arXiv subjects

Ming Yan

Publications and source records attributed to Ming Yan.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2026

Comb-enabled spectral-domain image transport through perturbation-prone multimode fibers

Multimode fibers (MMFs) offer a compact platform for imaging, sensing, and information transport, but their practical deployment is hindered by sensitivity to fiber perturbations, which alter modal coupling and invalidate conventional speckle-based calibrations. Here, we demonstrate perturbation-resilient image transport through MMFs by combining image-to-spectrum encoding with dual-comb spectroscopy. Two-dimensional images are converted into comb-line-resolved spectral signatures before fiber transmission, allowing spatial information to be carried in the spectral domain rather than in the output speckle field. After propagation, dual-comb heterodyne detection maps the encoded spectrum into the radio-frequency domain, enabling massively parallel spectral readout with a single photodetector. Neural-network-assisted compressive reconstruction further enables high-fidelity imaging from sparse, noisy, and spectrally aliased measurements. Our approach achieves Pearson correlation coefficients exceeding 0.9 under strong fiber perturbations and supports frame rates up to 2.5 MHz, allowing the observation of transient switching dynamics in a digital micromirror device. These results establish a powerful tool for robust, real-time image transport through flexible MMFs, with potential applications in remote sensing and fiber-based optical instrumentation.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2026

Reconstructive comb spectroscopy: A single-pixel detection paradigm beyond dual-comb limitations

Frequency comb spectroscopy has revolutionized broadband molecular fingerprinting with mode-defined resolution. While dual-comb spectroscopy stands as a dominant paradigm for high-resolution measurements, it relies on mutually coherent dual combs, and its applicability to non-cooperative sensing is limited by the requirement for phase-sensitive detection and controlled optical returns. Here, we introduce reconstructive comb spectroscopy, a fundamentally different paradigm that eliminates these constraints. By integrating a mode-programmable optical comb with a computational sensing scheme based on single-pixel detection, our method achieves picometer-level spectral resolution over a 10-nm (1.27-THz) instantaneous bandwidth, with single-photon sensitivity down to 10^-4 photons per pulse, and compressed spectral acquisition at 2.5% sampling while maintaining reconstruction errors below 10%. We demonstrate robust performance through scattering media and from non-cooperative targets. These capabilities establish reconstructive comb spectroscopy as a new platform for gas sensing, with broad applicability in remote atmospheric monitoring, industrial leak detection, and standoff chemical-threat identification.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2026

Free-running single-cavity dual combs with Hz-level relative linewidth

Single-cavity dual-comb lasers provide a compact and efficient source for dual-comb spectroscopy in gas sensing applications; however, achieving sufficient free-running mutual coherence for comb-line-resolved, high-resolution measurements remains challenging. Here, we present a symmetry-engineered bidirectional single-cavity dual-comb laser based on an all-polarization-maintaining fiber architecture. The system exhibits exceptional free-running mutual coherence, achieving Hz-level relative linewidths without active feedback or phase correction. The time-averaged absolute jitter of the dual-comb repetition-rate difference reaches 4.7*10^-7 min-1, representing an improvement of nearly two orders of magnitude over previously reported free-running systems. As a spectroscopic demonstration, we resolve ~49,000 comb lines over a 5.4 THz optical bandwidth and measure the absorption spectrum of carbon monoxide (12CO), faithfully retrieving molecular line shapes with millisecond acquisition times. This architecture provides a compact and robust free-running platform for broadband molecular spectroscopy and millisecond-scale, line-shape-resolved gas sensing.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2026

ASAP: A Disaggregated and Asynchronous Inference System for MoE Prefill

Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) models have become the de facto standard for scaling large language models. To maintain computational efficiency, modern MoE serving systems typically employ a hybrid parallelism strategy, combining Data Parallelism (DP) for attention stages with Expert Parallelism (EP) for MoE stages. However, this design necessitates frequent global synchronization barriers between attention DP groups and experts. In online serving, significant variance in request arrival rates and sequence lengths inherently leads to DP imbalance, causing severe synchronization stalls that degrade Time-to-First-Token (TTFT) and system throughput. We present ASAP, an asynchronous inference system specifically designed to accelerate the prefill phase of MoE models. ASAP disaggregates the attention and MoE stages and implements a fully asynchronous execution pipeline. This is achieved through a suite of specialized asynchronous communication primitives and four coordinated optimizations across request scheduling and model execution, which collectively dismantle global synchronization barriers. We implement and evaluate ASAP on CloudMatrix384 super-nodes, demonstrating that it improves SLO-compliant prefill throughput by 90% compared to state-of-the-art synchronous serving solutions.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2026

Fast projection onto the top-k-sum constraint

This paper develops an efficient algorithm for computing the Euclidean projection onto the top-k-sum constraint, a key operation in financial risk management and matrix optimization problems. Existing projection methods rely on sorting and therefore incur an initial O(nlogn) complexity, which limits their scalability in high-dimensional settings. To address this difficulty, we revisit the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions of the projection problem and introduce relaxed conditions that remain sufficient for characterizing the solution. These conditions lead to a simple geometric interpretation: finding the solutions is equivalent to locating the intersection of two monotone piecewise linear functions. Building on this insight, we propose an iterative and highly efficient algorithm that searches directly for the intersection point and completely avoids all sorting procedures. We prove that the algorithm converges globally and reaches the exact solution in a finite number of iterations. Extensive numerical experiments further demonstrate that the proposed algorithm substantially outperforms existing algorithms and exhibits empirical O(n) complexity across a broad range of problem instances.

math.OC↗

arXiv2026

Unified Ergodic Primal-Dual Gap Rates with Unhalved Primal Stepsizes

We study ergodic primal-dual gap rates for first-order primal-dual methods applied to \[ \min_x f(x)+g(x)+h(Ax), \] where $f$ is smooth and convex, $g$ and $h$ are proper, closed, convex functions, and $A$ is linear. Standard gap-rate proofs often impose the halved smooth-stepsize condition $τ\le 1/L$, even though the corresponding convergence theory allows the larger range $τ<2/L$. We introduce a residual-to-gap transfer principle: positive residual terms in the one-step gap inequality are controlled by the decrease of a Lyapunov function. This yields $O(1/K)$ ergodic primal-dual gap bounds with the unhalved primal stepsize $τ<2/L$ for Condat--Vũ, PD3O, AFBA/PDDY, and PAPC/PDFP$^2$O, under their algorithm-dependent product conditions. We also give a two-dimensional counterexample showing that the fully separated rectangle $τ<2/L$, $τη\|A\|^2<4/3$ cannot hold in the general three-function setting.

math.OC↗

arXiv2026

Passive all-optical synchronization for polarization-maintaining ultrafast fiber lasers

We have proposed and implemented for the first time to our best knowledge a passive and all-optical pulse synchronization for polarization-maintaining ultrafast fiber lasers. Specifically, the synchronization system was comprised of two independent Yb-doped and Er-doped mode-locked fiber lasers in a master-slave configuration. Master pulses were injected into the slave laser cavity consisting of a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror, which provided an effective fast intensity modulator due to the periodic introduction of nonreciprocal phase difference. As a result, robust and tight timing synchronization was achieved with a cavity mismatch tolerance of 800 $μ$m and a relative timing jitter of 26 fs within 1-MHz bandwidth. In combination with all-polarization-maintaining structure of fiber lasers, long-term stable operation was demonstrated over 12 hours without the need of temperature stabilization and vibration isolation. The implemented synchronous laser system could find immediate applications such as pump-probe microscopy, two-color spectroscopy and nonlinear frequency mixing.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2026

Observation of spectral mode splitting in a pump-enhanced ring cavity for mid-infrared generation

We report on experimental and theoretical investigation of mode-splitting dynamics in a ring cavity under the perturbation of fractional Bragg reflection from a periodically-poled nonlinear crystal. Counterintuitively, pronounced mode splitting in the spectral domain could been observed even with a tiny intensity reflection of 0.0003. The breaking of running-wave operation in the ring-cavity configuration resulted in comparable circulating fields in forward- and counter-propagation directions, which thus dramatically reduced the enhancing factor for the resonating field. In contrast, a linear cavity with intrinsically bidirectional operation was immune to the small intra-cavity reflection. Therefore, the linear-cavity layout could provide an expedient solution for a given internal reflection to obtain more stable and higher enhancement, which was confirmed by comparative studies of mid-infrared generation based on pump-enhanced difference frequency conversion. The underlying mechanism was further modeled by numerical simulations, which agreed well with experimental results. These findings could not only shed light on the understanding of the exotic feature of concatenated optical cavities, but also provide a useful guide to practical design of enhancement cavities for cavity-based frequency conversion with periodically-poled nonlinear crystals.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2026

Passively synchronized dual-color mode-locked fiber lasers based on nonlinear amplifying loop mirrors

We have proposed and implemented a novel scheme for passive all-optical synchronization between erbium and ytterbium mode-locked fiber lasers. The passive locking of repetition rates for the dual-color pulses was realized by cross-phase modulation within phase-biased nonlinear amplifying loop mirrors. In contrast to previous demonstrations, the synchronization system was configured in an all-polarization-maintaining structure, thus gaining substantially improved stability and robustness. Consequently, the maximum tolerance of cavity-length mismatch of 16.2 mm was achieved unprecedentedly, which was at least one order of magnitude longer than previously reported results for comparable temporal durations of involved pulses. The corresponding relative timing jitter was measured to be 31 fs within 1-MHz bandwidth. Such tight and robust synchronization fiber laser system offers a great potential for various applications, such as pump-probe microscopy, Raman scattering spectroscopy and nonlinear frequency generation.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2026

SoLoPO: Unlocking Long-Context Capabilities in LLMs via Short-to-Long Preference Optimization

Despite advances in pretraining with extended context sizes, large language models (LLMs) still face challenges in effectively utilizing real-world long-context information, primarily due to insufficient long-context alignment caused by data quality issues, training inefficiencies, and the lack of well-designed optimization objectives. To address these limitations, we propose a framework named \textbf{S}h\textbf{o}rt-to-\textbf{Lo}ng \textbf{P}reference \textbf{O}ptimization (\textbf{SoLoPO}), decoupling long-context preference optimization (PO) into two components: short-context PO and short-to-long reward alignment (SoLo-RA), supported by both theoretical and empirical evidence. Specifically, short-context PO leverages preference pairs sampled from short contexts to enhance the model's contextual knowledge utilization ability. Meanwhile, SoLo-RA explicitly encourages reward score consistency for the responses when conditioned on both short and long contexts that contain identical task-relevant information. This facilitates transferring the model's ability to handle short contexts into long-context scenarios. SoLoPO is compatible with mainstream preference optimization algorithms, while substantially improving the efficiency of data construction and training processes. Experimental results show that SoLoPO enhances all these algorithms with respect to stronger length and domain generalization abilities across various long-context benchmarks, while achieving notable improvements in both computational and memory efficiency.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2026

Highly efficient difference-frequency generation for mid-infrared pulses by passively synchronous seeding

We have proposed and experimentally demonstrated a novel scheme for efficient mid-infrared difference-frequency generation based on passively synchronized fiber lasers. The adoption of coincident seeding pulses in the nonlinear conversion process could substantially lower the pumping threshold for mid-infrared parametric emission. Consequently, a picosecond mid-infrared source at 3.1 $μ$m was prepared with watt-level average power, and a maximum power conversion efficiency of 77\% was realized from pump to down-converted light. Additionally, the long-term stability of generated power was manifested with a relative fluctuation as low as 0.17\% over one hour. Thanks to the all-optical passive synchronization and all-polarization-maintaining fiber architecture, the implemented laser system was also featured with simplicity, compactness and robustness, which would favor subsequent applications beyond laboratory operation.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2026

Coincidence-pumping upconversion detector based on passively synchronized fiber laser system

We experimentally demonstrated a high-performance frequency upconversion detector for telecom-band photons based on a passively synchronized fiber laser system. The involved coincidence pumping technique enabled to spectrally convert the pulsed infrared photons into the visible regime with a conversion efficiency of 72\%. The overall detection efficiency of the upconversion detector reached to 30\% with a low noise equivalent power of $3\times10^{-17}\ \text{W/Hz}^{1/2}$. In contrast to previous demonstrations, the whole upconversion detection system was constructed in an all-polarization-maintaining fiber structure, thus favoring substantial improvement of compactness and robustness. Moreover, the long-term stability was manifested by at least ten-hour operation with a relative fluctuation of count rates as small as 0.26\%. The achieved features here would be desirable in many practical applications requiring efficient and robust coherent manipulation of pulsed optical fields by nonlinear frequency conversion.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2026

Wide-field mid-infrared single-photon upconversion imaging

Frequency upconversion technique, where the infrared signal is nonlinearly translated into the visible band to leverage the silicon sensors, offers a promising alternation for the mid-infrared (MIR) imaging. However, the intrinsic field of view (FOV) is typically limited by the phase-matching condition, thus imposing a remaining challenge to promote subsequent applications. Here, we demonstrate a wide-field upconversion imaging based on the aperiodic quasi-phase-matching configuration. The acceptance angle is significantly expanded to about 30$^\circ$, over tenfold larger than that with the periodical poling crystal. The extended FOV is realized in one shot without the need of parameter scanning or post-processing. Consequently, a fast snapshot allows to facilitate high-speed imaging at a frame rate up to 216 kHz. Alternatively, single-photon imaging at room temperature is permitted due to the substantially suppressed background noise by the spectro-temporal filtering. Furthermore, we have implemented high-resolution time-of-flight 3D imaging based on the picosecond optical gating. These presented MIR imaging features with wide field, fast speed, and high sensitivity might stimulate immediate applications, such as non-destructive defect inspection, in-vivo biomedical examination, and high-speed volumetric tomography.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2026

Highly sensitive detection for infrared photons by non-degenerate two-photon absorption under mid-infrared pumping

We have demonstrated highly-sensitive photon counting in the infrared based on the two-photon absorption (2PA) in a silicon avalanche photodiode, where the required photon energy for inducing effective conductivity was provided by an intense mid-infrared (MIR) field at 3 $μ$m. The used MIR pumping scheme could not only benefit from the enhanced 2PA coefficient in the non-degenerate regime, but also eliminate the detrimental background noises due to the pump harmonic excitation of the pump. Consequently, the enhancement factor for the signal counting rate unprecedented reached to about $10^{5}$ with input infrared pulses at the femtojoule level. Additionally, the noise equivalent power was substantially improved by two orders of magnitude comparing to conventional schemes with near-infrared pumping. Therefore, the presented configuration might provide an alternative to realize sensitive infrared detection and imaging with desirable features of room-temperature operation, no phase-matching requirement, and broadband responding window, which would find a variety of applications including remote ranging, sensitive sensing, biochemical imaging, and trace spectroscopy.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2026

Passive repetition-rate stabilization for a mode-locked fiber laser by electro-optic modulation

We report a passive stabilization of the repetition rate for a mode-locked fiber laser by using an electro-optic modulator in a phase-biased nonlinear amplifying loop mirror. The underlying mechanism, in contrast to active feedback operations, lies in the cross-phase modulation between electrical and optical pulses within an electro-optic crystal. The resulting spectral shift can automatically compensate the cavity-length drift via the group velocity dispersion. Consequently, the artificial actuator enables to obtain a capture range up to 2.3 mm, much longer than that achieved by index changes of the modulator. A robust and tight locking for the repetition rate is then realized with a standard deviation as low as 9 $μ$Hz with a 1-s sample time over 11 hours, corresponding to a fractional instability of 4.3$\times$10$^{-13}$. Furthermore, a dynamic optical sampling by repetition-rate tuning has been manifested with a fast refresh rate at 100 kHz and a broad scanning range over 305 ps. The demonstrated passive servo action may provide a simple yet effective way to stabilize the repetition rate with high precision, large bandwidth and wide tunability.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2026

Beyond Trajectory-Level Attribution: Graph-Based Credit Assignment for Agentic Reinforcement Learning

Group-based reinforcement learning (RL) methods have achieved remarkable success in improving the performance of large language models (LLMs) and have been rapidly extended to agentic tasks. However, their credit assignment relies heavily on coarse-grained trajectory-level attribution according to final outcomes, making it difficult to capture the contribution of individual steps, such as valuable steps obscured within failed trajectories. To uncover latent information and enable more faithful step-level credit assignment, we propose Graph-based Group Policy Optimization (GraphGPO), which first aggregates all rollout trajectories into a unified state-transition graph and then estimates the distance from each state to the task goal using the global information encoded in the graph. Finally, GraphGPO assigns credit to each edge by estimating a graph-based advantage, based on how much the transition reduces the distance to the task goal. In this way, GraphGPO significantly improves training efficiency and achieves state-of-the-art performance across a range of challenging benchmarks.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2026

Mid-Infrared Single-Photon Edge Enhanced Imaging based on Nonlinear Vortex Filtering

Edge enhanced imaging via the spiral phase contrast enables to reveal the phase or amplitude gradients of a target, which has been proved useful in feature recognition, machine vision, and object identification. A long quest is to extend the operation wavelength into the mid-infrared (MIR) region, as highly demanded in various fields including infrared sensing, astronomic observation, and biomedical diagnosis. Here, we demonstrated ultra-sensitive MIR imaging at the single-photon level based on nonlinear frequency upconversion, where the spectrally converted replica of the MIR object image at 3070 nm was captured by a silicon electron multiplying charged coupled device. The imaging sensitivity was significantly improved by the coincidence pulsed pumping with a spectro-temporal optimization. Furthermore, the edge enhancement has been realized by imprinting the spiral phase pattern of the pump onto the upconverted field at the Fourier plane within the nonlinear crystal. Such a nonlinear spatial filter not only provided an effective way to implement the required high-fidelity vortex screening in the edge enhanced detection, but also rendered the MIR illumination into a visible image in an efficient and low-noise fashion. The presented system for MIR edge enhanced imaging might facilitate immediate applications in label-free histopathological diagnosis and non-destructive defect inspection.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2026

Single-Photon Infrared Imaging with a Silicon Camera Based on Long-Wavelength-Pumping Two-Photon Absorption

We experimentally demonstrated an ultra-sensitive imaging system for telecom photons based on the non-degenerate two-photon absorption in a silicon-based electron multiplying charge-coupled device (EMCCD). The proposed long-wavelength-pumping scheme with mid-infrared pulsed excitation could not only effectively increase the two-photon absorption coefficient, but also significantly suppress the background noise caused by the harmonic absorption of the strong pumping field. In comparison to the photoelectric response via the degenerate two-photon absorption, the implemented configuration could offer over 30-folded enhancement of the photon-counting rate in the infrared imaging. The resulting detection sensitivity up to 1 photon/pixel/pulse was unprecedentedly approached, thus facilitating the single-photon operation. The elimination of the stringent phase matching as typically required in the optical parametric conversion has led to a high spatial resolution of 13 $μ$m. Moreover, the on-chip nonlinearity of the optical imager would enable a broadband spectral window and an enlarged field of view. In combination with the 5-ps temporal resolution due to the coincident optical gating, the presented imaging system would find various promising applications, such as low-light fluorescence lifetime microscopy and photon counting time-of-flight 3D imaging.

physics.optics↗