Internal solvation of protein was studied by site-directed mutagenesis, with which an intrinsically fluorescent probe,tryptophan, is inserted into the desired position inside a protein molecule for ultrafast spectroscopic study. Here we review this unique method for protein dynamics research. We first introduce the frontiers of protein solvation, site-directed mutagenesis, protein stability and characteristics, and the spectroscopic methods. Then we present time-resolved spectroscopic dynamics of solvation dynamics inside cavities of active sites. The studies are carried out on a globular protein, staphylococcal nuclease. The solvation at sites inside the protein molecule＇s cavities clearly reveals characteristics of the local environment. These solvation behaviors are directly correlated to enzyme activity.
We theoretically propose blue-detuned optical trapping for neutral atoms via strong near-field interfacing in a plasmonic nanohole array. The optical field at resonance forms a nanoscale-trap potential with an FWHM of 200 nm and about ～370 nm away from the nanohole; thus, a stable 3 D atom trapping independent of the surface potential is demonstrated. The effective trap depth is more than 1 m K when the optical power of trapping light is only about 0.5 m W, while the atom scattering rate is merely about 3.31 s^(-1), and the trap lifetime is about 800 s.This compact plasmonic structure provides high uniformity of trap depths and a two-layer array of atom nanotraps, which should have important applications in the manipulation of cold atoms and collective resonance fluorescence.
Quantum secure direct communication(QSDC) is an important quantum communication branch, which realizes the secure information transmission directly without encryption and decryption processes.Recently, two table-top experiments have demonstrated the principle of QSDC. Here, we report the first long-distance QSDC experiment, including the security test, information encoding, fiber transmission and decoding. After the fiber transmission of 0.5 km, quantum state fidelities of the two polarization entangled Bell states are 91% and 88%, respectively, which are used for information coding. We theoretically analyze the performance of the QSDC system based on current optical communication technologies,showing that QSDC over fiber links of several tens kilometers could be expected. It demonstrates the potential of long-distance QSDC and supports its future applications on quantum communication networks.
In this paper, we investigate the simulation of violation of the Wright inequality by the classical optical experiment theoretically and experimentally. The feasibility of the simulation is demonstrated by theoretical analysis based on descriptions of the classical electrodynamics and quantum mechanics, respectively. Then, the simulation of violation of the Wright inequality is realized experimentally. The setup is based on a laser source, free-space optical devices and power meters. The experimental result violates the noncontextuality hidden variable bound, agreeing with the quantum bound. This method can be extended to other types of noncontextuality inequalities.
