Exploiting the time-reversal invariance and reciprocal properties of the lossless wave equation enables elegantly simple solutions to complex wave-scattering problems and is embodied in the time-reversal mirror. Here we demonstrate the implementation of an electromagnetic time-reversal mirror in a wave chaotic system containing a discrete nonlinearity. We demonstrate that the time-reversed nonlinear excitations reconstruct exclusively upon the source of the nonlinearity. As an example of its utility, we demonstrate a new form of secure communication and point out other applications.

Bearings are mechanical dissipative systems that, when perturbed, relax toward a synchronized (bearing) state. Here we find that bearings can be perceived as physical realizations of complex networks of oscillators with asymmetrically weighted couplings. Accordingly, these networks can exhibit optimal synchronization properties through fine-tuning of the local interaction strength as a function of node degree [Motter, Zhou, and Kurths, Phys. Rev. E 71, 016116 (2005)]. We show that, in analogy, the synchronizability of bearings can be maximized by counterbalancing the number of contacts and the inertia of their constituting rotor disks through the mass-radius relation, $m\sim r^{\alpha }$, with an optimal exponent $\alpha ={\alpha }_{\times }$ which converges to unity for a large number of rotors. Under this condition, and regardless of the presence of a long-tailed distribution of disk radii composing the mechanical system, the average participation per disk is maximized and the energy dissipation rate is homogeneously distributed among elementary rotors.

Droplets deform soft substrates near their contact lines. Using confocal microscopy, we measure the deformation of silicone gel substrates due to glycerol and fluorinated-oil droplets for a range of droplet radii and substrate thicknesses. For all droplets, the substrate deformation takes a universal shape close to the contact line that depends on liquid composition, but is independent of droplet size and substrate thickness. This shape is determined by a balance of interfacial tensions at the contact line and provides a novel method for direct determination of the surface stresses of soft substrates. Moreover, we measure the change in contact angle with droplet radius and show that Young’s law fails for small droplets when their radii approach an elastocapillary length scale. For larger droplets the macroscopic contact angle is constant, consistent with Young’s law.

The problem of demonstrating entanglement is central to quantum information processing applications. Resorting to standard entanglement witnesses requires one to perfectly trust the implementation of the measurements to be performed on the entangled state, which may be an unjustified assumption. Inspired by the recent work of F. Buscemi [Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 200401 (2012)], we introduce the concept of measurement-device-independent entanglement witnesses (MDI-EWs), which allow one to demonstrate entanglement of all entangled quantum states with untrusted measurement apparatuses. We show how to systematically obtain such MDI-EWs from standard entanglement witnesses. Our construction leads to MDI-EWs that are loss tolerant and can be implemented with current technology.

We present the atomic structure of Ir nanoparticles with 1.5 nm diameter at half height and three layers average height grown on $\mathrm{\text{graphene}}/\mathrm{Ir}(111)$. Using surface x-ray diffraction, we demonstrate that Ir nanoparticles on $\mathrm{\text{graphene}}/\mathrm{Ir}(111)$ form a crystallographic superlattice with high perfection. The superlattice arrangement allows us to obtain detailed information on the atomic structure of the nanoparticles themselves, such as size, shape, internal layer stacking and strain. Our experiments disclose that the nanoparticles reside epitaxially on top of the graphene moiré structure on Ir(111), resulting in significant lateral compressive intraparticle strain. Normal incidence x-ray standing wave experiments deliver additional information on the particle formation induced restructuring of the graphene layer.

We use the electronic spin of a single nitrogen-vacancy defect in diamond to observe the real-time evolution of neighboring single nuclear spins under ambient conditions. Using a diamond sample with a natural abundance of ${}^{13}\mathrm{C}$ isotopes, we first demonstrate high fidelity initialization and single-shot readout of an individual ${}^{13}\mathrm{C}$ nuclear spin. By including the intrinsic ${}^{14}\mathrm{N}$ nuclear spin of the nitrogen-vacancy defect in the quantum register, we then report the simultaneous observation of quantum jumps linked to both nuclear spin species, providing an efficient initialization of the two qubits. These results open up new avenues for diamond-based quantum information processing including active feedback in quantum error correction protocols and tests of quantum correlations with solid-state single spins at room temperature.

Do relativistic quantum scars in classically chaotic systems possess unique features that are not shared by nonrelativistic quantum scars? We report a class of relativistic quantum scars in massless Dirac fermion systems whose phases return to the original values or acquire a $2\pi$ change only after circulating twice about some classical unstable periodic orbits. We name such scars chiral scars, the successful identification of which has been facilitated tremendously by our development of an analytic, conformal-mapping-based method to calculate an unprecedentedly large number of eigenstates with high accuracy. Our semiclassical theory indicates that the physical origin of chiral scars can be attributed to a combined effect of chirality intrinsic to massless Dirac fermions and the geometry of the underlying classical orbit.

We point out that stars in the mass window $\sim 8–12M_{\odot }$ can serve as sensitive probes of the axion-photon interaction, $g_{A\gamma \gamma }$. Specifically, for these stars axion energy losses from the helium-burning core would shorten and eventually eliminate the blue loop phase of the evolution. This would contradict observational data, since the blue loops are required, e.g., to account for the existence of Cepheid stars. Using the MESA stellar evolution code, modified to include the extra cooling, we conservatively find $g_{A\gamma \gamma }\lesssim 0.8\times {10}^{-10}{\mathrm{GeV}}^{-1}$, which compares favorably with the existing bounds.

We report the creation of a multiferroic field effect device with a ${\mathrm{BiFeO}}_3$ (BFO) (antiferromagnetic-ferroelectric) gate dielectric and a ${\mathrm{La}}_{0.7}{\mathrm{Sr}}_{0.3}{\mathrm{MnO}}_3$ (LSMO) (ferromagnetic) conducting channel that exhibits direct, bipolar electrical control of exchange bias. We show that exchange bias is reversibly switched between two stable states with opposite exchange bias polarities upon ferroelectric poling of the BFO. No field cooling, temperature cycling, or additional applied magnetic or electric field beyond the initial BFO polarization is needed for this bipolar modulation effect. Based on these results and the current understanding of exchange bias, we propose a model to explain the control of exchange bias. In this model the coupled antiferromagnetic-ferroelectric order in BFO along with the modulation of interfacial exchange interactions due to ionic displacement of ${\mathrm{Fe}}^{3+}$ in BFO relative to ${\mathrm{Mn}}^{3+/4+}$ in LSMO cause bipolar modulation.

We propose and analyze a technique to collectively enhance interactions between solid-state quantum registers composed from random networks of spin qubits. In such systems, disordered dipolar interactions generically result in localization. Here, we demonstrate the emergence of a single collective delocalized eigenmode as one turns on a transverse magnetic field. The interaction strength between this symmetric collective mode and a remote spin qubit is enhanced by the square root of the number of spins participating in the delocalized mode. Mediated by such collective enhancement, long-range quantum logic between remote spin registers can occur at distances consistent with optical addressing. A specific implementation utilizing nitrogen-vacancy defects in diamond is discussed and the effects of decoherence are considered.

We investigate experimentally the electrokinetic properties of soft nanofluidic channels that consist in soap films with nanometric thickness, covered with charged surfactants. Both the electric and fluidic responses of the system are measured under an applied voltage drop along the film. The electric field is shown to induce an electro-osmotic hydrodynamic flow in the film. However, in contrast to systems confined between solid surfaces, the soft nature of the nanochannel results furthermore in a thickening of the film. This effect accordingly increases the total electro-osmotic flow rate, which behaves nonlinearly with the applied electric field. This behavior is rationalized in terms of an analogy with a Landau-Levich film withdrawn from a reservoir, with the driving velocity identified here with the electro-osmotic one.

We present a theoretical model for the experimentally found but counterintuitive exceptionally long lifetime of surface nanobubbles. We can explain why, under normal experimental conditions, surface nanobubbles are stable for many hours or even up to days rather than the expected microseconds. The limited gas diffusion through the water in the far field, the cooperative effect of nanobubble clusters, and the pinned contact line of the nanobubbles lead to the slow dissolution rate.

Although jammed granular systems are athermal, several thermodynamiclike descriptions have been proposed which make quantitative predictions about the distribution of volume and stress within a system and provide a corresponding temperaturelike variable. We perform experiments with an apparatus designed to generate a large number of independent, jammed, two-dimensional configurations. Each configuration consists of a single layer of photoelastic disks supported by a gentle layer of air. New configurations are generated by cyclically dilating, mixing, and then recompacting the system through a series of boundary displacements. Within each configuration, a bath of particles surrounds a smaller subsystem of particles with a different interparticle friction coefficient than the bath. The use of photoelastic particles permits us to find all particle positions as well as the vector forces at each interparticle contact. By comparing the temperaturelike quantities in both systems, we find compactivity (conjugate to the volume) does not equilibrate between the systems, while the angoricity (conjugate to the stress) does. Both independent components of the angoricity are linearly dependent on the hydrostatic pressure, in agreement with predictions of the stress ensemble.

Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy reveals the presence of a two-dimensional electron gas at the surface of ${\mathrm{In}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_3(111)$. Quantized subband states arise within a confining potential well associated with surface electron accumulation. Coupled Poisson-Schrödinger calculations suggest that downward band bending for the conduction band must be much bigger than band bending in the valence band. Surface oxygen vacancies acting as doubly ionized shallow donors are shown to provide the free electrons within this accumulation layer. Identification of the origin of electron accumulation in transparent conducting oxides has significant implications in the realization of devices based on these compounds.

We demonstrate how the optical gradient force between two waveguides can be enhanced using transformation optics. A thin layer of double-negative or single-negative metamaterial can shrink the interwaveguide distance perceived by light, resulting in a more than tenfold enhancement of the optical force. This process is remarkably robust to the dissipative loss normally observed in metamaterials. Our results provide an alternative way to boost optical gradient forces in nanophotonic actuation systems and may be combined with existing resonator-based enhancement methods to produce optical forces with an unprecedented amplitude.

We study a new aspect of the Berry-phase effect as the collaborative x-ray translation by a crystal with undulated deformation. The macroscopic translation was observed around the interface of a heteroepitaxial crystal deformed by quantum dots of $4.1$ germanium monolayers on a silicon substrate. The quantum dots formed a large local gradient of deformation at the interface, which triggered the x-ray translation into two directions. This effect provides a new probe for investigating the interfacial strain, and leads to a single-crystal beam splitter with parallel exit beams.

The ability of an organism to distinguish between various stimuli is limited by the structure and noise in the population code of its sensory neurons. Here we infer a distance measure on the stimulus space directly from the recorded activity of 100 neurons in the salamander retina. In contrast to previously used measures of stimulus similarity, this “neural metric” tells us how distinguishable a pair of stimulus clips is to the retina, based on the similarity between the induced distributions of population responses. We show that the retinal distance strongly deviates from Euclidean, or any static metric, yet has a simple structure: we identify the stimulus features that the neural population is jointly sensitive to, and show the support-vector-machine-like kernel function relating the stimulus and neural response spaces. We show that the non-Euclidean nature of the retinal distance has important consequences for neural decoding.

We present the realization of a combined trapped-ion and optical cavity system, in which a single ${\mathrm{Yb}}^{+}$ ion is confined by a micron-scale ion trap inside a $230\mu \mathrm{m}$-long optical fiber cavity. We characterize the spatial ion-cavity coupling and measure the ion-cavity coupling strength using a cavity-stimulated $\Lambda$ transition. Owing to the small mode volume of the fiber resonator, the coherent coupling strength between the ion and a single photon exceeds the natural decay rate of the dipole moment. This system can be integrated into ion-photon quantum networks and is a step towards cavity quantum electrodynamics based quantum information processing with trapped ions.

Neutrons are unique particles to probe samples in many fields of research ranging from biology to material sciences to engineering and security applications. Access to bright, pulsed sources is currently limited to large accelerator facilities and there has been a growing need for compact sources over the recent years. Short pulse laser driven neutron sources could be a compact and relatively cheap way to produce neutrons with energies in excess of 10 MeV. For more than a decade experiments have tried to obtain neutron numbers sufficient for applications. Our recent experiments demonstrated an ion acceleration mechanism based on the concept of relativistic transparency. Using this new mechanism, we produced an intense beam of high energy (up to 170 MeV) deuterons directed into a Be converter to produce a forward peaked neutron flux with a record yield, on the order of ${10}^{10}\mathrm{n}/\mathrm{sr}$. We present results comparing the two acceleration mechanisms and the first short pulse laser generated neutron radiograph.

We report measurements of the Kondo effect in a double quantum dot, where the orbital states act as pseudospin states whose degeneracy contributes to Kondo screening. Standard transport spectroscopy as a function of the bias voltage on both dots shows a zero-bias peak in conductance, analogous to that observed for spin Kondo in single dots. Breaking the orbital degeneracy splits the Kondo resonance in the tunneling density of states above and below the Fermi energy of the leads, with the resonances having different pseudospin character. Using pseudospin-resolved spectroscopy, we demonstrate the pseudospin character by observing a Kondo peak at only one sign of the bias voltage. We show that even when the pseudospin states have very different tunnel rates to the leads, a Kondo temperature can be consistently defined for the double quantum dot system.