We experimentally investigate the decoherence of single surface-plasmon polaritons in metal stripe waveguides. We use a Mach-Zehnder configuration previously considered for measuring decoherence in atomic, electronic, and photonic systems. By placing waveguides of different lengths in one arm, we are able to measure the amplitude damping time $T_1=1.90\pm 0.01\times {10}^{-14}\mathrm{s}$, pure phase damping time $T_2^{*}=11.19\pm 4.89\times {10}^{-14}\mathrm{s}$ and total phase damping time $T_2=2.83\pm 0.32\times {10}^{-14}\mathrm{s}$. We find that decoherence is mainly due to amplitude damping, and thus loss arising from inelastic electron and photon scattering plays the most important role in the decoherence of plasmonic waveguides in the quantum regime. However, pure phase damping is not completely negligible. The results will be useful in the design of plasmonic waveguide systems for carrying out phase-sensitive quantum applications, such as quantum sensing. The probing techniques developed may also be applied to other plasmonic nanostructures, such as those used as nanoantennas, as unit cells in metamaterials, and as nanotraps for cold atoms.

The effects of point defects on the loss of either energies of ballistic electron beams or incident photons are studied by using a many-body theory in a multi-quantum-well system. This theory includes the defect-induced vertex correction to a bare polarization function of electrons within the ladder approximation, and the intralayer and interlayer screening of defect-electron interactions is also taken into account in the random-phase approximation. The numerical results of defect effects on both energy-loss and optical-absorption spectra are presented and analyzed for various defect densities, numbers of quantum wells, and wave vectors. The diffusion-reaction equation is employed for calculating distributions of point defects in a layered structure. For completeness, the production rate for Frenkel-pair defects and their initial concentration are obtained based on atomic-level molecular-dynamics simulations. By combining the defect-effect, diffusion-reaction, and molecular-dynamics models with an available space-weather-forecast model, it will be possible in the future to enable specific designing for electronic and optoelectronic quantum devices that will be operated in space with radiation-hardening protection and, therefore, effectively extend the lifetime of these satellite onboard electronic and optoelectronic devices. Specifically, this theory can lead to a better characterization of quantum-well photodetectors not only for high quantum efficiency and low dark current density but also for radiation tolerance or mitigating the effects of the radiation.

We experimentally demonstrate the use of subwavelength optical nanoantennas to assist a direct nanoscale ablation using the ultralow fluence of a Ti:sapphire oscillator through the excitation of surface plasmon waves. The mechanism is attributed to nonthermal transient unbonding and electrostatic ablation, which is triggered by the surface plasmon-enhanced field electron emission and acceleration in vacuum. We show that the electron-driven ablation appears for both nanoscale metallic as well as dielectric materials. While the observed surface plasmon-enhanced local ablation may limit the applications of nanostructured surfaces in extreme nonlinear nanophotonics, it, nevertheless, also provides a method for nanomachining, manipulation, and modification of nanoscale materials. Collateral thermal damage to the antenna structure can be suitably avoided, and nonlinear conversion processes can be stabilized by a dielectric overcoating of the antenna.

This paper describes a simple system for generating a highly viscous microjet. The jet is produced inside a wettable thin tube partially submerged in a liquid. The gas-liquid interface inside the tube, which is initially concave, is kept much deeper than that outside the tube. An impulsive force applied at the bottom of a liquid container leads to significant acceleration of the liquid inside the tube followed by flow focusing due to the concave interface. The jet generation process can be divided into two parts that occur in different time scales, i.e., the impact interval [impact duration $\le O({10}^{-4})\mathrm{s}$] and the focusing interval [focusing duration $\gg O({10}^{-4})\mathrm{s}$]. During the impact interval, the liquid accelerates suddenly due to the impact. During the focusing interval, the microjet emerges due to flow focusing. In order to explain the sudden acceleration inside the tube during the impact interval, we develop a physical model based on a pressure impulse approach. Numerical simulations confirm the proposed model, indicating that the basic mechanism of the acceleration of the liquid due to the impulsive force is elucidated. Remarkably, the viscous effect is negligible during the impact interval. In contrast, during the focusing interval, the viscosity plays an important role in the microjet generation. We experimentally and numerically investigate the velocity of microjets with various viscosities. We find that higher viscosities lead to reduction of the jet velocity, which can be described by using the Reynolds number (the ratio between the inertia force and the viscous force). This device may be a starting point for next-generation technologies, such as high-viscosity inkjet printers including bioprinters and needle-free injection devices for minimally invasive medical treatments.

Inspired by the human brain, there is a strong effort to find alternative models of information processing capable of imitating the high energy efficiency of neuromorphic information processing. One possible realization of cognitive computing involves reservoir computing networks. These networks are built out of nonlinear resistive elements which are recursively connected. We propose that a Skyrmion network embedded in magnetic films may provide a suitable physical implementation for reservoir computing applications. The significant key ingredient of such a network is a two-terminal device with nonlinear voltage characteristics originating from magnetoresistive effects, such as the anisotropic magnetoresistance or the recently discovered noncollinear magnetoresistance. The most basic element for a reservoir computing network built from “Skyrmion fabrics” is a single Skyrmion embedded in a ferromagnetic ribbon. In order to pave the way towards reservoir computing systems based on Skyrmion fabrics, we simulate and analyze (i) the current flow through a single magnetic Skyrmion due to the anisotropic magnetoresistive effect and (ii) the combined physics of local pinning and the anisotropic magnetoresistive effect.

Propagating spin waves (SWs) promise to be a potential information carrier in future spintronics devices with lower power consumption. Here, we propose reconfigurable nanochannels (NCs) generated by voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA) in an ultrathin ferromagnetic waveguide for SW propagation. Numerical micromagnetic simulations are performed to demonstrate the confinement of magnetostatic forward volumelike spin waves in NCs by VCMA. We demonstrate that the NCs, with a width down to a few tens of a nanometer, can be configured either into a straight or curved structure on an extended SW waveguide. The key advantage is that either a single NC or any combination of a number of NCs can be easily configured by VCMA for simultaneous propagation of SWs either with the same or different wave vectors according to our needs. Furthermore, we demonstrate the logic operation of a voltage-controlled magnonic xnor and universal nand gate and propose a voltage-controlled reconfigurable SW switch for the development of a multiplexer and demultiplexer. We find that the NCs and logic devices can even be functioning in the absence of the external-bias magnetic field. These results are a step towards the development of all-voltage-controlled magnonic devices with an ultralow power consumption.

Controlling the wave fronts of surface waves (including surface-plamon polaritons and their equivalent counterparts) at will is highly important in photonics research, but the available mechanisms suffer from the issues of low efficiency, bulky size, and/or limited functionalities. Inspired by recent studies of metasurfaces that can freely control the wave fronts of propagating waves, we propose to use metawalls placed on a plasmonic surface to efficiently reshape the wave fronts of incident surface waves (SWs). Here, the metawall is constructed by specifically designed meta-atoms that can reflect SWs with desired phases and nearly unit amplitudes. As a proof of concept, we design and fabricate a metawall in the microwave regime (around 12 GHz) that can anomalously reflect the SWs following the generalized Snell’s law with high efficiency (approximately 70%). Our results, in excellent agreement with full-wave simulations, provide an alternative yet efficient way to control the wave fronts of SWs in different frequency domains. We finally employ full-wave simulations to demonstrate a surface-plasmon-polariton focusing effect at telecom wavelength based on our scheme.

Future applications of spin-orbit torque will require new mechanisms to improve the efficiency of switching nanoscale magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs), while also controlling the magnetic dynamics to achieve fast nanosecond-scale performance with low-write-error rates. Here, we demonstrate a strategy to simultaneously enhance the interfacial magnetic anisotropy energy and suppress interfacial spin-memory loss by introducing subatomic and monatomic layers of Hf at the top and bottom interfaces of the ferromagnetic free layer of an in-plane magnetized three-terminal MTJ device. When combined with a $\beta \text{−}\mathrm{W}$ spin Hall channel that generates spin-orbit torque, the cumulative effect is a switching current density of $5.4\times {10}^6\mathrm{A}/{\mathrm{cm}}^2$.

We report on the development and experimental validation of a laser-based technique which uses coherent Rayleigh-Brillouin scattering (CRBS) to detect nanoparticles with characteristic sizes ranging from the atomic scale to tens of nanometers. This technique is aimed (nonexclusively) at the detection of nanoparticles produced by volumetric nanoparticle synthesis methods. Using CRBS, carbon nanoparticles of dimensions less than 10 nm and concentrations of ${10}^{10}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}$ are detected in situ in a carbon arc discharge with graphite electrodes. This four-wave-mixing approach should enable advances in the understanding of nanoparticle growth that could potentially lead to improved modeling of the growth mechanisms, and thus to improve synthesis selectivity of nanoparticles and yield.

We use microwave radiation generated by a semiconductor double-quantum-dot (DQD) micromaser for charge-state detection. A cavity is populated with $n_c\sim 6000$ photons by driving a current through an emitter DQD. These photons are used to sense the charge state of a target DQD that is located at the opposite end of the cavity. The charge dynamics in the target DQD influences the output power and emission frequency of the maser. Three different readout mechanisms are compared. The detection scheme requires no cavity input field and may potentially be used to improve the scalability of semiconductor and superconducting qubit readout technologies.

Modifications of the magnetic properties of $\mathrm{Co}/\mathrm{Mo}/\mathrm{Co}$ films activated by irradiation with 30-keV Ar and 17-keV Ne ion beams are investigated and compared with the influence of 35-keV Ga ions. This system is magnetized in the sample plane and exhibits a twofold anisotropy. The interlayer coupling of magnetization in as-deposited structures is parallel except for the Mo spacer thickness range between 0.5 and 1.0 nm, where the magnetization of the Co layers is antiparallel oriented. The coupling changes and gradually reduced strength of the ferromagnetic properties are compared for all ion types and discussed as a function of the Mo spacer thickness and the ion fluence. The structural evolution of the studied films with increasing fluence determined from tridyn simulations is discussed in relation to the observed magnetic changes. We also propose various types of magnonic crystals that can be fabricated by exploiting the results presented in this work.

We present frequency-tuning mechanisms for dielectric resonators, which undergo “supermode” interactions as they tune. The tunable schemes are based on dielectric materials strategically placed inside traditional cylindrical resonant cavities, necessarily operating in transverse-magnetic modes for use in axion haloscopes. The first technique is based on multiple dielectric disks with radii smaller than that of the cavity. The second scheme relies on hollow dielectric cylinders similar to a Bragg resonator, but with a different location and dimension. Specifically, we engineer a significant increase in form factor for the ${\mathrm{TM}}_{030}$ mode utilizing a variation of a distributed Bragg reflector resonator. Additionally, we demonstrate an application of traditional distributed Bragg reflectors in TM modes which may be applied to a haloscope. Theoretical and experimental results are presented showing an increase in $Q$ factor and tunability due to the supermode effect. The ${\mathrm{TM}}_{030}$ ring-resonator mode offers a between 1 and 2-order-of-magnitude improvement in axion sensitivity over current conventional cavity systems and will be employed in the forthcoming ORGAN experiment.

The acoustic motion of fluids and particles in confined and acoustically leaky systems is receiving increasing attention for its use in medicine and biotechnology. A number of contradicting physical and numerical models currently exist, but their validity is uncertain due to the unavailability of hard-to-access experimental data for validation. We provide experimental benchmarking data by measuring 3D particle trajectories and demonstrate that the particle trajectories can be described numerically without any fitting parameter by a reduced-fluid model with leaky impedance-wall conditions. The results reveal the hitherto unknown existence of a pseudo-standing wave that drives the acoustic streaming as well as the acoustic radiation force on suspended particles.

Voltage-induced magnetization dynamics in a conically magnetized free layer with an elliptic cylinder shape is theoretically studied on the basis of the macrospin model. It is found that an application of voltage pulse can induce the precessional switching of magnetization even at zero-bias magnetic field, which is of substantial importance for device applications such as voltage-controlled nonvolatile memory. Analytical expressions of the conditions for precessional switching are derived.

The transition-metal pentatellurides ${\mathrm{HfTe}}_5$ and ${\mathrm{ZrTe}}_5$ have been studied for their exotic transport properties with much debate over the transport mechanism, band gap, and cause of the resistivity behavior, including a large low-temperature resistivity peak. Single crystals grown by the chemical-vapor-transport method have shown an $n\text{−}p$ transition of the Seebeck coefficient at the same temperature as a peak in the resistivity. We show that behavior similar to that of single crystals can be observed in iodine-doped polycrystalline samples but that undoped polycrystalline samples exhibit drastically different properties: they are $p$ type over the entire temperature range. Additionally, the thermal conductivity for polycrystalline samples is much lower, $1.5{\mathrm{Wm}}^{-1}{\mathrm{K}}^{-1}$, than previously reported for single crystals. It is found that the polycrystalline ${\mathrm{ZrTe}}_5$ system can be modeled as a simple semiconductor with conduction and valence bands both contributing to transport, separated by a band gap of 20 meV. This model demonstrates to first order that a simple two-band model can explain the transition from $n$- to $p$-type behavior and the cause of the anomalous resistivity peak. Combined with the experimental data, the two-band model shows that carrier concentration variation is responsible for differences in behavior between samples. Using the two-band model, the thermoelectric performance at different doping levels is predicted, finding $zT=0.2$ and 0.1 for $p$ and $n$ type, respectively, at 300 K, and $zT=0.23$ and 0.32 for $p$ and $n$ type at 600 K. Given the reasonably high $zT$ that is comparable in magnitude for both $n$ and $p$ type, a thermoelectric device with a single compound used for both legs is feasible.

Supersymmetry (SUSY) has recently emerged as a tool to design unique optical structures with degenerate spectra. Here, we study several fundamental aspects and variants of one-dimensional SUSY in axially symmetric optical media, including their basic spectral features and the conditions for degeneracy breaking. Surprisingly, we find that the SUSY degeneracy theorem is partially (totally) violated in optical systems connected by isospectral (broken) SUSY transformations due to a degradation of the paraxial approximation. In addition, we show that isospectral constructions provide a dimension-independent design control over the group delay in SUSY fibers. Moreover, we find that the studied unbroken and isospectral SUSY transformations allow us to generate refractive-index superpartners with an extremely large phase-matching bandwidth spanning the $S+C+L$ optical bands. These singular features define a class of optical fibers with a number of potential applications. To illustrate this, we numerically demonstrate the possibility of building photonic lanterns supporting broadband heterogeneous supermodes with large effective area, a broadband all-fiber true-mode (de)multiplexer requiring no mode conversion, and different mode-filtering, mode-conversion, and pulse-shaping devices. Finally, we discuss the possibility of extrapolating our results to acoustics and quantum mechanics.

Shear transformations, as fundamental rearrangement events operating in local regions, hold the key of plastic flow of amorphous solids. Despite their importance, the dynamic features of shear transformations are far from clear, which is the focus of the present study. Here, we use a colloidal glass under shear as the prototype to directly observe the shear-transformation events in real space. By tracing the colloidal-particle rearrangements, we quantitatively determine two basic properties of shear transformations: local shear strain and dilatation (or free volume). It is revealed that the local free volume undergoes a significantly temporary increase prior to shear transformations, eventually leading to a jump of local shear strain. We clearly demonstrate that shear transformations have no memory of the initial free volume of local regions. Instead, their emergence strongly depends on the dilatancy ability of these local regions, i.e., the dynamic creation of free volume. More specifically, the particles processing the high dilatancy ability directly participate in subsequent shear transformations. These results experimentally enrich Argon’s statement about the dilatancy nature of shear transformations and also shed insight into the structural origin of amorphous plasticity.

Relativistically originated spin-orbit torque is one of the promising ways to control the magnetization dynamics of a ferromagnet, which can be useful for the next generation of spintronic memory applications. Plenty of effort has been made to address the physical origin of spin-orbit torque and improve its efficiency. In this work, we demonstrate that in ultrathin chromium/nickel ($\mathrm{Cr}/\mathrm{Ni}$) heterostructure, spin-orbit torque is significantly enhanced for a Cr thickness below 6 nm, which is related to the possible phase change of Cr at a lower thickness. We have also observed an unconventional sign reversal of a fieldlike torque which can be attributed to the interfacial Rashba-like coupling. We experimentally obtain that approximately a 35-Oe Rashba-like magnetic field is created on 8-nm-thick in-plane magnetized Ni film when ${10}^8\mathrm{A}/{\mathrm{cm}}^2$ current density flows through the Cr layer.

Anisotropy in thermal conductivity is promising for directing the heat-flow pathways in modern applications including thermal management of electronic devices. While some materials, like graphite, have strong anisotropy when comparing the in-plane thermal conductivity to cross-plane thermal conductivity, few naturally occurring materials have significant anisotropy within the in-plane directions, with an anisotropy ratio of $\sim 3$ in few-layer black phosphorus being among the highest. In this Letter, we propose to control the thermal-conduction anisotropy by periodically modulating the thickness of thin films. Specifically, we model the thermal conduction in silicon-based thickness-modulated films using full three-dimensional simulations based on the phonon frequency-dependent Boltzmann transport equation. Our simulations demonstrate that phonon scattering with appropriately sized and shaped thickness-modulation features leads to a significant anisotropy in thermal conduction. In the diffusive regime, the same types of features lead to relatively low anisotropy (as calculated using the conventional heat diffusion equation). Thus, the enhanced thermal-conduction anisotropy with small features comes from the phonon scattering and size effects. Modulating the thickness of the thin films allows tuning the thermal-anisotropy ratio across an order of magnitude. Moreover, the proposed structures can be fabricated with currently available silicon-based nanofabrication techniques, without the need for exotic or expensive materials.

We propose a superconducting thermal memory device that exploits the thermal hysteresis in a flux-controlled temperature-biased superconducting quantum-interference device (SQUID). This system reveals a flux-controllable temperature bistability, which can be used to define two well-distinguishable thermal logic states. We discuss a suitable writing-reading procedure for these memory states. The time of the memory writing operation is expected to be on the order of approximately 0.2 ns for a Nb-based SQUID in thermal contact with a phonon bath at 4.2 K. We suggest a noninvasive readout scheme for the memory states based on the measurement of the effective resonance frequency of a tank circuit inductively coupled to the SQUID. The proposed device paves the way for a practical implementation of thermal logic and computation. The advantage of this proposal is that it represents also an example of harvesting thermal energy in superconducting circuits.