Continuous-time quantum walks (CTQWs) have shown the capability to perform efficiently the spatial search of a marked site on many kinds of graphs. However, most of such graphs are hard to realize in an experimental setting. Here we study CTQW spatial search on a planar triangular lattice by means of both numerical simulations and experiments. The experiments are performed using two-dimensional waveguide arrays fabricated by femtosecond laser pulses, illuminated by coherent light. We show that the retrieval of the marked site by the quantum walker is accomplished with higher probability than the classical counterpart, in a convenient time window placed early in the evolution.

The preparation of a quantum Gibbs state is an essential part of quantum computation and has wide-ranging applications in various areas, including quantum simulation, quantum optimization, and quantum machine learning. In this paper, we propose variational hybrid quantum-classical algorithms for quantum Gibbs state preparation. We first utilize a truncated Taylor series to evaluate the free energy and choose the truncated free energy as the loss function. Our protocol then trains the parameterized quantum circuits to learn the desired quantum Gibbs state. Notably, this algorithm can be implemented on near-term quantum computers equipped with parameterized quantum circuits. By performing numerical experiments, we show that shallow parameterized circuits with only one additional qubit can be trained to prepare the Ising chain and spin chain Gibbs states with a fidelity higher than 95%. In particular, for the Ising chain model, we find that a simplified circuit ansatz with only one parameter and one additional qubit can be trained to realize a 99% fidelity in Gibbs state preparation at inverse temperatures larger than $2$.

Hole spins in semiconductor quantum dots represent a viable route for the implementation of electrically controlled qubits. In particular, the qubit implementation based on $\mathrm{Si}$ $p$-MOSFETs offers great potentialities in terms of integration with the control electronics and long-term scalability. Moreover, the future down scaling of these devices will possibly improve the performance of both the classical (control) and quantum components of such monolithically integrated circuits. Here, we use a multiscale approach to simulate a hole-spin qubit in a down-scaled $\mathrm{Si}$-channel $p$-MOSFET, the structure of which is based on a commercial 22-nm fully depleted silicon-on-insulator device. Our calculations show the formation of well-defined hole quantum dots within the $\mathrm{Si}$ channel and the possibility of a general electrical control, with Rabi frequencies of the order of $100\mathrm{MHz}$ for realistic field values. A crucial role of the channel aspect ratio is also demonstrated, as well as the presence of a favorable parameter range for the qubit manipulation.

Knowledge of the spin-wave dispersion relation is a prerequisite for the explanation of many magnonic phenomena as well as for the practical design of magnonic devices. Spin-wave dispersion measurement by established optical techniques such as Brillouin light scattering or the magneto-optical Kerr effect at ultralow temperatures is often forbiddingly complicated. By contrast, microwave spectroscopy can be used at all temperatures but it usually lacks spatial and wave-number resolution. Here we develop a variable-gap-propagating-spin-wave-spectroscopy (VGPSWS) method for the deduction of the dispersion relation of spin waves in a wide frequency and wave-number range. The method is based on the phase-resolved analysis of the spin-wave transmission between two antennas with variable spacing, in conjunction with theoretical data treatment. We validate the method for in-plane magnetized $\mathrm{Co}$-$\mathrm{Fe}$-$\mathrm{B}$ and yttrium iron garnet thin films in $\mathbf{k}\perp \mathbf{B}$ and $\mathbf{k}\parallel \mathbf{B}$ geometries by deducing the full set of material and spin-wave parameters, including spin-wave dispersion, hybridization of the fundamental mode with the higher-order perpendicular standing spin-wave modes, and surface spin pinning. The compatibility of microwaves with low temperatures makes this approach attractive for cryogenic magnonics at the nanoscale.

Dirac plasmons in a two-dimensional (2D) crystal are strongly affected by the dielectric properties of the environment, due to interaction of their electric field lines with the surrounding medium. Using graphene as a 2D reservoir of free carriers, one can engineer a material configuration that provides an anisotropic environment to the plasmons. In this work, we discuss the physical properties of Dirac plasmons in graphene surrounded by an arbitrary anisotropic dielectric and exemplify how $h$-$\mathrm{BN}$–based heterostructures can be designed to bear the required anisotropic characteristics. We calculate how dielectric anisotropy impacts the spatial propagation of the plasmons and find that an anisotropy-induced plasmon mode emerges, together with a damping pathway, that stem from the out-of-plane off-diagonal elements in the dielectric tensor. Furthermore, we find that one can create hyperbolic plasmons by inheriting the dielectric hyperbolicity of the designed material environment. Strong control over plasmon propagation patterns can be realized in a similar manner. Finally, we show that in this way one can also control the polarization of the light-matter excitations that constitute the plasmon. Taken together, our results promote the design of the dielectric environment as an effective path to tailor the plasmonic response of graphene on the nanoscopic level.

We demonstrate the dissipative spatiotemporal patterns that are generated by an active ring resonator based on a magnonic quasicrystal (MQC) with Fibonacci-type structure. The dissipative patterns are formed through the magnetostatic surface spin-wave (MSSW) parametric decay into exchange spin waves (SWs), temporal dispersion of the ring resonator and amplification. In the spatial domain, the MSSW and SW parametric patterns measured with the help of Brillouin light spectroscopy have the quasiperiodic spatial localization in crests and grooves of the MQC, respectively. In contrast to the optical quasiperiodic parametric spatial conservative solitons, the amplitude profiles of the magnonic quasiperiodic parametric spatial dissipative patterns correspond to the profiles of the crests and grooves of the MQC. In the time domain, the packets of the chaotic parametric pulses, which are analogs of temporal solitons, are generated at each point of the spatial patterns. The chaotic nature of such pulses is confirmed by an estimate of a highest Lyapunov exponent from the experimental time series. The pulse packets are formed through the time-filtering technique using the external microwave (MW) pulses to control a ring gain. It is shown that at a certain duty factor of the external MW pulses, the parametric MSSW pulses have the amplitude and phase profiles corresponding to the profiles of a conservative bright envelope soliton.

We investigate carrier transport in gallium-free strained-balanced $\mathrm{In}\mathrm{As}/{\mathrm{In}}_x{\mathrm{As}}_{1-x}\mathrm{Sb}$ type-II superlattices in the presence of positional and compositional disorder. We use a rigorous nonequilibrium Green’s function model based on fully nonlocal scattering self-energies computed in the self-consistent Born approximation and a multiband description of the electronic structure. Layer-thickness fluctuations, nonuniform antimony composition, and segregation throughout the superlattice stack lead to as-grown disordered structures that are quite different from the abrupt interface ideal superlattices. We find that regardless of its nature and cause, disorder significantly affects vertical-carrier-transport properties, by impeding the coherent propagation of carriers in the minibands. In particular, the minority-carrier hole mobility is fundamentally limited by the nonideal properties of the superlattice, namely the layer-thickness fluctuation and the nonuniform antimony distribution. Furthermore, upon reducing the temperature, holes become fully localized and transport occurs by hopping, which explains published measured detector data that demonstrates the quantum efficiency, exhibiting a very strong temperature dependence that degrades as the temperature is reduced. As a result, photodetectors that employ holes as minority carriers will be limited in performance, especially for long-wavelength infrared applications at low temperature. However, we find that minority-carrier electron mobility is largely unaffected by disorder, indicating the $p$-type absorbing layer as the preferred option.

Resistive switching—the current- and voltage-induced change of electrical resistance—is at the core of memristive devices, which play an essential role in the emerging field of neuromorphic computing. This study is about resistive switching in a Mott insulator, which undergoes a thermally driven metal-to-insulator transition. Two distinct switching mechanisms are reported for such a system: electric-field-driven resistive switching and electrothermal resistive switching. The latter results from an instability caused by Joule heating. Here, we present the visualization of the reversible resistive switching in a planar $\mathrm{V}$${}_2$$\mathrm{O}$${}_3$ thin-film device using high-resolution wide-field microscopy in combination with electric transport measurements. We investigate the interaction of the electrothermal instability with the strain-induced spontaneous phase separation in the $\mathrm{V}$${}_2$$\mathrm{O}$${}_3$ thin film at the Mott transition. The photomicrographs show the formation of a narrow metallic filament with a minimum width $\lesssim 500$ nm. Although the filament formation and the overall shape of the current-voltage characteristics (IVCs) are typical of an electrothermal breakdown, we also observe atypical effects such as oblique filaments, filament splitting, and hysteretic IVCs with sawtoothlike jumps at high currents in the low-resistance regime. We are able to reproduce the experimental results in a numerical model based on a two-dimensional resistor network. This model demonstrates that resistive switching in this case is indeed electrothermal and that the intrinsic heterogeneity is responsible for the atypical effects. This heterogeneity is strongly influenced by strain, thereby establishing a link between switching dynamics and structural properties.

Physical unclonable function (PUF) has been proposed as a promising and trustworthy solution to a variety of cryptographic applications. Here we propose a nonimaging-based authentication scheme for optical PUFs materialized by random scattering media, in which the characteristic fingerprints of optical PUFs are extracted from stochastical fluctuations of the scattered light intensity with respect to laser challenges, which are detected by a single-pixel detector. The randomness, uniqueness, unpredictability, and robustness of the extracted fingerprints are validated to be qualified for real authentication applications. By increasing the key length and improving the signal-to-noise ratio, the false accept rate of a fake PUF can be dramatically lowered to the order of ${10}^{-28}$. In comparison to the conventional laser-speckle-imaging-based authentication with unique identity information obtained from textures of laser-speckle patterns, this nonimaging scheme can be implemented at small speckle size bellowing the Nyquist–Shannon sampling criterion of the commonly used CCD or CMOS cameras, offering benefits in system miniaturization and immunity against reverse engineering attacks simultaneously.

The rising need for hybrid physical platforms has triggered a renewed interest in the development of agile radio-frequency phononic circuits with complex functionalities. The combination of traveling waves with resonant mechanical elements appears as an appealing means of harnessing elastic vibration. In this work, we demonstrate that this combination can be further enriched by the occurrence of traveling surface acoustic waves (SAWs), induced by elastic nonlinearities, interacting with a pair of otherwise linear micron-scale mechanical resonators. Reduction of the resonator-gap distance and an increase in the SAW amplitude results in a frequency softening of the resonator-pair response that lies outside the usual picture of geometrical Duffing nonlinearities. The dynamics of the SAW excitation scheme allows further control of the resonator motion, notably leading to circular-polarization states. These results may pave the way toward versatile high-frequency phononic microelectromechanical-systems–nanoelectromechanical-systems circuits fitting both classical and quantum technologies.

Optimization is one of the key applications of quantum computing where a quantum speedup has been an eagerly anticipated outcome. A promising approach to optimization using quantum dynamics is to consider a linear combination $s(t)B+[1-s(t)]C$ of two noncommuting Hamiltonians $B$ and $C$, where $C$ encodes the solution to the optimization problem in its ground state, $B$ is a Hamiltonian whose ground state is easy to prepare, and $s(t)\in [0,1]$ is the bounded “switching schedule” or “path,” with $t\in [0,t_f]$. This approach encompasses two of the most widely studied quantum-optimization algorithms: quantum annealing [QA; continuous $s(t)$] and the quantum approximate optimization algorithm [QAOA; piecewise constant $s(t)$]. While it is notoriously difficult to prove a quantum advantage for either algorithm, it is possible to compare and contrast them by finding the optimal $s(t)$. Here we provide a rigorous analysis of this quantum optimal control problem, entirely within the geometric framework of Pontryagin’s maximum principle of optimal control theory. We extend earlier results, derived in a purely closed-system setting, to open systems. This is the natural setting for experimental realizations of QA and QAOA. In the closed-system setting it was shown that the optimal solution is a “bang-anneal-bang” schedule, with the bangs characterized by $s(t)=0$ and $s(t)=1$ in finite subintervals of $[0,t_f]$, in particular, $s(0)=0$ and $s(t_f)=1$, in contrast to the standard prescription $s(0)=1$ and $s(t_f)=0$ of QA. As an example, we prove that for a single spin-$1/2$, the optimal solution in the closed-system setting is the bang-bang schedule, switching midway from $s\equiv 0$ to $s\equiv 1$. For finite-dimensional environments and without any approximations we identify sufficient conditions ensuring that either the bang-anneal, anneal-bang, or bang-anneal-bang schedules are optimal, and recover the optimality of $s(0)=0$ and $s(t_f)=1$. However, for infinite-dimensional environments and a system described by an adiabatic Redfield master equation we do not recover the bang-type optimal solution. In fact we can only identify conditions under which $s(t_f)=1$, and even this result is not recovered in the fully Markovian limit, suggesting that the pure anneal-type schedule is optimal. Our open-system results have implications for the use of experimental quantum-information processors, which are by necessity noisy, and suggest that in this practical sense the optimal schedules for quantum optimization are likely to be continuous.

Networks of optical oscillators simulating coupled Ising spins have been recently proposed as a heuristic platform to solve hard optimization problems. These networks, called coherent Ising machines (CIMs), exploit the fact that the collective nonlinear dynamics of coupled oscillators can drive the system close to the global minimum of the classical Ising Hamiltonian, encoded in the coupling matrix of the network. To date, realizations of large-scale CIMs have been demonstrated using hybrid optical-electronic setups, where optical oscillators simulating different spins are subject to electronic feedback mechanisms emulating their mutual interaction. While the optical evolution ensures an ultrafast computation, the electronic coupling represents a bottleneck that causes the computational time to severely depend on the system size. Here, we propose an all-optical scalable CIM with fully programmable coupling. Our setup consists of an optical parametric amplifier with a spatial light modulator (SLM) within the parametric cavity. The spin variables are encoded in the binary phases of the optical wave front of the signal beam at different spatial points, defined by the pixels of the SLM. We first discuss how different coupling topologies can be achieved by different configurations of the SLM, and then benchmark our setup with a numerical simulation that mimics the dynamics of the proposed machine. In our proposal, both the spin dynamics and the coupling are fully performed in parallel, paving the way towards the realization of size-independent ultrafast optical hardware for large-scale computation purposes.

A multiple access channel (MAC) consists of multiple senders simultaneously transmitting their messages to a single receiver. For the classical-quantum case (CQ MAC), achievable rates are known assuming that all the messages are decoded, a common assumption in quantum network design. However, such a conventional design approach ignores the global network structure, i.e., the network topology. When a CQ MAC is given as a part of quantum network communication, this work shows that computation properties can be used to boost communication speeds with code design dependent on the network topology. We quantify achievable quantum communication rates of codes with the computation property for a two-sender CQ MAC. When the two-sender CQ MAC is a boson coherent channel with binary discrete modulation, we show that it achieves the maximum possible communication rate (the single-user capacity), which cannot be achieved with conventional design. Further, such a rate can be achieved by different detection methods: quantum (with and without quantum memory), on-off photon counting, and homodyne (each at different photon power). Finally, we describe two practical applications, one of which cryptographic.

High-fidelity two-qubit entangling gates are essential building blocks for fault-tolerant quantum computers. Over the past decade, tremendous efforts have been made to develop scalable high-fidelity two-qubit gates with superconducting quantum circuits. Recently, an easy-to-scale controlled-phase gate scheme that utilizes the tunable-coupling architecture with fixed-frequency qubits [Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 240502 (2020); Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 240503 (2020)] has been demonstrated with high fidelity and attracted broad interest. However, in-depth understanding of the underlying mechanism is still missing, preventing us from fully exploiting its potential. Here we present a comprehensive theoretical study, explaining the origin of the high-contrast $ZZ$ interaction. Based on improved understanding, we develop a general yet convenient method for shaping an adiabatic pulse in a multilevel system, and identify how to optimize the gate performance from design. Given state-of-the-art coherence properties, we expect the scheme to potentially achieve a two-qubit gate error rate near ${10}^{-5}$, which would drastically speed up the progress towards fault-tolerant quantum computation.

Due to the influence of dimension, two-dimensional (2D) all-inorganic double perovskites may be superior to their three-dimensional (3D) counterparts as environmentally friendly and efficient optoelectronic materials. Nevertheless, how the halogens affect the optoelectronic performance of 2D all-inorganic double perovskite is still unknown. Here, the photoelectric properties, including band structures, optical absorption spectra, carrier mobilities, and exciton binding energies, of 2D all-inorganic double perovskites ${\mathrm{Cs}}_4\mathrm{Ag}\mathrm{Bi}{X}_8$ ($X$ = $\mathrm{Cl}$, $\mathrm{Br}$, $\mathrm{I}$) with the Ruddlesden-Popper structure are studied via density-functional theory along with the spin-orbit coupling effect. Considering the influence of the exciton effect in low-dimensional materials, we also calculate light absorption by using the GW Bethe-Salpeter equation method. The obtained results show that the substitution of $\mathrm{Cl}$ with $\mathrm{Br}$ or $\mathrm{I}$ atoms decreases the band gap (from 2.706 eV to 2.221 and 1.715 eV) for ${\mathrm{Cs}}_4{\mathrm{Ag}\mathrm{Bi}\mathrm{Cl}}_8$, enhances the light-absorption performance, increases the mobility of carriers, and reduces the exciton binding energy (from 1529.90 meV to 1268.70 and 941.71 meV). Moreover, the outcomes demonstrate that 2D all-inorganic double perovskites ${\mathrm{Cs}}_4\mathrm{Ag}\mathrm{Bi}{X}_8$ ($X$ = $\mathrm{Cl}$, $\mathrm{Br}$, $\mathrm{I}$) might be better candidates for luminescent devices than photovoltaic materials, and the excellent performance of ${\mathrm{Cs}}_4{\mathrm{Ag}\mathrm{Bi}\mathrm{I}}_8$ makes it the optimal among the three. Our study will expand theoretical explorations for research into 2D all-inorganic double perovskite materials for potential luminescent or photovoltaic applications.