In the context of x-ray lensless imaging, we present a recent approach for Fourier transform holography based on the use of extended references. Major advances shown here rely on a high signal efficiency and on the direct image reconstruction of the object performed by a simple linear derivative. Moreover, the extended holographic reference is easy to manufacture and can be applied to a variety of imaging experiments. Here we demonstrate single-shot imaging with a table-top, laser-based coherent soft x-ray source. A spatial resolution of 110 nm was obtained with an integration time of 20 fs.

Single isolated attosecond pulses can be extracted from a pulse train with an ultrafast gate in the generation target. By setting the gate width sufficiently narrow with the generalized double optical gating, we demonstrate that single isolated attosecond pulses can be generated with any arbitrary carrier-envelope phase value of the driving laser. The carrier-envelope phase only affects the photon flux, not the pulse duration or contrast. Our results show that isolated attosecond pulses can be generated using carrier-envelope phase unstabilized 23 fs pulses directly from chirped pulse amplifiers.

We consider a system of globally coupled active rotators near the excitable regime. The system displays a transition to a state of collective firing induced by disorder. We show that this transition is found generically for any diversity distribution with well-defined moments. Singularly, for the Lorentzian distribution (widely used in Kuramoto-like systems) the transition is not present. This warns about the use of Lorentzian distributions to understand the generic properties of coupled oscillators.

We present fundamental solutions of low Reynolds number flows in a stratified fluid, including the case of a point force (Stokeslet) and a doublet. Stratification dramatically alters the flow by creating toroidal eddies, and velocity decays much faster than in a homogeneous fluid. The fundamental length scale is set by the competition of buoyancy, diffusion and viscosity, and is $O(100\mu \mathrm{m}–1\mathrm{mm})$ in aquatic environments. Stratification can therefore affect the swimming of small organisms and the sinking of marine snow particles, and diminish the effectiveness of mechanosensing in the ocean.

A drop of moderate size deposited inside a circular hydraulic jump remains trapped at the shock front and does not coalesce with the liquid flowing across the jump. For a small inclination of the plate on which the liquid is impacting, the drop does not always stay at the lowest position and oscillates around it with a sometimes large amplitude, and a frequency that slightly decreases with flow rate. We suggest that this striking behavior is linked to a gyroscopic instability in which the drop tries to keep constant its angular momentum while sliding along the jump.

We present the first direct evidence of flow-concentration coupling in a shear-banding fluid using the first measurements of scanning narrow-aperture flow ultrasmall-angle neutron scattering. Transmission measurements in the flow-gradient shear plane determine the spatial concentration profile of the material. Shear banding in a model fluid composed of wormlike micelles near an equilibrium isotropic-nematic transition is shown to be concomitant with shear-induced demixing, providing new insight into the nonequilibrium phase behavior of the fluid. The new experimental approach and analysis apply generally to any fluid, and will enable more rigorous testing of theories for shear-banding and shear-induced phase separation.

We study networks made up of interacting solitons (solitonets), and find that their dynamics exhibits stochastic recurrent behavior, independent of the topology, where the interaction rule at the single-node level can be used to predict the dynamics of the entire network. The ideas are general, not specific to solitonets: they apply to many kinds of networks whose dynamics converges to a recurrent structure.

We report both experimentally and theoretically that enhanced acoustic transmission can occur in the subwavelength region through a thin but stiff structured plate without any opening. This exotic acoustic phenomenon is essentially distinct from the previous related studies originated from, either collectively or individually, the interaction of the incident wave with openings in previous structures. It is attributed to the structure-induced resonant excitation of the nonleaky Lamb modes that exist intrinsically in the uniform elastic plate. Our finding should have an impact on ultrasonic applications.

We report two-dimensional localization of exciton polaritons in a coherently pumped planar semiconductor microcavity operating in the strong-coupling regime. Two-dimensional polariton solitons exist despite the opposite dispersion signs along the orthogonal in plane directions. Nonlinearities compensating the opposing dispersions have different physical origins and are due to the repulsion of polaritons on one side and due to parametric four-wave mixing on the other. Both of these nonlinearities can support their respective families of one-dimensional solitons, which coexist with each other and with the two-dimensional solitons.

We present the results of a numerical investigation of the mixing within drops caused by surface tension variations. With microfluidic applications in mind, we simulate drops surrounded by a fluid of equal density and viscosity. We investigate both stationary coalescing drops and steadily flowing drops, and study the influence of drop size ratio, viscous effects, and surface tension variations. We measure the mixing efficiency using the variance of the concentration distribution and find that surface tension variations may result in faster mixing than geometric effects.

We present an analytical expression for the electromagnetic field at the surface radiated by a hole in a metal film. This expression is valid for any metal, from the optical range to longer wavelengths, and for distances to the hole larger than a few tens of nanometers. The field pattern presents a rich behavior, showing three regions (a complex short distance, an intermediate range dominated by surface plasmon polaritons, and a long-distance one dominated by Norton waves). The crossover distances between these regimes depend strongly on both the wavelength and the angle with respect to the incident field.

In two-dimensional parameter spaces, nonlinear systems producing solutions of a fixed periodicity form islands of a characteristic shape, called “shrimp”-shaped domains (SSDs). In simulations of electronic circuits, SSDs of different periodicities were recently found to be connected along spirals. By means of a hardware realization of the simulations, we provide a first direct proof of the real-world existence of this phenomenon. An improved description establishes a close experiment-simulation correspondence, and a simplified circuit family demonstrates the homoclinic saddle-focus origin of the phenomenon.

A method is proposed to solve the challenging problem of determining the supratransmission threshold (onset of instability of harmonic boundary driving inside a band gap) in multicomponent nonintegrable nonlinear systems. It is successfully applied to the degenerate three-wave resonant interaction in a birefringent quadratic medium where the process generates spatial gap solitons. No analytic expression is known for this model showing the broad applicability of the method to nonlinear systems.

We present a novel approach of antireflection coating using metamaterials. It dramatically reduces the reflection and greatly enhances the transmission near a specifically designed frequency over a wide range of incidence angles for both transverse magnetic and transverse electric polarizations. A classical interference mechanism is identified through analytical derivations and numerical simulations. It elucidates that the tailored magnitude and phase of waves reflected and transmitted at boundaries of metamaterial coating are responsible for the antireflection.

A new analytical tool for determining the optimum frequency for a micromixing strategy to mix two fluids across their interface is presented. The frequency dependence of the flux is characterized in terms of a Fourier transform related to the apparatus geometry. Illustrative microfluidic mixing examples based on electromagnetic forcing and fluid pumping strategies are presented.

The electromagnetic radiation emitted by an ultrarelativistic accelerated electron is extremely sensitive to the precise shape of the field driving the electron. We show that the angular distribution of the photons emitted by an electron via multiphoton Compton scattering off an intense ($I>{10}^{20}\mathrm{W}/{\mathrm{cm}}^2$), few-cycle laser pulse provides a direct way of determining the carrier-envelope phase of the driving laser field. Our calculations take into account exactly the laser field, include relativistic and quantum effects and are in principle applicable to presently available and future foreseen ultrastrong laser facilities.

We study nonequilibrium polariton superfluids in the optical-parametric-oscillator regime by using a Gross-Pitaevskii equation with pumping and decay. We identify a regime above the optical-parametric-oscillator threshold, where the system undergoes spontaneous symmetry breaking and is unstable towards vortex formation without any rotating drive. Stable vortex solutions differ from metastable ones; the latter can persist but can be triggered only externally. Both spontaneous and triggered vortices are characterized by a generalized healing length, specified by the optical-parametric-oscillator parameters only.

We present some new results relating to properties of completely coherent optical fields. Our analysis elucidates the relationship between the theories of such fields in the space-time and in the space-frequency domains. We also show that the concept of cross-spectral purity, introduced by L. Mandel many years ago, plays an important role in clarifying this relationship.

We show that the orbital angular momentum can be used to unveil lattice properties hidden in diffraction patterns of a simple triangular aperture. Depending on the orbital angular momentum of the incident beam, the far field diffraction pattern reveals a truncated optical lattice associated with the illuminated aperture. This effect can be used to measure the topological charge of light beams.

We present a combined theoretical and experimental study of spatiotemporal propagation effects in terahertz (THz) generation in gases using two-color ionizing laser pulses. The observed strong broadening of the THz spectra with increasing gas pressure reveals the prominent role of spatiotemporal reshaping and of a plasma-induced blueshift of the pump pulses in the generation process. Results obtained from ($3+1$)-dimensional simulations are in good agreement with experimental findings and clarify the mechanisms responsible for THz emission.