMS actuation, providing up to 6.0% tensile volumetric strain via hydrogen-ion intercalation, resulting in an experimentally demonstrated output work density of 6.7 J/cm3 and stress output in excess of 1.1 GPa via a unique hydrogen doping mechanism. Separately, a stiffened cantilever array is fabricated to measure experimental tip deflection, which matches expected deflections from a developed finite element analysis model. [2020-0330]

Based on several centimeters long heavily Tm3+-doped germanate fibers (TGFs) and in-band-pumped technique, a short-wavelength distribute Bragg reflector (DBR) single-frequency fiber laser (SFFL) emitting at $1.7~\mu \text{m}$ is investigated experimentally. A stable single-longitudinal-mode laser output with a signal-to-noise ratio of greater than 60 dB and an operation wavelength of 1727 nm is realized. The maximum output power of 12.4 mW and the slope efficiency of 4.81% for the absorbed pump power are obtained from a 1.8-cm-long TGF pumped by a 1610 nm fiber laser. The measured relative intensity-noise of the SFFL reaches to around −130 dB/Hz at frequencies of over 10 MHz and the laser linewidth is 8.6 kHz. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of the DBR Tm3+-doped SFFL with an operation wavelength in $1.7~\mu \text{m}$ region. It is suitable for optical coherence tomography, methane gas detection and optical medical technology.

Semiconductors with electrically tunable band gaps are of great interest in controlling transparency to electromagnetic radiation. Thin films of perovskite nickelate NdNiO3 (NNO), a class of correl...

We show that the well-known relationship between temperature and thermal radiation can be decoupled in a fully passive and reversible way using the phase transition of samarium nickelate. Our sample features temperature-independent thermally emitted power in the long-wave infrared from 90 to 120 °C, making it promising for camouflage applications.

Ordered nanoarchitectures have attracted an intense research interest recently because of their promising device applications. They are always fabricated by self-assembling building blocks such as nanowires, nanodots. This kind of bottom up approaches is limited in poor control over height, lateral resolution, aspect ratio and patterning. Here, we break these limits and realize 3D sculpturing of vertical ZnO nanowire arrays (NAs) based on the conventional photolithography approach. These are achieved by immersing nanowire NAs in thick photoresist (PR) layers, which enable the cutting and patterning of ZnO NAs as well as the tailoring of NAs. Our strategy of 3D sculpturing of NAs promisingly paves the way for designing novel NAs-based nanoarchitectures.