We investigate Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) in monolayer WS2 both deposited on a SiO2/Si substrate or suspended using transmission electron microscopy grids. We find unusually large second order nonlinear susceptibility, with an estimated value of deff ~ 4.5 nm/V nearly three orders of magnitude larger than other common nonlinear crystals. In order to quantitatively characterize the nonlinear susceptibility of two-dimensional (2D) materials, we have developed a formalism to model SHG based on the Green's function with a 2D nonlinear sheet source. In addition, polarized SHG is demonstrated as a useful method to probe the structural symmetry and crystal orientation of 2D materials. To understand the large second order nonlinear susceptibility of monolayer WS2, density functional theory based calculation is performed. Our analysis suggests the origin of the large nonlinear susceptibility in resonance enhancement and a large joint density of states, and yields an estimate of the nonlinear susceptibility value deff = 0.77 nm/V for monolayer WS2, which shows good order-of-magnitude agreement with the experimental result.

Implanting fiber optical waveguides into tissue or organs for light delivery and collection is among the most effective ways to overcome the issue of tissue turbidity, a long-standing obstacle for biomedical optical technologies. Here, we report a citrate-based material platform with engineerable opto-mechano-biological properties and demonstrate a new type of biodegradable, biocompatible, and low-loss step-index optical fiber for organ-scale light delivery and collection. By leveraging the rich designability and processibility of citrate-based biodegradable polymers, two exemplary biodegradable elastomers with a fine refractive index difference and yet matched mechanical properties and biodegradation profiles were developed. Furthermore, we developed a two-step fabrication method to fabricate flexible and low-loss (0.4 db/cm) optical fibers, and performed systematic characterizations to study optical, spectroscopic, mechanical, and biodegradable properties. In addition, we demonstrated the proof of concept of image transmission through the citrate-based polymeric optical fibers and conducted in vivo deep tissue light delivery and fluorescence sensing in a Sprague-Dawley (SD) rat, laying the groundwork for realizing future implantable devices for long-term implantation where deep-tissue light delivery, sensing and imaging are desired, such as cell, tissue, and scaffold imaging in regenerative medicine and in vivo optogenetic stimulation.

Conventional survival analysis approaches estimate risk scores or individualized time-to-event distributions conditioned on covariates. In practice, there is often great population-level phenotypic heterogeneity, resulting from (unknown) subpopulations with diverse risk profiles or survival distributions. As a result, there is an unmet need in survival analysis for identifying subpopulations with distinct risk profiles, while jointly accounting for accurate individualized time-to-event predictions. An approach that addresses this need is likely to improve characterization of individual outcomes by leveraging regularities in subpopulations, thus accounting for population-level heterogeneity. In this paper, we propose a Bayesian nonparametrics approach that represents observations (subjects) in a clustered latent space, and encourages accurate time-to-event predictions and clusters (subpopulations) with distinct risk profiles. Experiments on real-world datasets show consistent improvements in predictive performance and interpretability relative to existing state-of-the-art survival analysis models.

We demonstrate the application of two-dimensional materials for ultrashort optical pulse characterization. Monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides, such as tungsten disulfide (WS₂), possess extraordinarily large second-order nonlinear susceptibility, and due to their atomic thickness, have relaxed phase-matching requirements and, hence, an inherently wide bandwidth. Synthesized monolayer WS₂ triangular islands were used to characterize ultrashort optical pulses at the focal point of an objective lens through second-harmonic generation collinear frequency-resolved optical gating.