The fine-structure splitting in zero magnetic field allows one to access the coherent control and manipulation of polarized spin states. Here the zero-field splitting (ZFS) of the $S=3/2$ silicon vacancy-related centers in 6H-SiC is explored by means of electron paramagnetic resonance and electron nuclear double resonance techniques, combined with first-principle calculations. We show that the centers not only possess significantly different absolute values of ZFS, but they also differ in their sign. This diversity is rationalized by a flattened/elongated character of their spin-density distribution, potentially alters spin-photon entanglement, and suggests these centers for qubits in the upcoming technology of quantum communication and quantum-information processing.

We theoretically investigate the valley Zeeman splitting, dark-exciton brightening, and magnetic-field-controlled dark-exciton engaged valley dynamics in monolayer ${\mathrm{WSe}}_2$ subjected to a tilted magnetic field $\mathbf{B}$. In Faraday geometry (out-of-plane $B_{\perp }$), only bright-exciton emissions emerge, and the valley polarization (VP) as a function of $B_{\perp }$ for ${\sigma }^{+}$ and ${\sigma }^{-}$ circularly polarized laser excitations features an “X” pattern, i.e., the VP is locked to the valley. We also find that the photoluminescence (PL) intensity exhibits a similar behavior to VP. In the Voigt geometry (in-plane $B_{\parallel }$), however, aside from the bright-exciton emission, the dark exciton becomes brightening. The PL intensity of the dark exciton is enhanced parabolically with increasing $B_{\parallel }$, independent of the pumping laser helicity. For B along any other direction, as B increases, the dark-exciton emission intensity increases but depends on the pumping laser helicity, accompanied by an decrease of its VP. Furthermore, not only the bright-exciton but also the dark-exciton emission peak splits for laser excitation with different circular polarizations. In addition, the latter demonstrates a much larger peak splitting than the former, which facilitates individual manipulation of each of the two valleys. Our theory paves the way for a study of the properties of bright-dark hybrid states with lifetime orders of magnitude longer than that of the bright states, which is desirable for fields of either spintronics or valleytronics (or their combination).

We perform fully relativistic calculations of the energy loss channels for a charged particle traversing a single layer of graphene under oblique incidence in a setting pertinent to a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM), where we distinguish between the energy deposited in graphene in the form of electronic excitations (Ohmic loss) and the energy emitted in the far field in the form of transition radiation (TR). Our formulation of the problem uses a definition of two in-plane, dielectric functions of graphene, which describe the longitudinal and transverse excitation processes that contribute separately to those two energy loss channels. Using several models for the electric conductivity of graphene as the input in those dielectric functions enables us to discuss the effects of oblique incidence on several processes in a broad range of frequencies, from the terahertz (THz) to the ultraviolet (UV). In particular, at the THz frequencies, we demonstrate that the nonlocal effect in the graphene's conductivity is not important in the retarded regime, and we show that the longitudinal and transverse contributions to the emitted TR spectra exhibit strongly anisotropic angular patterns that are readily distinguishable in a cathodoluminescence measurement in a STEM. Moreover, we explore the possibility of exciting the so-called transverse mode in the optical response of graphene at the mid-infrared (MIR) range of frequencies by means of a fast charged particle under oblique incidence. Finally, we demonstrate that, aside from the usual high-energy peaks in the longitudinal contribution to the Ohmic energy loss in the MIR to the UV frequency range, there may arise strongly directional features in the in-plane distribution of the transverse contribution to the Ohmic energy loss for an oblique trajectory, which could be possibly observed via momentum- and angle-resolved electron energy loss spectroscopy of graphene in STEM.

‘‘Metallic” carbon nanotubes exhibit quasiparticle gaps when isolated from a screening environment. The gap-opening mechanism is expected to be of electronic origin, but the precise nature is debated. In this work, we show that hybrid density functional theory predicts a set of excitonic instabilities capable of opening gaps of the size found in experiment. The excitonic instabilities are coupled to vibrational modes and, in particular, the modes associated with the $\mathrm{\Gamma }-E_{2g}$ and $\mathbf{K}-A_1^{\prime }$ Kohn anomalies of graphene, inducing Peierls lattice distortions with a strong electron-phonon coupling. In the larger tubes, the longitudinal optical phonon mode becomes a purely electronic dimerization that is fully symmetry conserving in the zigzag and chiral tubes, but breaks the symmetry in the armchair tubes. The resulting gaps are universal (i.e., independent of chirality) and scale as $1/R$ with tube radius.

We realize an unpaired Dirac cone at the center of the Brillouin zone, using a gyromagnetic photonic crystal with broken square sublattice symmetry and broken time-reversal symmetry. The behavior of the Dirac modes can be described by a gyromagnetic effective medium model with near-zero refractive index, and Voigt parameter near unity. When two domains are subjected to opposite magnetic biases, there exist unidirectional edge states along the domain wall. This establishes a link between topological edge states and the surface waves of homogeneous magneto-optical media.

Using the Sierpiński carpet and gasket, we investigate whether fractal lattices embedded in two-dimensional space can support topological phases when subjected to a homogeneous external magnetic field. To this end, we study the localization property of eigenstates, the Chern number, and the evolution of energy level statistics when disorder is introduced. Combining these theoretical tools, we identify regions in the phase diagram of both the carpet and the gasket, for which the systems exhibit properties normally associated with gapless topological phases with a mobility edge.

We propose and study an SU(3) trimer resonating-valence-bond (tRVB) state with $C_{4v}$ point-group symmetry on the square lattice. By devising a projected entangled-pair state representation, we show that all (connected) correlation functions between local operators in this SU(3) tRVB state decay exponentially, indicating its gapped nature. We further calculate the modular $S$ and $T$ matrices by constructing all nine topological sectors on a torus and establish the existence of ${\mathbb{Z}}_3$ topological order in this SU(3) tRVB state.

The presence of midgap states introduced by localized defects in wide-band-gap-doped semiconductors can strongly affect the electronic structure and optical properties of materials, generating a wide range of applications. Silicon-divacancy defects in diamond have been recently proposed for probing high-resolution pressure changes and performing quantum cryptography, making them good candidates to substitute for the more common nitrogen-vacancy centers. Using group-theory and ab initio electronic structure methods, the molecular origin of midgap states, zero-phonon line splitting, and size dependence of the electronic transitions involving the silicon-vacancy center is investigated in this paper. The effects of localized defects on the Raman vibrational and carbon $K$-edge x-ray absorption spectra are also explored for nanodiamonds. This paper presents an important analysis of the electronic and vibrational structures of nanosized semiconductors in the presence of midgap states due to localized defects, providing insight into possible mechanisms for modulating their optical properties.

We report inelastic neutron scattering measurements of the magnetic excitations in ${\mathrm{Ba}}_2{\mathrm{CuTeO}}_6$, proposed by ab initio calculations to magnetically realize weakly coupled antiferromagnetic two-leg spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ ladders. Isolated ladders are expected to have a singlet ground state protected by a spin gap. ${\mathrm{Ba}}_2{\mathrm{CuTeO}}_6$ orders magnetically, but with a small Néel temperature relative to the exchange strength, suggesting that the interladder couplings are relatively small and only just able to stabilize magnetic order, placing ${\mathrm{Ba}}_2{\mathrm{CuTeO}}_6$ close in parameter space to the critical point separating the gapped phase and Néel order. Through comparison of the observed spin dynamics with linear spin wave theory and quantum Monte Carlo calculations, we propose values for all relevant intra- and interladder exchange parameters, which place the system on the ordered side of the phase diagram in proximity to the critical point. We also compare high field magnetization data with quantum Monte Carlo predictions for the proposed model of coupled ladders.

We propose and apply simple machine learning approaches for recognition and classification of complex noncollinear magnetic structures in two-dimensional materials. The first approach is based on the implementation of the single-hidden-layer neural network that only relies on the $z$ projections of the spins. In this setup, one needs a limited set of magnetic configurations to distinguish ferromagnetic, skyrmion, and spin spiral phases, as well as their different combinations in transitional areas of the phase diagram. The network trained on the configurations for the square-lattice Heisenberg model with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction can classify the magnetic structures obtained from Monte Carlo calculations for a triangular lattice and vice versa. The second approach we apply, a minimum distance method, performs a fast and cheap classification in cases when a particular configuration is to be assigned to only one magnetic phase. The methods we propose are also easy to use for analysis of the numerous experimental data collected with spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy and Lorentz transmission electron microscopy experiments.

We study systematically the Gilbert damping of FeCo alloy from first-principles scattering calculations. For collinear magnetization, the nonmonotonic concentration dependence of the reported Gilbert damping is reproduced. At Co-rich concentration, the Gilbert damping in the faced-centred-cubic phase is found to be a half to a third of that in the body-centred-cubic phase for the same alloy concentration. Spin-wave increases the Gilbert damping in the form consistent with the previously discovered spin pumping in noncollinear magnetization. We also consider the Gilbert damping with strong spin disorder that significantly reduces the total magnetization from its saturation magnetization. In such cases, the dimensionless Gilbert damping parameter tends to diverge near the ferromagnetic-paramagnetic phase transition point while the damping frequency saturates and therefore is more appropriate to describe the damping in magnetization dynamics with strong spin disorder. The spin-mixing conductance that gives rise to the interface damping enhancement is almost unaffected by spin waves or strong spin fluctuation even near the transition point.

Magnetic remanence—found in bar magnets or magnetic storage devices—is probably the oldest and most ubiquitous phenomenon underpinning the technological applications of magnetism. It is a macroscopic nonequilibrium phenomenon: A remanent magnetization appears when a magnetic field is applied to an initially unmagnetized ferromagnet, and then taken away. Here, we present an inverted magnetic hysteresis loop in the pyrochlore compound ${\mathrm{Nd}}_2{\mathrm{Hf}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_7$: The remanent magnetization points in a direction opposite to the applied field. This phenomenon is exquisitely tunable as a function of the protocol in field and temperature, and it is reproducible as in a quasiequilibrium setting.

We present a common mathematical formulation of the level statistics of a disordered tight-binding lattice, with one or many flat bands in the clean limit, in which system-specific details enter through a single parameter. The formulation, applicable to both single- as well as many-particle flat bands, indicates the possibility of two different types of critical statistics: one in weak disorder regime (below a system-specific disorder strength) and insensitive of the disorder strength, another in strong disorder regime and occurs at specific critical disorder strengths. The single-parametric dependence, however, relates the statistics in the two regimes (notwithstanding different scattering conditions therein). This also helps in revealing an underlying universality of the statistics in weakly disordered flat bands, shared by a wide range of other complex systems irrespective of the origin of their complexity.

The high-temperature superconductivity in copper oxides emerges when carriers are doped into the parent Mott insulator. This well-established fact has, however, eluded a microscopic explanation. Here we show that the missing link is the self-energy pole in the energy-momentum space. Its continuous evolution with doping directly connects the Mott insulator and high-temperature superconductivity. We show this by numerically studying the extremely small doping region close to the Mott insulating phase in a standard model for cuprates, the two-dimensional Hubbard model. We first identify two relevant self-energy structures in the Mott insulator: the pole generating the Mott gap and a relatively broad peak generating the so-called waterfall structure, which is another consequence of strong correlations present in the Mott insulator. We next reveal that either the Mott-gap pole or the waterfall structure (the feature at the energy closer to the Fermi level) directly transforms itself into another self-energy pole at the same energy and momentum when the system is doped with carriers. The anomalous self-energy yielding the superconductivity is simultaneously born exactly at this energy-momentum point. Thus created self-energy pole, interpreted as arising from a hidden fermionic excitation, continuously evolves upon further doping and considerably enhances the superconductivity. Above the critical temperature, the same self-energy pole generates a pseudogap in the normal state. We thus elucidate a unified Mott-physics mechanism, where the self-energy structure inherent to the Mott insulator directly gives birth to both the high critical superconducting temperature and pseudogap.

The optical properties of (001)-oriented NbP single crystals have been studied in a wide spectral range from 6 meV to 3 eV from room temperature down to 10 K. The itinerant carriers lead to a Drude-like contribution to the optical response; we can further identify two pronounced phonon modes and interband transitions starting already at rather low frequencies. By comparing our experimental findings to the calculated interband optical conductivity, we can assign the features observed in the measured conductivity to certain interband transitions. In particular, we find that transitions between the electronic bands spilt by spin-orbit coupling dominate the interband conductivity of NbP below 100 meV. At low temperatures, the momentum-relaxing scattering rate of itinerant carriers in one of the conduction channels is very small, leading to mesoscopic (hundreds of nanometers) characteristic length scales for momentum relaxation.

We analytically obtain the dispersion relations for transverse-electric (TE) and transverse-magnetic (TM) surface plasmon-polaritons in a nonlinear two-dimensional (2D) conducting material with inversion symmetry lying between two Kerr-type dielectric media. To this end, we use Maxwell's equations within the quasielectrostatic, weakly dissipative regime. We show that the wavelength and propagation distance of surface plasmons decrease due to the nonlinearity of the surrounding dielectric. In contrast, the effect of the nonlinearity of the 2D material depends on the signs of the real and imaginary parts of the third-order conductivity. Notably, the dispersion relations obtained by naively replacing the permittivity of the dielectric medium by its nonlinear counterpart in the respective dispersion relations of the linear regime are not accurate. We apply our analysis to the case of doped graphene and make predictions for the surface plasmon wavelength and propagation distance.

Both the electron transport-based qubits, implemented through double quantum dots, and the sources of indistinguishable single photons like self-assembled quantum dots are strong candidates for the implementation of quantum technologies, such as quantum computers and quantum repeaters. Here, we demonstrate a reliable way of coupling these two types of qubits, uncovering the possibility of controlling and reading out the population of the double quantum dot via optical excitation. It is also shown that, in spite of the decoherence mechanisms affecting the qubits, the entanglement between them is achievable and, consequently, the implementation of the suggested system in quantum technologies is feasible.

In an effective medium description of acoustic metamaterials, the Willis coupling plays the same role as the bianisotropy in electromagnetism. Willis media can be described by a constitutive matrix composed of the classical effective bulk modulus and density and additional cross-coupling terms defining the acoustic bianisotropy. Based on a unifying theoretical model, we unite the properties of acoustic Willis coupling with $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric systems under the same umbrella and show in either case that an exceptional point hosts a remarkably pronounced scattering asymmetry that is accompanied by one-way zero reflection for sound waves. The analytical treatment is backed up by experimental input in asymmetrically side-loaded waveguides showing how gauge transformations and loss biasing can embrace both Willis materials and non-Hermitian physics to tailor unidirectional reflectionless acoustics, which is appealing for purposeful sound insulation and steering.

We formulate a finite-temperature scheme of the variational cluster approximation (VCA) particularly suitable for an exact-diagonalization cluster solver. Based on the analytical properties of the single-particle Green's function matrices, we explicitly show the branch-cut structure of logarithm of the complex determinant functions appearing in the self-energy-functional theory (SFT) and whereby construct an efficient scheme for the finite-temperature VCA. We also derive the explicit formulas for entropy and specific heat within the framework of the SFT. We first apply the method to explore the antiferromagnetic order in a half-filled Hubbard model by calculating the entropy, specific heat, and single-particle excitation spectrum for different values of on-site Coulomb repulsion $U$ and temperature $T$. We also calculate the $T$ dependence of the single-particle excitation spectrum in the strong coupling region, and discuss the overall similarities to and the fine differences from the spectrum obtained by the spin-density-wave mean-field theory at low temperatures and the Hubbard-I approximation at high temperatures. Moreover, we show a necessary and sufficient condition for the third law of thermodynamics in the SFT. On the basis of the thermodynamic properties, such as the entropy and the double occupancy, calculated via the $T$ and/or $U$ derivative of the grand potential, we obtain a crossover diagram in the $(U,T)$ plane, which separates a Slater-type insulator and a Mott-type insulator. Next, we demonstrate the finite-temperature scheme in the cluster-dynamical-impurity approximation (CDIA), i.e., the VCA with noninteracting bath orbitals attached to each cluster, and study the paramagnetic Mott metal-insulator transition in the half-filled Hubbard model. Formulating the finite-temperature CDIA, we first address a subtle issue regarding the treatment of the artificially introduced bath degrees of freedom which are absent in the originally considered Hubbard model. We then apply the finite-temperature CDIA to calculate the finite-temperature phase diagram in the $(U,T)$ plane. Metallic, insulating, coexistence, and crossover regions are distinguished from the bath-cluster hybridization-variational-parameter dependence of the grand-potential functional. We find that the Mott transition at low temperatures is discontinuous, and the coexistence region of the metallic and insulating states persists down to zero temperature. The result obtained here by the finite-temperature CDIA is complementary to the previously reported zero-temperature CDIA phase diagram.

Antireflection or impedance matching is a topic that has been extensively researched by the optical and microwave communities over the past century and until today. However, due to the diverging wave impedances of TE (s) and TM (p) polarizations with increasing incident angle, it is impossible to achieve perfect matching simultaneously for both polarizations at varying incidence angles with a single conventional isotropic matching layer. To achieve polarization-insensitive matching at an arbitrary incident angle, we propose a magnetoelectric uniaxial metamaterial layer (MEUML) that is inspired by the perfectly matched layer (PML) concept in computational electromagnetics. Similar to the PML, the MEUML requires specific uniaxial permittivity and permeability tensors. However, to simultaneously control both the transversal and longitudinal material parameters is not an easy task. To date, a true PML has not been realized with metamaterials. In this paper, we employ a simple and yet special metamaterial unit cell to achieve such control and synthesize a physical MEUML. The unit cell comprises two parallel metallic rings separated by a holey substrate. The transversal electric and magnetic dipole moments, and the longitudinal capacitive and diamagnetic coupling between the rings are judiciously controlled to achieve the required permittivity and permeability tensors. To aid the MEUML synthesis, we also introduce a technique that can extract the material parameter tensors at any incident angle. We first demonstrate this concept by achieving polarization-insensitive matching of a high-index substrate at ${45}^{\circ }$ with a single subwavelength-thick MEUML. We further adapt the concept to the microwave regime by developing a MEUML-based radome. Exceptional matching performance was obtained both in the simulations and measurements. The reflectance remains below 5% from normal incidence ($0^{\circ }$) to near grazing angle (${85}^{\circ }$) for both polarizations and over a wide bandwidth. With this unprecedented control of the material parameter tensors, the MEUML concept not only can be applied to impedance matching, but also can be utilized in many exotic applications that require extreme control of the material properties.