Resistance and magnetic torque measurements have been performed to investigate vortex phases for a layered organic superconductor $\kappa$-(BEDT-${\mathrm{TTF})}_2\mathrm{Cu}{\left(\mathrm{NCS}\right)}_2$ [BEDT-TTF = bis(ethylenedithio)tetrathiafulvalene], which is modeled as stacks of Josephson junctions. At 25 mK, the out-of-plane resistivity increases at 0.6 T, has a step feature up to 4 T, and then increases again, whereas the in-plane resistivity monotonically increases above 4 T. The results show that both pancake vortices (PVs) and Josephson vortices (JVs) are in solid phases for ${\mu }_{0}H<0.6$ T, but only JVs are in a liquid phase for $0.6<{\mu }_{0}H<4$ T. For ${\mu }_{0}H>4$ T, both PVs and JVs are in liquid phases. These melting transitions are predominantly induced by quantum fluctuations (not by thermal fluctuations). In the magnetic torque curves, the irreversibility transition is clearly observed, roughly corresponding to the melting transition of the PVs but no anomaly is found at the JV melting transition. The detailed vortex phase diagram is determined in a wide temperature region.

We present a detailed study of the Ti $3d$ carriers at the interface of ${\mathrm{LaAlO}}_3/{\mathrm{SrTiO}}_3$ heterostructures by high-resolution resonant inelastic soft x-ray scattering (RIXS), with special focus on the roles of overlayer thickness and oxygen vacancies. Our measurements show the existence of interfacial Ti $3d$ electrons already below the critical thickness for conductivity. The (total) interface charge carrier density increases up to a ${\mathrm{LaAlO}}_3$ overlayer thickness of 6 unit cells before it levels out. Furthermore, we observe strong Ti $3d$ charge carrier doping by oxygen vacancies. The RIXS data combined with photoelectron spectroscopy and transport measurements indicate the simultaneous presence of localized and itinerant charge carriers. At variance with previous interpretations, we show that in our excitation energy dependent RIXS measurements the amounts of localized and itinerant Ti $3d$ electrons in the ground state do not scale with the intensities of the Raman and fluorescence peaks, respectively. Rather, we attribute the observation of either Raman components or fluorescence signal to the specific nature of the intermediate state reached in the RIXS excitation process.

Using scanning near-field optical microscopy at cryogenic temperatures, we explored the first-order metal-insulator transition of exfoliated $1T\text{−}{\mathrm{TaS}}_2$ microcrystals on a ${\mathrm{SiO}}_2/\mathrm{Si}$ substrate. We clearly observed spatially separated metallic and insulating states during the transition between commensurate and nearly commensurate charge-density-wave phases. The capability to probe electrodynamics on nanometer length scales revealed temperature-dependent electronic properties of the insulating and metallic regions near the transition temperature. At fixed temperature, a remarkably broad spatial boundary between insulating and metallic regions was observed, across which the nano-optical signal smoothly evolved over a length scale of several hundred nanometers. To understand these observations, we performed Ginzburg-Landau calculations to determine the charge-density-wave structure of the domain boundary, which revealed the existence of an intermediate electronic phase with unique properties distinct from the bulk thermodynamic phases.

Charge transfer and electron-phonon coupling (EPC) are proposed to be two important constituents associated with enhanced superconductivity in the single unit cell FeSe films on oxide surfaces. Using high-resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy combined with first-principles calculations, we have explored the lattice dynamics of ultrathin FeSe films grown on ${\mathrm{SrTiO}}_3$. We show that, despite the significant effect from the substrate on the electronic structure and superconductivity of the system, the FeSe phonons in the films are unaffected. The energy dispersion and linewidth associated with the Fe- and Se-derived vibrational modes are thickness and temperature independent. Theoretical calculations indicate the crucial role of antiferromagnetic correlation in FeSe to reproduce the experimental phonon dispersion. Importantly, the only detectable change due to the growth of FeSe films is the broadening of the Fuchs-Kliewer (F-K) phonons associated with the lattice vibrations of ${\mathrm{SrTiO}}_3$(001) substrate. If EPC plays any role in the enhancement of film superconductivity, it must be the interfacial coupling between the electrons in FeSe film and the F-K phonons from substrate rather than the phonons of FeSe.

We develop a method of nonperturbative optical control over adiabatic remagnetization of the nuclear spin system and apply it to verify the spin temperature concept in GaAs microcavities. The nuclear spin system is shown to exactly follow the predictions of the spin temperature theory, despite the quadrupole interaction that was earlier reported to disrupt nuclear spin thermalization. These findings open a way for the deep cooling of nuclear spins in semiconductor structures, with the prospect of realizing nuclear spin-ordered states for high-fidelity spin-photon interfaces.

We address the conditions required for a $\mathbb{Z}$ topological classification in the most general form of the non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model. Any chirally symmetric SSH model will possess a “conjugated-pseudo-Hermiticity” which we show is responsible for a quantized “complex” Berry phase. Consequently, we provide an example where the complex Berry phase of a band is used as a quantized invariant to predict the existence of gapless edge modes in a non-Hermitian model. The chirally broken, $PT$-symmetric model is studied; we suggest an explanation for why the topological invariant is a global property of the Hamiltonian. A geometrical picture is provided by examining eigenvector evolution on the Bloch sphere. We justify our analysis numerically and discuss relevant applications.

We present here a theoretical analysis that demonstrates that the far-field radiative heat transfer between objects with dimensions smaller than the thermal wavelength can overcome the Planckian limit by orders of magnitude. To guide the search for super-Planckian far-field radiative heat transfer, we make use of the theory of fluctuational electrodynamics and derive a relation between the far-field radiative heat transfer and the directional absorption efficiency of the objects involved. Guided by this relation, and making use of state-of-the-art numerical simulations, we show that the far-field radiative heat transfer between highly anisotropic objects can largely overcome the black-body limit when some of their dimensions are smaller than the thermal wavelength. In particular, we illustrate this phenomenon in the case of suspended pads made of polar dielectrics like SiN or ${\mathrm{SiO}}_2$. These structures are widely used to measure the thermal transport through nanowires and low-dimensional systems and can be employed to test our predictions. Our work illustrates the dramatic failure of the classical theory to predict the far-field radiative heat transfer between micro- and nanodevices.

Using the Landau-Ginzburg-Devonshire theory, we considered the impact of the flexoelectrochemical coupling on the size effects in polar properties and phase transitions of thin ferroelectric films with a layer of elastic defects. We investigated a typical case, when defects fill a thin layer below the top film surface with a constant concentration creating an additional gradient of elastic fields. The defective surface of the film is not covered with an electrode, but instead with an ultrathin layer of ambient screening charges, characterized by a surface screening length. Obtained results revealed an unexpectedly strong effect of the joint action of Vegard stresses and flexoelectric effect (shortly flexochemical coupling) on the ferroelectric transition temperature, distribution of the spontaneous polarization and elastic fields, domain wall structure and period in thin $\mathrm{PbTi}{\mathrm{O}}_3$ films containing a layer of elastic defects. A nontrivial result is the persistence of ferroelectricity at film thicknesses below 4 nm, temperatures lower than 350 K, and relatively high surface screening length $(\sim 0.1\mathrm{nm})$. The origin of this phenomenon is the flexoelectric coupling leading to the rebuilding of the domain structure in the film (namely the cross-over from c-domain stripes to a-type closure domains) when its thickness decreases below 4 nm. The ferroelectricity persistence is facilitated by negative Vegard effect. For positive Vegard effect, thicker films exhibit the appearance of pronounced maxima on the thickness dependence of the transition temperature, whose position and height can be controlled by the defect type and concentration. The revealed features may have important implications for miniaturization of ferroelectric-based devices.

We investigated the microwave conductivity spectrum of ${\mathrm{FeSe}}_{0.5}{\mathrm{Te}}_{0.5}$ epitaxial films on ${\mathrm{CaF}}_2$ in the vicinity of the superconducting transition. We observed the critical behavior of the superconducting fluctuations in these films with a dimensional crossover from two dimensional (2D) to three dimensional (3D) as the film thickness increased. From the temperature dependence of the scaling parameters we conclude that the universality class of the superconducting transition in ${\mathrm{FeSe}}_{0.5}{\mathrm{Te}}_{0.5}$ is that of the 3D-XY model. The lower limit of the onset temperature of the superconducting fluctuations $T^{\mathrm{onset}}$ determined by our measurements was $1.1T_{\mathrm{c}}$, suggesting that the superconducting fluctuations of ${\mathrm{FeSe}}_{0.5}{\mathrm{Te}}_{0.5}$ are at least as large as those of optimally and overdoped cuprates.

The existence of band gaps in both the antiferromagnetic (AFM) and paramagnetic (PM) phases of the classic NaCl-structure Mott insulators MnO, FeO, CoO, and NiO is traditionally viewed and taught as a manifestation of strong correlation whereby insulation results from electrons moving across the lattice forming states with doubly occupied $d$ orbitals on certain atomic sites and empty $d$ orbitals on other sites. Within such theories, the gap of the AFM and PM phases of these oxides emerges even in the absence of spatial symmetry breaking. The need for such a correlated picture is partially based on the known failure of the commonly used band models for the PM phase that assume for such a spin disordered state the macroscopically averaged NaCl structure, where all transition metal (TM) sites are symmetry-equivalent (a monomorphous description), producing a gapless PM state with zero magnetic moments, in sharp conflict with experiment. Here, we seek to understand the minimum theoretical description needed to capture the leading descriptors of ground state Mott insulation in the classic, $3d$ monoxide Mott systems—gapping and moment formation in the AFM and PM phase. As noted by previous authors, the spin-ordered AFM phase in these materials already shows in band theory a significant band gap when one doubles the NaCl unit cell by permitting different potentials for transition-metal atoms with different spins. For the spin-disordered PM phase, we allow analogously larger NaCl-type supercells where each TM site can have different spin direction and local bonding environments (i.e., disordered), yet the total spin is zero. Such a polymorphous description has the flexibility to acquire symmetry-breaking energy-lowering patterns that can lift the degeneracy of the $d$ orbitals and develop large on-site magnetic moments without violating the global, averaged NaCl symmetry. Electrons are exchanged between spin-up and spin-down bands to create closed-shell insulating configurations that lend themselves to a single determinental description. It turns out that such a polymorphous description of the structure within the single-determinant, mean-field, Bloch periodic band structure approach (based on $\mathrm{DFT}+U$) allows large on-site magnetic moments to develop spontaneously, leading to significant (1–3 eV) band gaps and large local moments in the AFM and PM phases of the classic NaCl-structure Mott insulators MnO, FeO, CoO, and NiO in agreement with experiment. We adapt to the spin disordered polymorphous configurations the “special quasirandom structure” (SQS) construct known from the theory of disordered substitutional alloys whereby supercell approximants which represent the best random configuration average (not individual snapshots) for finite (64, 216 atoms, or larger) supercells of a given lattice symmetry are constructed. We conclude that the basic features of these paradigmatic Mott insulators can be approximated by the physics included in energy-lowering symmetry broken DFT.

We present a novel hybrid quantum/classical approach to the calculation of charged excitations in molecular solids based on the many-body Green's function $GW$ formalism. Molecules described at the $GW$ level are embedded into the crystalline environment modeled with an accurate classical polarizable scheme. This allows the calculation of electron addition and removal energies in the bulk and at crystal surfaces where charged excitations are probed in photoelectron experiments. By considering the paradigmatic case of pentacene and perfluoropentacene crystals, we discuss the different contributions from intermolecular interactions to electronic energy levels, distinguishing between polarization, which is accounted for combining quantum and classical polarizabilities, and crystal field effects, that can impact energy levels by up to $\pm 0.6$ eV. After introducing band dispersion, we achieve quantitative agreement (within 0.2 eV) on the ionization potential and electron affinity measured at pentacene and perfluoropentacene crystal surfaces characterized by standing molecules.

We study the Zeeman splitting in lateral quantum dots that are defined in GaAs-AlGaAs heterostructures by means of split gates. We demonstrate a nonlinear dependence of the splitting on magnetic field and its substantial variations from dot to dot and from heterostructure to heterostructure. These phenomena are important in the context of information processing since the tunability and dot-dependence of the Zeeman splitting allow for a selective manipulation of spins. We show that spin-orbit effects related to the GaAs band structure quantitatively explain the observed magnitude of the nonlinear dependence of the Zeeman splitting. Furthermore, spin-orbit effects result in a dependence of the Zeeman splitting on predominantly the out-of-plane quantum dot confinement energy. We also show that the variations of the confinement energy due to charge disorder in the heterostructure may explain the dependence of Zeeman splitting on the dot position. This position may be varied by changing the gate voltages, which leads to an electrically tunable Zeeman splitting.

We carried out density-functional ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations of Ti adatom ($\mathrm{T}{\mathrm{i}}_{\mathrm{ad}}$) migration on, and descent from, square $\mathrm{TiN}\langle 100\rangle$ epitaxial islands on TiN(001) at temperatures ($T$) ranging from 1200 to 2400 K. Adatom-descent energy barriers determined via ab initio nudged-elastic-band calculations at 0 Kelvin suggest that Ti interlayer transport on TiN(001) occurs essentially exclusively via direct hopping onto a lower layer. However, AIMD simulations reveal comparable rates for $\mathrm{T}{\mathrm{i}}_{\mathrm{ad}}$ descent via direct hopping vs push-out/exchange with a Ti island-edge atom for $T\ge 1500\mathrm{K}$. We demonstrate that this effect is due to surface vibrations, which yield considerably lower activation energies at finite temperatures by significantly modifying the adatom push-out/exchange reaction pathway.

We study numerically interaction of phosphorene monolayer with a strong femtosecond-long optical pulse. For such a short pulse, the electron dynamics is coherent and can be described by the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. Strong optical field of the pulse causes redistribution of electrons between the conduction and valence bands. Such interband dynamics is highly irreversible, i.e., the conduction band population after the pulse is large and comparable to the maximum conduction band during the pulse. The conduction band population distribution in the reciprocal space shows high contrast hot spots, which are due to large interband coupling at the $\mathrm{\Gamma }$ point. The optical pulse also causes the net charge transfer through the phosphorene monolayer. The direction of the transfer is the same as the direction of the field maximum.

We combine electron energy-loss spectroscopy and first-principles calculations based on density-functional theory (DFT) to identify the lowest indirect exciton state in the in-plane charge response of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) single crystals. This remarkably sharp mode forms a narrow pocket with a dispersion bandwidth of $\sim 100\mathrm{meV}$ and, as we argue based on a comparison to our DFT calculations, is predominantly polarized along the $\mathrm{\Gamma }K$ direction of the hexagonal Brillouin zone. Our data support the recent report by Cassabois et al. [Nat. Photonics 10, 262 (2016)] who indirectly inferred the existence of this mode from the photoluminescence signal, thereby establishing h-BN as an indirect semiconductor.

The realization and control of polaritons is of paramount importance in the prospect of novel photonic devices. Here, we investigate the emergence of plasmon-exciton polaritons in hybrid structures consisting of a two-dimensional transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) deposited onto a metal substrate or coating a metallic thin film. We determine the polaritonic spectrum and show that, in the former case, the addition of a top dielectric layer and, in the latter case, the thickness of the metal film can be used to tune and promote plasmon-exciton interactions well within the strong-coupling regime. Our results demonstrate that Rabi splittings exceeding 100 meV can readily be achieved in planar dielectric/TMDC/metal structures under ambient conditions. We thus believe that this Rapid Communication provides a simple and intuitive picture to tailor strong coupling in plexcitonics with potential applications for engineering compact photonic devices with tunable optical properties.