The role of the ferroelectric polarization state and crystal structure in determining the room-temperature thermal conductivity of epitaxial ${\mathrm{BiFeO}}_3$ thin films is investigated. The ferroelectric domain configuration is varied by changing the oxygen partial pressure during growth, as well as by polarizing the samples by the application of an in situ electric field during the thermal conductivity measurement. However, little or no dependence of thermal conductivity on the ferroelectric domain structure is observed. In contrast, the thermal conductivity significantly depends on the morphotropic phase structure, being about $2/3$ as large in tetragonal-like compared to rhombohedral-like ${\mathrm{BiFeO}}_3$ film. The substantial structural dependence of thermal conductivity found here may provide a route to reversible manipulation of thermal properties.

The metasurface concept has emerged as an advantageous reconfigurable antenna architecture for beam forming and wave-front shaping, with applications that include satellite and terrestrial communications, radar, imaging, and wireless power transfer. The metasurface antenna consists of an array of metamaterial elements distributed over an electrically large structure, each subwavelength in dimension and with subwavelength separation between elements. In the antenna configuration we consider, the metasurface is excited by the fields from an attached waveguide. Each metamaterial element can be modeled as a polarizable dipole that couples the waveguide mode to radiation modes. Distinct from the phased array and electronically-scanned-antenna architectures, a dynamic metasurface antenna does not require active phase shifters and amplifiers but rather achieves reconfigurability by shifting the resonance frequency of each individual metamaterial element. We derive the basic properties of a one-dimensional waveguide-fed metasurface antenna in the approximation in which the metamaterial elements do not perturb the waveguide mode and are noninteracting. We derive analytical approximations for the array factors of the one-dimensional antenna, including the effective polarizabilities needed for amplitude-only, phase-only, and binary constraints. Using full-wave numerical simulations, we confirm the analysis, modeling waveguides with slots or complementary metamaterial elements patterned into one of the surfaces.

We propose two transistor concepts based on lateral heterostructures of monolayer ${\mathrm{MoS}}_2$, composed of adjacent regions of $1T$ (metallic) and $2H$ (semiconducting) phases, inspired by recent research showing the possibility to obtain such heterostructures by electron-beam irradiation. The first concept, the lateral heterostructure field-effect transistor, exhibits the potential of better performance with respect to the foreseen evolution of CMOS technology, both for high-performance and low-power applications. Performance potential is evaluated by means of detailed multiscale materials and device simulations. The second concept, the planar barristor, also exhibits potential competitive performance with CMOS, and an improvement of orders of magnitude in terms of the main figures of merit with respect to the recently proposed vertical barristor.

In situ measurements of structure, density, and magnetization on samples of ${\mathrm{Fe}}_{83}{\mathrm{B}}_{17}$ using an electrostatic levitation furnace allow us to identify and correlate the magnetic and structural transitions in this system during its complex solidification process. In particular, we identify magnetic ordering in the metastable ${\mathrm{Fe}}_{23}{\mathrm{B}}_6/\mathrm{fcc}$ Fe coherently grown structures and primitive tetragonal ${\mathrm{Fe}}_3\mathrm{B}$ metastable phase in addition to characterizing the equilibrium ${\mathrm{Fe}}_2\mathrm{B}$ phase. Our measurements demonstrate that the incorporation of a tunnel-diode oscillator circuit within an electrostatic levitation furnace enables investigations of the physical properties of high-temperature metastable structures.

Low-energy random number generation is critical for many emerging computing schemes proposed to complement or replace von Neumann architectures. However, current random number generators are always associated with an energy cost that is prohibitive for these computing schemes. We introduce random number bit generation based on specific nanodevices: superparamagnetic tunnel junctions. We experimentally demonstrate high-quality random bit generation that represents an orders-of-magnitude improvement in energy efficiency over current solutions. We show that the random generation speed improves with nanodevice scaling, and we investigate the impact of temperature, magnetic field, and cross talk. Finally, we show how alternative computing schemes can be implemented using superparamagentic tunnel junctions as random number generators. These results open the way for fabricating efficient hardware computing devices leveraging stochasticity, and they highlight an alternative use for emerging nanodevices.

Using in situ high-speed imaging, we unveil details of a highly unsteady plastic flow mode in the cutting of annealed and highly strain-hardening metals. This mesoscopic flow mode, termed sinuous flow, is characterized by repeated material folding, large rotation, and energy dissipation. Sinuous flow effects a very large shape transformation, with local strains of ten or more, and results in a characteristic mushroomlike surface morphology that is quite distinct from the well-known morphologies of metal-cutting chips. Importantly, the attributes of this unsteady flow are also fundamentally different from other well-established unsteady plastic flows in large-strain deformation, like adiabatic shear bands. The nucleation and development of sinuous flow, its dependence on material properties, and its manifestation across material systems are demonstrated. Plastic buckling and grain-scale heterogeneity are found to play key roles in triggering this flow at surfaces. Implications for modeling and understanding flow stability in large-strain plastic deformation, surface quality, and preparation of near-strain-free surfaces by cutting are discussed. The results point to the inadequacy of the widely used shear-zone models, even for ductile metals.

The impact of the tortuosity of the charge-transport pathways through a bulk heterojunction film on the charge-carrier mobility is theoretically investigated using model morphologies and kinetic Monte Carlo simulations. The tortuosity descriptor provides a quantitative metric to characterize the quality of the charge-transport pathways, and model morphologies with controlled domain size and tortuosity are created using an anisotropic domain growth procedure. The tortuosity is found to be dependent on the anisotropy of the domain structure and is highly tunable. Time-of-flight charge-transport simulations on morphologies with a range of tortuosity values reveal that tortuosity can significantly reduce the magnitude of the mobility and the electric-field dependence relative to a neat material. These reductions are found to be further controlled by the energetic disorder and temperature. Most significantly, the sensitivity of the electric-field dependence to the tortuosity can explain the different experimental relationships previously reported, and exploiting this sensitivity could lead to simpler methods for characterizing and optimizing charge transport in organic solar cells.

A novel scanning probe tip made of heavily doped semiconductor is fabricated and used instead of standard gold-coated tips in infrared scattering-type near-field microscopy. Midinfrared near-field microscopy experiments are conducted on ZnO nanowires with a lateral resolution better than 100 nm, using tips made of heavily electron-doped germanium with a plasma frequency in the midinfrared (plasma wavelength of $9.5\mu \mathrm{m}$). Nanowires embedded in a dielectric matrix are imaged at two wavelengths, 11.3 and $8.0\mu \mathrm{m}$, above and below the plasma wavelength of the tips. An opposite sign of the imaging contrasts between the nanowire and the dielectric matrix is observed at the two infrared wavelengths, indicating a clear role of the free-electron plasma in the heavily doped germanium tip in building the imaging contrast. Electromagnetic simulations with a multispherical dipole model accounting for the finite size of the tip are well consistent with the experiments. By comparison of the simulated and measured imaging contrasts, an estimate for the local free-carrier density in the investigated ZnO nanowires in the low ${10}^{19}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}$ range is retrieved. The results are benchmarked against the scattering intensity and phase maps obtained on the same sample with a gold-coated probe tip in pseudoheterodyne detection mode.

We show that electrical resistive switching can trigger the appearance of multiple metal-insulator transitions (MITs) in ${\mathrm{VO}}_2$ and ${\mathrm{V}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_3$ planar nanodevices. We have fabricated planar devices to electrically induce oxygen vacancy drift and filament formation. We show that oxygen migration can create ordered vanadium-oxide phases of varying stoichiometry with an intrinsic MIT, resulting in well-defined hysteresis loops in the $R$ vs $T$ characteristics of the device. We also show that oxygen migration induces oxide phases displaying correlated behaviors. Our results open up the possibility to electrically control the MIT, enabling alternative functionalities in memristive devices and allowing for alternative paradigms in neuromorphic computing or memory applications.

Ion exchange is commonly used to strengthen oxide glasses. However, the resulting stuffed glasses usually do not reach the molar volume of as-melted glasses of similar composition—a phenomenon known as the network dilation anomaly. This behavior seriously limits the potential for the chemical strengthening of glasses and its origin remains one of the mysteries of glass science. Here, based on molecular dynamics simulations of sodium silicate glasses coupled with topological constraint theory, we show that the topology of the atomic network controls the extent of ion-exchange-induced dilation. We demonstrate that isostatic glasses do not show any network dilation anomaly. This is found to arise from the combined absence of floppy modes of deformation and internal eigenstress in isostatic atomic networks.

Statistics of photons emitted by mobile excitons in individual carbon nanotubes are investigated. Photoluminescence spectroscopy is used to identify the chiralities and suspended lengths of air-suspended nanotubes, and photon-correlation measurements are performed at room temperature on telecommunication-wavelength nanotube emission with a Hanbury-Brown-Twiss setup. We obtain zero-delay second-order correlation $g^{(2)}(0)$ less than 0.5, indicating single-photon generation. Excitation power dependence of the photon antibunching characteristics is examined for nanotubes with various chiralities and suspended lengths, where we find that the minimum value of $g^{(2)}(0)$ is obtained at the lowest power. The influence of exciton diffusion and end quenching is studied by Monte Carlo simulations, and we derive an analytical expression for the minimum value of $g^{(2)}(0)$. Our results indicate that mobile excitons in micrometer-long nanotubes can in principle produce high-purity single photons, leading to new design strategies for quantum photon sources.

The thermoelectric performance of a topological energy converter is analyzed. The $\mathsf{H}$-shaped device is based on a combination of transverse topological effects involving the spin: the inverse spin Hall effect and the spin Nernst effect. The device can convert a temperature drop in one arm into an electric power output in the other arm. Analytical expressions for the output voltage, the figure of merit ($ZT$), and energy-converting efficiency are reported. We show that the output voltage and the $ZT$ can be tuned by the geometry of the device and the physical properties of the material. Importantly, contrary to a conventional thermoelectric device, here a low electric conductivity may, in fact, enhance the $ZT$ value, thereby opening a path to strategies in optimizing the figure of merit.

We present detailed analytical modeling and in-depth investigation of wide-angle reflect-mode metagrating beam splitters. These recently introduced ultrathin devices are capable of implementing intricate diffraction engineering functionalities with only a single meta-atom per macroperiod, making them considerably simpler to synthesize than conventional metasurfaces. We extend recent work and focus on electrically polarizable metagratings, comprised of loaded conducting wires in front of a perfect electric conductor, excited by transverse-electric polarized fields, which are more practical for planar fabrication. The derivation further relates the metagrating performance parameters to the individual meta-atom load, facilitating an efficient semianalytical synthesis scheme to determine the required conductor geometry for achieving optimal beam splitting. Subsequently, we utilize the model to analyze the effects of realistic conductor losses, reactance deviations, and frequency shifts on the device performance, and reveal that metagratings feature preferable working points, in which the sensitivity to these nonidealities is rather low. The analytical relations shed light on the physical origin of this phenomenon, associating it with fundamental interference processes taking place in the device. These results, verified via full-wave simulations of realistic physical structures, yield a set of efficient engineering tools, as well as profound physical intuition, for devising future metagrating devices, with immense potential for microwave, terahertz, and optical beam-manipulation applications.

We present a method to detect the rotation by using the precession of molecular electric dipole moment in a static electric field. The molecular electric dipole moments are polarized under the static electric field and a nonzero electric polarization vector emerges in the molecular gas. A resonant radio-frequency pulse electric field is applied to realize a 90° flip of the electric polarization vector of a particular rotational state. After the pulse electric field, the electric polarization vector precesses under the static electric field. The rotation induces a shift in the precession frequency which is measured to deduce the angular velocity of the rotation. The fundamental sensitivity limit of this method is estimated. This work is only a proposal and does not involve experimental results.

Nonreciprocal transmission and isolation at microwave frequencies are important in many practical applications. In particular, compact isolators are useful in protecting sensitive quantum circuits operating at cryogenic temperatures from amplifier backaction and other environmental noise such as black-body radiation from higher temperature stages. However, the size of commercial cryogenic isolators limits the ability to measure multiple quantum circuits because of space constraints in typical dilution refrigerator systems. Furthermore, isolators usually require the use of ferrite components that cannot be integrated at the chip level and, since they also need large biasing magnetic fields, are incompatible with superconducting quantum circuits. In this work we show one way to accomplish isolation in a superconducting chip-scale device, a traveling-wave unidirectional frequency converter based on a parametrically pumped superconducting Josephson-junction transmission line, demonstrating better than 4.8 dB of inferred signal isolation from 6.6 to 11.4 GHz, with a maximum of 12 dB at 9.5 GHz. By using frequency diplexing techniques a conventional isolator could be implemented over this bandwidth.

Achieving stop band over broadband at low-frequency range has remained a great scientific challenge in spite of various efforts made using metamaterials or other technologies. In this work, we propose an idea that creates a stop band for broadband at low-frequency range. The dual mechanism of shear stiffening and rotation softening is initiated here to achieve a broad stop band at low-frequency range. Through analytical, numerical, and experimental studies, we reveal the underlying physical mechanism and confirm the effectiveness of this metamaterial on vibration shielding for flexural elastic wave covering 235 to 4520 Hz. This work opens an avenue for the development of elastic metamaterials with performance and functionalities that are highly desirable in many fields such as vibration shielding.

We construct a flexoelectric liquid-crystal display based on the in-plane-switching mode. The display uses a hybrid alignment cell where there are intrinsically splay and bend deformations of the liquid crystal, which promote the flexoelectric effect. In the absence of applied electric fields, the liquid crystal is aligned in a vertical plane. When a horizontal electric field is applied, the liquid crystal is azimuthally switched out of the vertical plane through the flexoelectric interaction, which is much stronger than the dielectric interaction in regular in-plane-switching displays. Also, the azimuthal rotation of the liquid crystal is sensitive to the polarity of the applied electric field. A positive field produces a counterclockwise rotation, while a negative field produces a clockwise rotation. We experimentally measure the flexoelectric coefficients and study the static and dynamic electro-optical properties of the display. We observe that the turn-on and turn-off times are linearly proportional to the inverse of the applied electric field. We also carry out theoretical and simulation studies and obtained results which agree well with the experimental results. Because the flexoelectric interaction is sensitive to the polarity of the applied voltage, both turn-on and turn-off times can be significantly reduced by applying voltages.

Wave propagation in granular chains is subject to dispersive effects as well as nonlinear effects arising from the Hertzian contact law. This enables the formation of wideband pulses, which is a desirable feature in the context of diagnostic and therapeutic ultrasound applications. However, coupling of the ultrasonic energy from a chain of spheres into biological tissue is a big challenge. In order to improve the energy transfer efficiency into biological materials, a matching layer is required. A prototype device is designed to address this by using six aluminum spheres and a vitreous carbon matching layer. The matching layer and the precompression force are selected specifically to maximize the acoustic pressure in water and its bandwidth. The designed device generates a train of wideband ultrasonic pulses from a narrow-band input with a center frequency of 73 kHz. An analytical model is created to simulate the behavior of a matching layer as a flexible thin plate clamped from the edges. This model is then verified using free-field hydrophone measurements in water, which successfully predict the increased bandwidth by generation of harmonics. The shapes of the measured and predicted waveforms are compared by calculating the normalized cross-correlation, which shows 83% similarity between both. Since the generation of harmonics is of interest in this study, the total harmonic distortion (THD) and the $-6$-dB bandwidth of the signals are used to analyze signal fidelity between the hydrophone measurements and the model predictions. The acoustic signals in water have a root-mean-square THD of 73%, and the model predicts a root-mean-square THD of 78%. The $-6$-dB bandwidths of individual pulses measured by a hydrophone and predicted with the model are 280 and 252 kHz, respectively. At these high ultrasonic frequencies, it is an experimental demonstration of resonant chains operating in water with a matching layer.

Dynamical spin injection based on the ferromagnetic resonance is an attractive and powerful method for generating and manipulating the spin current. To date, in a ferromagnet/nonmagnet bilayer system, the spin-pumping effect from the ferromagnet into the nonmagnet has been considered only as the mechanism of the dynamical spin injection. Here, we examine another method for the dynamical spin injection based on the heating effect due to the ferromagnetic resonance in a $(\mathrm{Co},\mathrm{Fe})\mathrm{B}/\mathrm{Pt}$ bilayer system. The (Co,Fe)B film heated by the ferromagnetic resonance produces the temperature gradient across the $(\mathrm{Co},\mathrm{Fe})\mathrm{B}/\mathrm{Pt}$ interface, resulting in the thermal spin injection from the (Co,Fe)B layer into the Pt film. The obtained electrical signal clearly shows the spin Hall signature and exceeds $20\mathrm{mV}{\mathrm{\Omega }}^{-1}{\mathrm{m}}^{-1}$, which is relatively large compared to the values reported in similar bilayer structures driven by spin pumping. The structural dependence of the inverse spin Hall signal and its power dependence provide consistent results with the dynamical thermal-spin-injection model due to the ferromagnetic resonance.

Single-mode Josephson-junction-based parametric amplifiers are often modeled as perfect amplifiers and squeezers. We show that in practice, the gain, quantum efficiency, and output field squeezing of these devices are limited by usually neglected higher-order corrections to the idealized model. To arrive at this result, we derive the leading corrections to the lumped-element Josephson parametric amplifier of three common pumping schemes: monochromatic current pump, bichromatic current pump, and monochromatic flux pump. We show that the leading correction for the last two schemes is a single Kerr-type quartic term, while the first scheme contains additional cubic terms. In all cases, we find that the corrections are detrimental to squeezing. In addition, we show that the Kerr correction leads to a strongly phase-dependent reduction of the quantum efficiency of a phase-sensitive measurement. Finally, we quantify the departure from the ideal Gaussian character of the filtered output field from numerical calculation of third- and fourth-order cumulants. Our results show that while a Gaussian output field is expected for an ideal Josephson parametric amplifier, higher-order corrections lead to non-Gaussian effects which increase with both gain and nonlinearity strength. This theoretical study is complemented by experimental characterization of the output field of a flux-driven Josephson parametric amplifier. In addition to a measurement of the squeezing level of the filtered output field, the Husimi $Q$ function of the output field is imaged by the use of a deconvolution technique and compared to numerical results. This work establishes nonlinear corrections to the standard degenerate parametric amplifier model as an important contribution to the Josephson parametric amplifier’s squeezing and noise performance.