The ability to generate and detect ultrashort light pulses in the ultraviolet UV-C range (100-280 nm) is crucial for many applications. This work demonstrates a UV-C source-sensor platform that combines nonlinear optical crystals for the generation of femtosecond UV-C laser pulses with photodetectors based on atomically-thin semiconductors. The platform has potential for different technologies, from broad-band imaging to spectroscopy on femtosecond timescales. As a proof of concept, the source-sensor is used to demonstrate free-space communication.

Professor Chuan He's research group at Southern University of Science and Technology reported an example of asymmetric Si–H/O–H coupling between racemic monohydrosilanes and alcohols in the same catalytic system, simultaneously achieving enantiomeric construction of the silicon chiral center and precise control of the Z/E configuration of the alkene. Through mechanistic studies combined with DFT calculations, the stereopolymerization of silicon chirality and the cis-trans isomerization process of the alkene were elucidated in detail. This reaction exhibits excellent yields and good to excellent enantiomeric selectivity, providing a new scheme for the efficient synthesis of four stereoisomers [( R,Z), (R,E), (S,Z), (S,E)]. The article was published as an open access Research Article in CCS Chemistry, the flagship journal of the Chinese Chemical Society.

An international team has obtained the first-ever experimental evidence of electrical behavior that mimics a Josephson junction with two superconductors even though only one was present.