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The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST, also called the Guo Shou Jing Telescope) is a special reflecting Schmidt telescope. LAMOST's special design allows both a large aperture (effective aperture of 3.6 m–4.9 m) and a wide field of view (FOV) (5°). It has an innovative active reflecting Schmidt configuration which continuously changes the mirror's surface that adjusts during the observation process and combines thin deformable mirror active optics with segmented active optics. Its primary mirror (6.67 m × 6.05 m) and active Schmidt mirror (5.74m × 4.40m) are both segmented, and composed of 37 and 24 hexagonal sub-mirrors respectively. By using a parallel controllable fiber positioning technique, the focal surface of 1.75 m in diameter can accommodate 4000 optical fibers. Also, LAMOST has 16 spectrographs with 32 CCD cameras. LAMOST will be the telescope with the highest rate of spectral acquisition. As a national large scientific project, the LAMOST project was formally proposed in 1996, and approved by the Chinese government in 1997. The construction started in 2001, was completed in 2008 and passed the official acceptance in June 2009. The LAMOST pilot survey was started in October 2011 and the spectroscopic survey will launch in September 2012. Up to now, LAMOST has released more than 480000 spectra of objects. LAMOST will make an important contribution to the study of the large-scale structure of the Universe, structure and evolution of the Galaxy, and cross-identification of multi-waveband properties in celestial objects.

This paper describes the data release of the LAMOST pilot survey, which includes data reduction, calibration, spectral analysis, data products and data access. The accuracy of the released data and the information about the FITS headers of spectra are also introduced. The released data set includes 319 000 spectra and a catalog of these objects.

Micro object handling efficiency is a noteworthy problem since automated assembly systems have been developed for batch assembly. Efficiency is significantly influenced by the environmental humidity because the adhesion forces between two contacted micro objects are affected by that. We constructed a humidity-controllable micro assembling system to handle objects of tens to hundreds of microns in size by adhesion forces. In experiments, micro polymer spheres and silicon-nitride-coated micro spheres were handled on the silicon substrate and gold-covered substrate under various humidity conditions. The results indicate that both the contact interface cracking process and the adhering process during micro object handling are remarkably affected by the environmental humidity. The micro object release success rate increases with the environmental humidity, and the pickup success rate also shows a tendency to increase but followed by a rapid decrease. Our experimental results can be utilized to instruct the selection of environmental parameters for various micromanipulators. It is possible to obtain a satisfactory handling efficiency by controlling the environmental humidity in a proper range. For our adhesive type manipulator, the best handling efficiency will be obtained when the environmental relative humidity is between 65% and 85%.

The Large sky Area Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) General Survey is a spectroscopic survey that will eventually cover approximately half of the celestial sphere and collect 10 million spectra of stars, galaxies and QSOs. Objects both in the pilot survey and the first year general survey are included in the LAMOST First Data Release (DR1). The pilot survey started in October 2011 and ended in June 2012, and the data have been released to the public as the LAMOST Pilot Data Release in August 2012. The general survey started in September 2012, and completed its first year of operation in June 2013. The LAMOST DR1 includes a total of 1202 plates containing 2,955,336 spectra, of which 1,790,879 spectra have observed signal-to-noise S/N >10. All data with S/N>2 are formally released as LAMOST DR1 under the LAMOST data policy. This data release contains a total of 2,204,696 spectra, of which 1,944,329 are stellar spectra, 12,082 are galaxy spectra and 5,017 are quasars. The DR1 includes not only spectra, but also three stellar catalogues with measured parameters: AFGK-type stars with high quality spectra (1,061,918 entries), A-type stars (100,073 entries), and M stars (121,522 entries). This paper introduces the survey design, the observational and instrumental limitations, data reduction and analysis, and some caveats. Description of the FITS structure of spectral files and parameter catalogues is also provided., 39 pages, 13 figures

Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) thin films were fabricated by adding 15 mol.% excess of Pb to the starting solution and spin coating onto Pt/Ti/SiO 2 /Si and Ir/IrO 2 /SiO 2 /Si substrates. The effect of bottom electrodes on the microstructures, crystalline phases and electrical properties of the PZT thin films was investigated. It was found that the films deposited on Pt/Ti bottom electrode consisted of perovskite phase without pyrochlore phase, whereas the films deposited on the Ir/IrO 2 bottom electrode consisted of mainly perovskite phase with a small amount of pyrochlore phase. Bottom electrodes were also found to influence the preferred orientation and microstructure as well as the surface morphology of the PZT films. The Pt/Ti bottom electrode favored a (100) orientation and fine-grained structure as well as a smooth surface, whereas the Ir/IrO 2 bottom electrode favored a random orientation, non-uniform structure and rough surface. High-resolution electron microscopy observation reveals that there is an intermediate layer of IrO 2 at the PZT/Ir interface. This indicates that the intermediate layer of IrO 2 influenced the orientation and microstructure of the PZT films on the Ir/IrO 2 bottom electrode. Ferroelectricity was investigated by observing the polarization hysteresis loops. The remanent polarization and saturation polarization of the PZT films on the Ir/IrO 2 bottom electrode were smaller than those of the PZT films on the Pt/Ti bottom electrode. The difference between the dielectric and the ferroelectric properties in these PZT films was correlated to their crystalline phases and microstructure.

We present new quasars discovered in the vicinity of the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies with the LAMOST during the 2010 and 2011 observational seasons. Quasar candidates are selected based on the available SDSS, KPNO 4 m telescope, XSTPS optical, and WISE near infrared photometric data. We present 509 new quasars discovered in a stripe of ~135 sq. deg from M31 to M33 along the Giant Stellar Stream in the 2011 pilot survey datasets, and also 17 new quasars discovered in an area of ~100 sq. deg that covers the central region and the southeastern halo of M31 in the 2010 commissioning datasets. These 526 new quasars have i magnitudes ranging from 15.5 to 20.0, redshifts from 0.1 to 3.2. They represent a significant increase of the number of identified quasars in the vicinity of M31 and M33. There are now 26, 62 and 139 known quasars in this region of the sky with i magnitudes brighter than 17.0, 17.5 and 18.0 respectively, of which 5, 20 and 75 are newly-discovered. These bright quasars provide an invaluable collection with which to probe the kinematics and chemistry of the ISM/IGM in the Local Group of galaxies. A total of 93 quasars are now known with locations within 2.5 deg of M31, of which 73 are newly discovered. Tens of quasars are now known to be located behind the Giant Stellar Stream, and hundreds behind the extended halo and its associated substructures of M31. The much enlarged sample of known quasars in the vicinity of M31 and M33 can potentially be utilized to construct a perfect astrometric reference frame to measure the minute PMs of M31 and M33, along with the PMs of substructures associated with the Local Group of galaxies. Those PMs are some of the most fundamental properties of the Local Group., 26 pages, 6 figures, AJ accepted

Gecko has elaborate adhesive structure which allows it to move along vertical walls and ceilings quickly. There is strong evidence that the adhesion ability is due to van der Waals forces. Synthetic dry adhesive hairs inspired by gecko foot-hairs have been microfabricated by several groups. To obtain re-attachable dry adhesive hairs with mass production potential, ICP technique is employed to fabricate silicon molds, and flexible hair arrays in large area is fabricated by peel-off method of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Experimental results demonstrate that the adhesive forces are 2.06N/cm2 for 2 mum hairs, 1.09N/cm2 for 5 mum hairs and 0.68N/cm2 for bald polymer

High-quality lead zirconate titanate (PZT) thick films have been prepared on silicon substrates by combining PZT–Si bonding and wet-etching technology. The bulk PZT wafer was first bonded to the silicon substrate using a 2 µm thick intermediate layer of epoxy resin with a bonding strength higher than 10 MPa. Then the bulk PZT was thinned by a wet-etching method. The thickness of the final PZT films depends on the etching time. The PZT thick films after being polished showed a surface roughness of about 20 nm (RMS), which can satisfy most of the requirements in MEMS. The prepared PZT thick films show a dielectric constant as high as 2400 below 100 kHz, remnant polarization of 13 µC cm−2, piezoelectric constant d31 of about −280 pm V−1 and Young's modulus of about 63 GPa. The measured electromechanical properties of the PZT thick films were comparable to those of the corresponding bulk ceramics. This approach makes it possible to obtain high-quality PZT films because it separates the PZT wafer fabrication from the target substrate and consequently allows integration of the PZT thick films onto many kinds of substrates. Finally, a self-sensing bulk PZT thick film actuator was fabricated as an example of a basic PZT–Si diaphragm structure that can be used in piezoelectric micropumps, and its sensing and actuating performances were also demonstrated.