skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Search for: All records

Creators/Authors contains: "Sun, Zheng"

Note: When clicking on a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number, you will be taken to an external site maintained by the publisher. Some full text articles may not yet be available without a charge during the embargo (administrative interval).
What is a DOI Number?

Some links on this page may take you to non-federal websites. Their policies may differ from this site.

  1. Free, publicly-accessible full text available September 1, 2026
  2. Free, publicly-accessible full text available February 1, 2026
  3. Abstract The spectra of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in the low corona play a crucial role in understanding their origins and physical mechanisms and enhancing space weather forecasting. However, capturing these spectra faces significant challenges. This paper introduces a scheme of a multislit spectrometer design with five slits, acquiring the global spectra of the solar corona simultaneously with a focus on the spectra of CMEs in the low corona. The chosen wavelength range of the spectrometer (170–180 Å) includes four extreme ultraviolet emission lines (Fex174.53 Å, Feix171.07 Å, Fex175.26 Å, Fex177.24 Å), which provides information on the plasma velocity, density, and temperature. Utilizing a numerical simulation of the global corona for both the on-disk and the off-limb scenarios, we focus on resolving the ambiguity associated with various Doppler velocity components of CMEs, particularly for a fast CME in the low corona. A new application of our decomposition technique is adopted, enabling the successful identification of multiple discrete CME velocity components. Our findings demonstrate a strong correlation between the synthetic model spectra and the inverted results, indicating the robustness of our decomposition method and its significant potential for global monitoring of the solar corona, including CMEs. 
    more » « less
    Free, publicly-accessible full text available May 6, 2026
  4. Probabilistic computing is a computing scheme that offers a more efficient approach than conventional complementary metal-oxide–semiconductor (CMOS)-based logic in a variety of applications ranging from optimization to Bayesian inference, and invertible Boolean logic. The probabilistic bit (or p-bit, the base unit of probabilistic computing) is a naturally fluctuating entity that requires tunable stochasticity; by coupling low-barrier stochastic magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) with a transistor circuit, a compact implementation is achieved. In this work, by combining stochastic MTJs with 2D-MoS2field-effect transistors (FETs), we demonstrate an on-chip realization of a p-bit building block displaying voltage-controllable stochasticity. Supported by circuit simulations, we analyze the three transistor-one magnetic tunnel junction (3T-1MTJ) p-bit design, evaluating how the characteristics of each component influence the overall p-bit output. While the current approach has not reached the level of maturity required to compete with CMOS-compatible MTJ technology, the design rules presented in this work are valuable for future experimental implementations of scaled on-chip p-bit networks with reduced footprint. 
    more » « less
    Free, publicly-accessible full text available December 1, 2025
  5. Suppressing spurious oscillations is crucial for designing reliable high-order numerical schemes for hyperbolic conservation laws, yet it has been a challenge actively investigated over the past several decades. This paper proposes a novel, robust, and efficient oscillation-eliminating discontinuous Galerkin (OEDG) method on general meshes, motivated by the damping technique (see J. Lu, Y. Liu, and C. W. Shu [SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 59 (2021), pp. 1299–1324]). The OEDG method incorporates an oscillation-eliminating (OE) procedure after each Runge–Kutta stage, and it is devised by alternately evolving the conventional semidiscrete discontinuous Galerkin (DG) scheme and a damping equation. A novel damping operator is carefully designed to possess bothscale-invariantandevolution-invariantproperties. We rigorously prove the optimal error estimates of the fully discrete OEDG method for smooth solutions of linear scalar conservation laws. This might be the first generic fully discrete error estimate fornonlinearDG schemes with an automatic oscillation control mechanism. The OEDG method exhibits many notable advantages. It effectively eliminates spurious oscillations for challenging problems spanning various scales and wave speeds, without necessitating problem-specific parameters for all the tested cases. It also obviates the need for characteristic decomposition in hyperbolic systems. Furthermore, it retains the key properties of the conventional DG method, such as local conservation, optimal convergence rates, and superconvergence. Moreover, the OEDG method maintains stability under the normal Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy (CFL) condition, even in the presence of strong shocks associated with highly stiff damping terms. The OE procedure isnonintrusive, facilitating seamless integration into existing DG codes as an independent module. Its implementation is straightforward and efficient, involving only simple multiplications of modal coefficients by scalars. The OEDG approach provides new insights into the damping mechanism for oscillation control.It reveals the role of the damping operator as a modal filter, establishing close relations between the damping technique and spectral viscosity techniques.Extensive numerical results validate the theoretical analysis and confirm the effectiveness and advantages of the OEDG method. 
    more » « less
  6. The interface properties and thermal stability of bismuth (Bi) contacts on molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) shed light on their behavior under various deposition conditions and temperatures. The examination involves extensive techniques including X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), and scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS). Bi contacts formed a van der Waals interface on MoS2 regardless of deposition conditions, such as ultrahigh vacuum (UHV, 3 × 10–11 mbar) and high vacuum (HV, 4 × 10–6 mbar), while the oxidation on MoS2 has been observed. However, the semimetallic properties of Bi suppress the impact of defect states, including oxidized-MoS2 and vacancies. Notably, the n-type characteristic of Bi/MoS2 remains unaffected, and no significant changes in the local density of states near the conduction band minimum are observed despite the presence of defects detected by STM and STS. As a result, the Fermi level (EF) resides below the conduction band of MoS2. The study also examines the impact of annealing on the contact interface, revealing no interface reaction between Bi and MoS2 up to 300 °C. These findings enhance our understanding of semimetal (Bi) contacts on MoS2, with implications for improving the performance and reliability of electronic devices. 
    more » « less
  7. Abstract Two-dimensional (2D) materials have garnered significant attention in recent years due to their atomically thin structure and unique electronic and optoelectronic properties. To harness their full potential for applications in next-generation electronics and photonics, precise control over the dielectric environment surrounding the 2D material is critical. The lack of nucleation sites on 2D surfaces to form thin, uniform dielectric layers often leads to interfacial defects that degrade the device performance, posing a major roadblock in the realization of 2D-based devices. Here, we demonstrate a wafer-scale, low-temperature process (<250 °C) using atomic layer deposition (ALD) for the synthesis of uniform, conformal amorphous boron nitride (aBN) thin films. ALD deposition temperatures between 125 and 250 °C result in stoichiometric films with high oxidative stability, yielding a dielectric strength of 8.2 MV/cm. Utilizing a seed-free ALD approach, we form uniform aBN dielectric layers on 2D surfaces and fabricate multiple quantum well structures of aBN/MoS2and aBN-encapsulated double-gated monolayer (ML) MoS2field-effect transistors to evaluate the impact of aBN dielectric environment on MoS2optoelectronic and electronic properties. Our work in scalable aBN dielectric integration paves a way towards realizing the theoretical performance of 2D materials for next-generation electronics. 
    more » « less
    Free, publicly-accessible full text available December 1, 2025
  8. Contact engineering on monolayer layer (ML) semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) is considered the most challenging problem towards using these materials as a transistor channel in future advanced technology nodes. The typically observed strong Femi level pinning induced in part by the reaction of the source/drain contact metal and the ML TMD frequently results in a large Schottky barrier height, which limits the electrical performance of ML TMD field-effect transistors (FETs). However, at a microscopic level, little is known about how interface defects or reaction sites impact the electrical performance of ML TMD FETs. In this work, we have performed statistically meaningful electrical measurements on at least 120 FETs combined with careful surface analysis to unveil contact resistance dependencies on the interface chemistry. In particular, we achieved a low contact resistance for ML MoS2 FETs with ultra-high vacuum (UHV, 3×10-11 mbar) deposited Ni contacts, ~500 ohm·μm, which is 5 times lower than the contact resistance achieved when deposited at high vacuum (HV, 3×10-6 mbar) conditions. These electrical results strongly correlate with our surface analysis observations. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) revealed significant bonding species between Ni and MoS2 under UHV conditions compared to HV. We also studied the Bi/MoS2 interface under UHV and HV deposition conditions. Different from the case of Ni, we do not observe a difference in contact resistance or interface chemistry between contacts deposited under UHV and HV. Finally, this article also explores the thermal stability and reliability of the two contact metals employed here. 
    more » « less