Applied physics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Absorption, transmission and reflection are three processes characterizing optical devices. Absorption allows for signal conversion and transmission is important for signal transfer, however, reflection is frequently detrimental to device performance. Here, Qian et al demonstrate a magnonic device with controllable absorption and transmission while maintain zero reflection.

    • Jie Qian
    • , C. H. Meng
    •  & C. -M. Hu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fingering patterns form spontaneously when a non-wetting viscous liquid displaces a dry granular mixture in a confined flow cell. The authors show how these patterns are controlled by the balance between viscous, capillary, and frictional forces.

    • Dawang Zhang
    • , James M. Campbell
    •  & Bjørnar Sandnes

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Controlling audible sound requires inherently broadband and subwavelength acoustic solutions. Exploiting the unique physics of plasmacoustic metalayers, we experimentally demonstrate versatile and tunable sound control over a wide frequency range.

    • Stanislav Sergeev
    • , Romain Fleury
    •  & Hervé Lissek

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors combined optical traps and frequency combs to create new acoustic technology – a mechanical frequency comb. The generation of this comb does not require any precision control, making it uniquely positioned for sensing, metrology, and quantum technology.

    • Matthijs H. J. de Jong
    • , Adarsh Ganesan
    •  & Richard A. Norte

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors constructed ideal acoustic metamaterials to realize non-abelian braiding of band nodes and provided the first compelling experimental evidence, at the wavefunction level, for the creation, collision, braiding, and repulsion of band nodes.

    • Huahui Qiu
    • , Qicheng Zhang
    •  & Chunyin Qiu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors investigate a comprehensive topological phase diagram of bilayer hexagonal acoustic lattice, including ideal quantum spin Hall phase with gapless helical edge states. They realize a broadband topological slow wave.

    • Xiao-Chen Sun
    • , Hao Chen
    •  & Yan-Feng Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding and controlling symmetry in nature is of paramount importance. In this work, the authors reveal an unexpected effect of the general duality relation between piezoelectricity and piezomagnetism on their symmetries, enabling novel phononic Chern insulators.

    • Qicheng Zhang
    • , Li He
    •  & A. T. Charlie Johnson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Projective representations of crystal symmetries are indispensable for understanding artificial crystals. Here, authors establish a unified theory of projective crystal symmetries with time-reversal invariance, and construct models for all 458 projective symmetry algebras for the 17 two-dimensional wallpaper groups.

    • Z. Y. Chen
    • , Zheng Zhang
    •  & Y. X. Zhao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Traditional learning procedures for artificial intelligence rely on digital methods not suitable for physical hardware. Here, Nakajima et al. demonstrate gradient-free physical deep learning by augmenting a biologically inspired algorithm, accelerating the computation speed on optoelectronic hardware.

    • Mitsumasa Nakajima
    • , Katsuma Inoue
    •  & Kohei Nakajima

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this work the authors uncover a transient non-Hermitian skin effect. Using a passive system, they confirm the exact evolution of NHSE by leveraging the complex-frequency excitation. This demonstration can be extended to other non-Hermitian phenomena in various passive systems.

    • Zhongming Gu
    • , He Gao
    •  & Jie Zhu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The application of rolling motion to microswarm navigation and cargo delivery has been constrained by the need for a physical boundary to roll along to date. Here, Zhang et al. solve this problem by introducing a reconfigurable virtual wall implemented by a combination of magnetic and acoustic fields.

    • Zhiyuan Zhang
    • , Alexander Sukhov
    •  & Daniel Ahmed

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lab-on-a-chip systems have been widely used in microscale liquid manipulation and greatly benefit from automation. Durrer et al. show a robot-assisted acoustofluidic end effector system, comprising a robotic arm and an acoustofluidic device, that combines both robotic and microfluidic functionalities.

    • Jan Durrer
    • , Prajwal Agrawal
    •  & Daniel Ahmed

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The effect of geometrical confinement on the locomotion of microrobots is crucial to operating them in real-world applications. Bozuyuk et al. show that the locomotion efficiency of microrollers decreases in confined spaces at high rotation frequencies and propose a slender geometry to overcome this problem.

    • Ugur Bozuyuk
    • , Amirreza Aghakhani
    •  & Metin Sitti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fluid-solid interaction, long investigated, is mostly neglected in topological acoustics. Here the authors find that it can give rise to intriguing topological phenomena in simple phononic crystals due to intrinsic differences between sound in fluid and solid.

    • Xiaoxiao Wu
    • , Haiyan Fan
    •  & Xiang Zhang

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    While passive solar-driven evaporative systems promise higher economic and environmental sustainability in water treatment, many challenges remain for their effective adoption. Here, the author identifies three main pillars and corresponding issues which future research should focus on to bring these technologies to the next maturity level.

    • Eliodoro Chiavazzo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors present an approach to underwater imaging, which does not require tethering or batteries. The low-power camera uses power from harvested acoustic energy and communicates colour images wirelessly via acoustic backscatter.

    • Sayed Saad Afzal
    • , Waleed Akbar
    •  & Fadel Adib

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Single-wall carbon nanotubes are made of carbon with diameters less than 100 nanometers. Here, the authors engineer an analogue tube with a diameter 1,000,000 times larger with the aim to explore topological properties including unusual acoustic edge states.

    • Zhiwang Zhang
    • , Penglin Gao
    •  & Johan Christensen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In modern power grids, knowing the required electric power demand and its variations is necessary to balance demand and supply. The authors propose a data-driven approach to create high-resolution load profiles and characterize their fluctuations, based on recorded data of electricity consumption.

    • Mehrnaz Anvari
    • , Elisavet Proedrou
    •  & Marc Timme

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Macromolecular networks relevant for biological processes and technological applications, are often characterized by complex architectures. The authors uncover the impact of topology on the properties of nanoparticle transport in macromolecular networks.

    • Xiaobin Dai
    • , Xuanyu Zhang
    •  & Li-Tang Yan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Most porous systems comprise structures characterized by dead-end and transmitting pores. Here, authors show that macroscopic transport through such porous medium is controlled by structure-induced laminar vortices inside each dead-end pore, and such cannot be explained by diffusion alone.

    • Ankur Deep Bordoloi
    • , David Scheidweiler
    •  & Pietro de Anna

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Charging of interfaces between water and hydrophobic media is a mysterious feature whose nature and origin remain under debate. Here, the authors use opto-thermophoretic tweezers to investigate the interfacial behavior at water/oil interfaces in terms of thermal perturbation of dipole arrangement.

    • Youngsun Kim
    • , Hongru Ding
    •  & Yuebing Zheng

  • Perspective
    | Open Access

    Acoustic techniques are moving towards the clinic. Here the authors highlight recent developments in the areas of acoustic mechanobiology, point-of-care diagnostics, in vivo manipulation and tissues engineering, and provide their thoughts on the current challenges and directions for future work.

    • Joseph Rufo
    • , Peiran Zhang
    •  & Tony Jun Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Underwater communication, despite constant development, still remains a challenging technology. Here, authors report an underwater wireless communication approach based on the triboelectric nanogenerator, which provides a self-powered communication system in complex underwater environments.

    • Hongfa Zhao
    • , Minyi Xu
    •  & Zhong Lin Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    .Sensitive detection of weak acoustic signals at nanometer scale is challenging. Here, the authors present an acoustic detection system based on a single molecule as a probe, where frequency and amplitude of acoustic vibrations can be extracted from its minute variations in distance to the surface of a plasmonic gold nanorod.

    • Mingcai Xie
    • , Hanyu Liu
    •  & Yuxi Tian

  • Article
    | Open Access

    As wireless communications move towards terahertz frequencies, previously unidentified jamming vulnerabilities are revealed. Novel features not typically observed at lower frequencies are studied, including high directional attacks, beat jamming and asymmetric bit interference.

    • Rabi Shrestha
    • , Hichem Guerboukha
    •  & Daniel M. Mittleman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Coating technologies call for effective methods capable of suppressing the coffee-ring effect for a uniform particle deposition. Rey et al. show homogeneous drying patterns can be achieved via physically adsorbing polymers onto particle surfaces and the method is applicable to a wide range of materials regardless of the shape of the dispersed particles.

    • Marcel Rey
    • , Johannes Walter
    •  & Nicolas Vogel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A thermal analogue of coherent perfect absorption would allow to control heat transfer using heat, but the lack of momentum propagation in a thermal field seems to prevent any role for coherence. Here, the authors allow this by introducing an imitated momentum for steady-state heat diffusion.

    • Ying Li
    • , Minghong Qi
    •  & Hongsheng Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    When a plasma interacts with a surface, different thermal effects may arise. Here, the authors explore plasma interactions with a surface that produce a surface cooling effect.

    • John A. Tomko
    • , Michael J. Johnson
    •  & Patrick E. Hopkins

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Topological states are exploited based on crystalline symmetry, but under artificial gauge fields, symmetries may satisfy projective algebras, which remains less studied. Here, the authors reveal that projective symmetry algebra leads to momentum-space nonsymmorphic symmetry, resulting in new topological states over a momentum-space Klein bottle.

    • Z. Y. Chen
    • , Shengyuan A. Yang
    •  & Y. X. Zhao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photo- and thermo-activated polymerization and melting processes are dominant in Additive Manufacturing (AM) while ultrasound activated sonochemical reactions have not been explored for AM so far. Here, the authors demonstrate 3D printing of structures using acoustic cavitation produced directly by focused ultrasound which creates sonochemical reactions in highly localized cavitation regions.

    • Mohsen Habibi
    • , Shervin Foroughi
    •  & Muthukumaran Packirisamy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors report purposefully perturbed wave chaos that enables analog signal processing with unprecedented fidelity and flexibility.

    • Jérôme Sol
    • , David R. Smith
    •  & Philipp del Hougne

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Acoustic waves can be used to manipulate particles and fluids in biomedical applications. The authors show that slip at the fluid-solid interface, characterized by a lower acoustic transmission into the fluid, is similar to Amontons-Coulomb friction, as found between solids. 

    • Aurore Quelennec
    • , Jason J. Gorman
    •  & Darwin R. Reyes

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors provide experimental evidence of extended topological valley-locked states. By splicing together Dirac semimetals and topological insulators, they demonstrate reduced backscattering and enhanced matching of SAW with interdigital transducers proposing this system for topological acoustics devices.

    • Ji-Qian Wang
    • , Zi-Dong Zhang
    •  & Yan-Feng Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Endoskeletal droplets are a class of complex colloids containing a solid internal phase cast within a liquid emulsion droplet. Here, authors show acoustic manipulation of solid disks inside liquid droplets whose orientation can be externally controlled with the frequency.

    • Gazendra Shakya
    • , Tao Yang
    •  & Xiaoyun Ding

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photonic crystal (PC)-based sensing is an attractive approach for achieving accurate environmental sensing applications due to its band structure. Here, the authors utilize microwave transmission through PCs and deep learning physics-based data analytics to characterize flowing fluid mixtures.

    • Lang Feng
    • , Stefan Natu
    •  & John J. Valenza

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