Browse Articles

Directed hypergraphs emerge as a potent framework for analyzing social contagion phenomena, incorporating the nuances of individual heterogeneity and the amplifying effects of environmental contagion reinforcement. The authors demonstrate that the interval of bistability within discontinuous phase transitions contracts with diminishing directedness strength

Multiple parameter estimation techniques are employed to empirically validate theoretical propositions regarding complex systems by discerning relevant free parameters from often scarce experimental data. In this tutorial, the authors provide a beginner’s guide to parameter estimation via adjoint optimization, and show its efficiency in prototypical problems across different fields of physics.

Active nematics are driven, non-equilibrium systems relevant to tissue mechanics and morphogenesis in biology, and with prospects as active metamaterials. The authors study the three-dimensional spontaneous flow transition with normal anchoring and show that it involves both chiral and rotational symmetry breaking, resulting in a fully three-dimensional flow with a twisted director field.

Quantum networks require a synergistic integration of terrestrial infrastructure employing optical fibers and wireless free-space communication technologies. In their study, the authors numerically investigate a satellite-based entanglement distribution and quantum teleportation across diverse freespace communication channels, such as diffraction or turbulence, finding that entanglement preservation endures throughout the downlink (satellite-to-ground) propagation for over 1000 km.

Silicon carbide polytypes (SiC) exhibit second-order optic nonlinearity to act as on-chip nonlinear and quantum light sources, but their integration is typically challenging. The authors demonstrate the performance of 3C-SiC --a fully integrable polytype-- as an on-chip quantum light source based on its second-order susceptibility.

The next generation of high energy particle colliders will have features that allows for highly granular detectors and current methods for particle collision reconstruction are limited. The authors explore machine learning algorithms for reconstructing events in electron-positron collisions for such future colliders obtaining a best-performing graph neural network that enhances the jet transverse momentum resolution by up to 50%, outperforming traditional methods and promising significant advancements in future collider measurements.

While numerical simulations for metalenses frequently show efficiencies above 90% at low numerical apertures, the experimental counterpart struggles to reach such efficiencies. The authors modify the model for prediction and systematically realise a set of high-precision meta-lenses with high efficiencies across the whole numerical aperture range.

Bound states in the continuum (BICs) emerge in cavities with a theoretically infinite quality factor, but the experimental measurement of such modes is challenging as they are not accessible from external perturbations. The Draft approved authors realize a fully open acoustic resonator supporting BICs, that allows for the direct measurement of the in-cavity field.

Kitaev materials are synonymous with quantum spin liquids, where due to a mix of different exchange interactions, they can house a range of exotic magnetic phenomena. Here, using a quantum chemical computational approach, the authors demonstrate the potentially important role anisotropic Coulomb exchange plays in the magnetic interactions of different Kitaev spin liquid candidate materials.

The superconducting diode effect (SDE) might reveal a material’s intrinsic properties. Here a change of sign of the SDE is observed at finite magnetic field in planar Josephson junctions on a hybrid superconductor-semiconductor material.

Bifurcation of exceptional points (EPs) could offer applications in metrology by amplifying sensitivity. The authors find that introducing experimentally nonlinearity can bifurcate the EP degeneracy lifting yielding an elevenfold sensitivity enhancement and a chaotic dynamics near the EP compared to the conventional EP-based approach in the linear regime.

Realizing deterministic two-qubit quantum gates in Photonics is currently an open challenge, and no experimental demonstrations exist to date. Here, the authors propose deterministic entangling quantum gates with dual rail single-photon qubits in a photonic interferometer displaying distributed Kerr-type nonlinearities over the whole circuit length.

While a lot of research efforts have been directed towards determining the emergence mechanism of optical rogue waves, less attention has been given to characterizing the level of “rogueness" in optical systems where rogue waves manifest. The authors provide such quantitative description for rogue waves resulting from supercontinuum generation

Attosecond transient absorption spectroscopy (ATAS) is a powerful scheme for monitoring the vibronic coherences that enables real-time observation of electronic motion, but the role of molecular rotation is usually neglected. The authors propose a theory fully accounting for molecular rotation in ATAS, closing the gap between theory and ATAS experiments.

The magnetic dynamics driven by spin waves can be useful for low-consumption devices, which is however still largely unexplored in three-dimensional system. Here, the authors find, using micromagnetic simulations, spin-wave-driven tornado-like dynamics of skyrmion tube and chiral bobber in thick magnetic films.

Electrical devices whose function is based on the spin rather than charge of the electron offer the promise of low-cost, energy efficient practical applications, but using magnetic insulators in such devices are inherently difficult due to limitations in electrical reading mechanisms. Here, the authors report the magnetoresistive detection of perpendicular switching in the insulating ferrimagnetic TbIG using the spin-dependent electron scattering at the TbIG/Cu interface in TbIG/Cu/CoTb multilayers.

Metalenses are lightweight and compact alternative to achromatic lens assemblies, but they usually fulfill the focusing requirements for a single wavelength. The authors design and fabricate a cascade liquid crystal Pancharatnam-Berry lens that enables a seven-wavelength achromatic focusing in a broad range of frequencies.

Nanoscale heterostructure design can control laser-induced heat dissipation and strain propagation as well as their efficiency for driving magnetization precession. The authors present a platform that incorporates MgO layers into metallic Pt-Cu-Ni heterostructures, in order to clarify how controlled transient strain and heat tailor magnetization dynamics.

Charge density waves (CDW) are long periodic rearrangement of electronic structure, that are typically coupled with distortions of the underlying crystal lattices, and the driving mechanism of which can vary from one material to another. Here, the authors use density functional theory to investigate the origin of CDW in SrAl4 and EuAl4, finding that strong electron-coupling plays an important role, which also explains the absence of CDW in BaAl4.

Single-photon imaging and sensing promise great advantages over their classical counterparts, but their practical uses are easily compromised by ambient and quantum noises. The authors demonstrate a noise-resilient scheme based on single-pixel compressive sensing and single-photon counting, achieving high performance via quantum parametric mode sorting.