News on China's scientific and technological development.

As a new derivative of graphene, fluorinated graphene possesses both high strength of graphene and new interfacial and physical chemical properties, including reduced surface energy, stable chemical property, improved hydrophobic property and band-gap opening due to the introduction of fluorine atoms.

Moreover, fluorinated graphene is resistant to high temperature and shows properties similar to those of poly (tetrafluoroethylene). And it is called “two-dimensional teflon”. These special properties of fluorinated graphene make it promising in many fields, such as interface, nano-electronic devices, lubricating materials and so on.

At present, fluorinated graphene is usually synthesized through the fluorination of graphene obtained by micro-mechanical cleavage or chemical vapor deposition using XeF2 as the fluorinating agent. However, the use of expensive and highly toxic fluorinating agent limits the practical application of the method.

The research group headed by Professor WANG Jinqing at the State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (LICP), prepared high quality fluorinated graphene using commercially available graphite fluoride as raw materials and cheap N-methyl pyrrolidone as the exfoliating reagent via simple thermal and ultrasonic treatments.

It is found that the time of ultrasonic process can tune the content of fluorine in final product, and some physical and chemical properties of fluorinated graphene are systematically investigated. The work has been published in Journal of Materials Chemistry

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Fast and accurate 3D measurement of object surface with reflective property is a challenging issue for structured light sensing (SLS)-based techniques.

Subject to the surface reflectance, the projected light patterns are usually very bright or dark, that makes the captured images usually over- or under-exposed, and leads to degraded reconstruction accuracy even measurement failure.

Researchers in Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT) proposed a novel coded SLS algorithm, which can perform fast and accurate 3D scanning for the reflective surface. In the algorithm, a binary strip pattern is introduced instead of traditional intensity-based patterns which are quite sensitive to surface reflection.

By shifting the strip pattern periodically and removing the periodic ambiguity via Gray code pattern, the surface points can be encoded uniquely. Via the proposed robust and accurate strip edge detector, strip edges with sub-pixel accuracy can be precisely determined even under the affect of surface reflection.

The prototype is consisted with only one low-cost pico-projector and one camera. Experimental results show that the proposed method can obtain both stronger robustness and higher measurement accuracy in comparison with traditional methods. The proposed technique has great potentials to be used in various industrial applications like reverse engineering, measurement and online 3D inspection etc.

The research results have been published online on IEEE Trans. on Industrial Electronics. This research received grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the grant of NSFC-GuangDong. The research group led by Dr. SONG Zhan specializes in 3D computer vision and human-machine-interaction, particularly in the SLS-based 3D reconstruction.

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Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) provides a synthesis route for large-area and high-quality graphene films. However, layer-controlled synthesis remains a great challenge on polycrystalline metallic catalysts due to the self-limited nature of carbon on Cu surface and the larger carbon solubility in Ni.

Recently, Prof. LIU Liwei's group from Key Laboratory of Nano-devices and Applications, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, developed a novel synthesis technique to achieve layer-controlled growth of graphene.

For conventional CVD graphene films (CVDG) on Ni surface, the process generally involves the dissociation of the hydrocarbon, the dissolution and diffusion of carbon in Ni and the formation of graphene.

The formation of graphene films probably contains the several dynamic processes: metal-induced crystallization at high temperature, segregation at the interface and precipitation at grain boundaries during cooling. Intertwinement of these complicated processes, especially the precipitation at grain boundaries, will result in the non-uniformity and the uncontrollable layers of graphene films.

Prof. LIU and co-workers have achieved a facile and viable synthesis of layer-controlled and high-quality graphene films on wafer-scale Ni surface by the sequentially separated steps of gas carburization, hydrogen exposure, and segregation.

H2 exposure assisted by Ni film at high temperature plays critical roles not only in the removal of the carbon layers formed in the initial CVD carburization process but also in the effective reduction of the carbon mount in Ni for promoting the sequential segregation process.

The number of layers is precisely controlled by changing Ni film thickness, gas carburization amount and H2 exposure dose. Excellent electrical and transparent conductive performance, with a room-temperature mobility of ≈3000 cm2V−1s−1 and a sheet resistance as low as ≈100 Ω per square at ≈ 90% transmittance, of the twisted few-layer grapheme films grown on the Ni catalyst is demonstrated.

The findings open a feasible route towards control over the layer number of wafer-scale graphene, new understanding of the graphene formation on Ni catalyst, and eventual diverse applications of graphene-based devices. This work has been published on Adv. Funct.

The work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and Ministry of Science and Technology, People's Republic of China (MOST) projects. The project also got assistance from the Nanofabrication Facility and Platform of Characterization & Test of SINANO.

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Searching for novel superconductors with higher superconducting transition temperature (Tc) and understanding the mechanism of high temperature superconductivity are two prominent issues facing the current research of superconductivity.

Using self-developed high resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) system, ZHOU Xingjiang’s group at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOP) in collaboration with Prof. XUE Qikun’s group in the Department of Physics, Tsinghua University and MA Xucun’s group at IOP, reported the electronic structure and superconducting gap in the single-layer FeSe superconductor.

The Fermi surface is distinct from other iron-based superconductors, consisting only of electron-like pockets near the zone corner without indication of any Fermi surface around the zone center.

Nearly isotropic superconducting gap is observed in this strictly two-dimensional system. The temperature dependence of the superconducting gap gives a transition temperature Tc at ~55 K.

These results have established a clear case that such a simple electronic structure is compatible with high-Tc superconductivity in the Fe-based superconductors. It will provide key insights on understanding superconductivity mechanism in the Fe-based superconductors.

The related work is published in Nature Communications.

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On August 19, news came from the FiberHome Technologies Group, says that the National 973 Project “ultra-high-speed large-capacity ultra-long-distance optical transmission basic research” has made significant progress. The first time 168 channels in C-band are accommodated in an ordinary single-mode fiber, in one of which 103Gb/s large capacity ultra-dense transmission distance of 2240 km. The whole transmission capacity reaches 17.32Tb/s, equivalent to 210 million pairs of people simultaneous calls on a single fiber.

As the vanguard of optical communication technology research areas, Wuhan Research Institute of Posts and Telecommunications and FiberHome Technologies Group in recent years has the birth of a number of world-leading scientific projects, and this latest results following the world first single-mode fiber 30.7T CO-OFDM transmission 80 km in 2011.

Relative to the 2011 CO-OFDM test, the 2012 project’s transmission distance increased dramatically, while taking into account the large transmission capacity.

This technology breakthrough is not only an effective solution to the high spectral efficiency, non-linear effects suppression key technologies in the ultra-high-speed, high spectral efficiency ultra-long-haul transmission systems, but also provide technical basis for the practical use of ultra-high-speed ultra-dense wavelength multiplexing ultra-long distance transmission, and will provide strong support for the implementation of Chinese national broadband strategies.

“Ultra-high-speed large-capacity ultra-long-distance optical transmission basic research” uses a DFT-S OFDM technology and is one of the sub-topics of the 973 projects. FiberHome Technologies Group is an outstanding product and solution provider in the field of information and telecommunication.

As the major high-tech enterprise directly affiliated to the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council , FiberHome Technologies is the core enterprise located in Wuhan Optics Valley of China...

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China will promote the application and industrialization of its self-developed audio-video coding standard (AVS+) in broadcasting and television, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) said Friday.

The implementation fo the AVS+ standard will meet increased demand for new broadcasting technologies, such as high-definition TV and 3D TV, SARFT said.

SARFT official Sun Suchuan said related departments are creating policies concerning the standard and will work to promote its application.

Ding Wenwu, an official from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said the ministry will provide financial, industrial and research-related support for the promotion of the AVS+ standard.

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If a human thinks a command, a flying drone will obey. A Chinese team has shown how to control a quadrotor robot using brain signals alone as a futuristic twist on the saying, "Look ma, no hands!"

The researchers from Zhejiang University used a commercial electroencephalography (EEG) headset to interpret brain signals as commands for the hovering drone, according to New Scientist. They released a video showing how a man in a wheelchair can tell the drone where to go — a taste of what they will present at the Ubiquitous Computing Conference in September.

Sample commands include moving the drone forward by thinking "right," or turning it clockwise by thinking "left." The human user can even blink both eyes to tell the drone to snap a picture.

Such quadrotors have already shown impressive swarm tactics and coordination in aerial ballets ranging from playing the "007" theme from James Bond films to putting on dazzling laser light shows. A futuristic quadrotor has even featured in a video game ad that later inspired the U.S. military to begin thinking about building such robots.

The Chinese researchers first envision using the mind-controlled drones to empower disabled people or hold friendly aerial battles between drones. But it's not hard to imagine a more refined version of the technology that could possibly allow soldiers to order around a swarm of much smarter drones on future battlefields.

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China's Antarctic observatory project is expected to be completed and put into operation before 2020, Wang Lifan, director of the Chinese Center for Antarctic Astronomy, said during a scientific activity Thursday.

"The Antarctic will provide a new window to observe the space outside Earth, and its unique geographic advantages can not be matched by any place on Earth," said Wang, adding that construction on the observatory is expected to take five years.

In 2011, the members of the Chinese Antarctic expedition team successfully finished the installment and commissioning of the self-developed automatic unattended telescope, establishing a foundation for the construction of the Antarctic observatory.

China is developing fast in astronomy, said Brian Schmidt, the winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, adding that the country should develop more independent projects and participate in more international projects.

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Professor LI Jiayang and professor YANG Huanming, both Academicians of Chinese Academy of Sciences, were recently elected as members of the German National Academy of Sciences, due to their outstanding contributions to the field of Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Plant Architecture and Grain Quality and Human Genomics and Genetics.

Established in 1652 and also known as the Leopoldina zu Halle, it is one of the world's oldest academies of sciences and the oldest continuously existing academy. The Leopoldina is registered as a non-profit organization, with a membership consisting of over 1,400 scientists in around 30 countries. Its members have included Johann Wolfgang v. Goethe, Charles Darwin, and approximately 168 Nobel Laureates, among them Marie Curie, Ernest Rutherford, Max Planck, and Albert Einstein.

Professor LI Jiayang, Ph. D., is now the Vice Minister of Agriculture of China, President of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. He was awarded Bachelor Degree of Agronomy from Anhui Agricultural College (now Anhui Agricultural University) in 1982, Master Degree of Science from Institute of Genetics (now Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology) of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1984, and PhD of Biology from Brandeis University in 1991. After completing his postdoctoral research in Robert Last’s lab at Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant research at Cornell University, Dr. LI was recruited as a professor of plant molecular genetics by Institute of Genetics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1994. Dr. LI’s laboratory is mainly interested in molecular genetics of plant development and metabolism, focusing on the elucidation of molecular mechanisms underlying plant architecture and the starch biosynthesis in rice. The lab is also interested in breeding super elite rice via molecular design.

Professor YANG Huanming received his B.Sc from Hangzhou University (Zhejiang University) in 1978, followed by a master degree in biology in 1982 from the Nanjing Railroad Medical Institute (now Southeast University). Yang earned his Ph.D in 1988 in the Institute of Medical Genetics University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He then completed his post-doctoral training in Europe (at CIML, INSERM/CNRS, Marseille, France, 1988–90) and the United States (at Harvard Medical School and UCLA, 1990–94). Dr. YANG's work includes the sequencing and analysis of the human genome, human genome diversity and evolution, and the ethical, legal, and social issues related to genome research. Dr. YANG and his team at BGI have made significant contributions to the International Human Genome Project, International Human HapMap Project, Sino-British Chicken Genome Project, rice genome, silkworm genome, the first Asian diploid genome, the potato genome, and, most recently, 1000 genomes and human Gut metagenome.


It is reported that six Chinese scholars have been elected to the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina since 1988.

* LU Yongxiang, Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Engineering, Vice Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, was elected in 2005.
* LU Ke, Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, was elected in 2005
* ZHANG Jie, Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, President of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, was elected in 2007.
* LAI Maode, Zhejiang Medical University, was elected in 2011.
* LI Jiayang, Vice Minister of Agriculture of China and President of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, was elected in 2012.
* YANG Huanming, Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chairman of BGI, was elected in 2012.

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