Control of waves with metamaterials is of great topical interest, and is fueled by rapid progress in broadband acoustic and electromagnetic cloaks. We propose a design for a cloak to control bending waves propagating in isotropic heterogeneous thin plates. This is achieved through homogenization of a multilayered concentric coating filled with piecewise constant isotropic elastic material. Significantly, our cloak displays no phase shift for both backward and forward scattering. To foster experimental efforts, we provide a simplified design of the cloak which is shown to work in a more than two-octave frequency range (30 Hz to 150 Hz) when it consists of 10 layers using only 6 different materials overall. This metamaterial should be easy to manufacture, with potential applications ranging from car industry to antiearthquake passive systems for smart buildings, depending upon the plate dimensions and wavelengths.

Weakly rotating turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection was studied experimentally and numerically. With increasing rotation and large enough Rayleigh number a supercritical bifurcation from a turbulent state with nearly rotation-independent heat transport to another with enhanced heat transfer is observed at a critical inverse Rossby number $1/{\mathrm{Ro}}_c\simeq 0.4$. The strength of the large-scale convection roll is either enhanced or essentially unmodified depending on parameters for $1/\mathrm{Ro}<1/{\mathrm{Ro}}_c$, but the strength increasingly diminishes beyond $1/{\mathrm{Ro}}_c$ where it competes with Ekman vortices that cause vertical fluid transport and thus heat-transfer enhancement.

We demonstrate that the phase response curve (PRC) can be reconstructed using a weighted spike-triggered average of an injected fluctuating input. The key idea is to choose the weight to be proportional to the magnitude of the fluctuation of the oscillatory period. Particularly, when a neuron exhibits random switching behavior between two bursting modes, two corresponding PRCs can be simultaneously reconstructed, even from the data of a single trial. This method offers an efficient alternative to the experimental investigation of oscillatory systems, without the need for detailed modeling.

The dynamics of ionized electrons in a plasma can be controlled by synthetic optical fields composed of the fundamental and the second harmonic of femtosecond optical pulses with an arbitrary phase and polarization. We show here that the plasma-emitted half-cycle THz radiation directly reflects the two-dimensional trajectories of the electrons through polarization sensitive THz emission spectroscopy. As a result, we find that the THz polarization smoothly rotates through $2\pi$ radians as the relative phase between the two pulses is adjusted, providing a new means of coherently controlling the polarization of light at THz frequencies.

We exploit large accelerations associated with surface acoustic waves to drive an extraordinary fluid jetting phenomena. Laterally focusing the acoustic energy to a small region beneath a drop placed on the surface causes rapid interfacial destabilization. Above a critical Weber number We, an elongated jet forms for drops with dimensions greater than the fluid sound wavelength. Further increases in We lead to single droplet pinch-off and subsequent axisymmetric breakup to form multiple droplets. A simple equation based on a momentum balance is derived to predict the jet velocity.

Using the ($1+1$)D Majda-McLaughlin-Tabak model as an example, we present an extension of the wave turbulence (WT) theory to systems with strong nonlinearities. We demonstrate that nonlinear wave interactions renormalize the dynamics, leading to (i) a possible destruction of scaling structures in the bare wave systems and a drastic deformation of the resonant manifold even at weak nonlinearities, and (ii) creation of nonlinear resonance quartets in wave systems for which there would be no resonances as predicted by the linear dispersion relation. Finally, we derive an effective WT kinetic equation and show that our prediction of the renormalized Rayleigh-Jeans distribution is in excellent agreement with the simulation of the full wave system in equilibrium.

We report the observation of a Fano resonance between continuum Mie scattering and a narrow Bragg band in synthetic opal photonic crystals. The resonance leads to a transmission spectrum exhibiting a Bragg dip with an asymmetric profile, which can be tunably reversed to a Bragg rise. The Fano asymmetry parameter is linked with the dielectric contrast between the permittivity of the filler and the specific value determined by the opal matrix. The existence of the Fano resonance is directly related to disorder due to nonuniformity of $a\mathrm{\text{−}}{\mathrm{SiO}}_2$ opal spheres. The theoretical “quasi-3D” model produces results in excellent agreement with the experimental data.

Considered as a multipartite quantum system, time-multiplexed nonlinear Schrödinger solitons after collision are rigorously proved to become quantum entangled in the sense that their quadrature components of suitably selected internal modes satisfy the inseparability criterion. Clear physical insights for the origin of entanglement are given, and the required homodyne local oscillator pulse shape for optimum entanglement detection is determined.

We consider the propagation of a diffusive wave in a scattering medium submitted to a homogeneous expansion. The light multiply scattered by a glass spheres sample is measured. We analyze the variations of the scattered light when the material and the optical wavelength are dilated. We experimentally show that an isotropic expansion of the material is equivalent to a contraction of the wavelength. Moreover, the effect of an expansion of the material on the scattered wave may be canceled by a proportional increase of the wavelength, keeping the phase of the scattered wave unchanged. Applications to the characterization of deformation of disordered materials are outlined.

Measurements of the Nusselt number Nu and of temperature variations $\Delta T_b$ in the bulk fluid are reported for turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection of a cylindrical sample. They cover the Rayleigh-number range ${10}^9\lesssim \mathrm{Ra}\lesssim 3\times {10}^{14}$ using He (Prandtl number $\mathrm{Pr}=0.67$), ${\mathrm{N}}_2$ ($\mathrm{Pr}=0.72$) and ${\mathrm{SF}}_6$ ($\mathrm{Pr}=0.79$ to 0.84) at pressures up to 15 bars and near-ambient temperatures. The sample had a height $L=2.24\mathrm{m}$ and diameter $D=1.12\mathrm{m}$ and was located in a new High-Pressure Convection Facility (HPCF) at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen, Germany. The data do not show the transition to an “ultimate regime” reported by Chavanne et al. and are consistent with the measurements of Niemela et al.

We report the observation of the signature of a localization phase transition for light in one-dimensional quasiperiodic photonic lattices, by directly measuring wave transport inside the lattice. Below the predicted transition point an initially narrow wave packet expands as it propagates, while above the transition expansion is fully suppressed. In addition, we measure the effect of focusing nonlinear interaction on the propagation and find it increases the width of the localized wave packets.

The self-similar decay of energy in a turbulent flow is studied in direct numerical simulations with and without rotation. Two initial conditions are considered: one nonhelical (mirror symmetric) and one with maximal helicity. While in the absence of rotation the energy in the helical and nonhelical cases decays with the same rate, in rotating flows the helicity content has a major impact on the decay rate. These differences are associated with differences in the energy and helicity cascades when rotation is present. The properties of the structures in the flow at late times are also discussed.

Local dissipation scales are a manifestation of the intermittent small-scale nature of turbulence. We report the first experimental evaluation of the distribution of local dissipation scales in turbulent pipe flows for a range of Reynolds numbers: $2.4\times {10}^4\le {\mathrm{Re}}_D\le 7.0\times {10}^4$. Our measurements at the nearly isotropic pipe center line and within the anisotropic logarithmic layer show excellent agreement with distributions that were previously calculated from numerical simulations of homogeneous isotropic box turbulence and with those predicted by theory. The reported results suggest a universality of the smallest-scale fluctuations around the classical Kolmogorov dissipation length.

We study quantum and classical Hanbury Brown–Twiss correlations in waveguide lattices. We develop a theory for the propagation of photon pairs in the lattice, predicting the emergence of nontrivial quantum interferences unique to lattice systems. Experimentally, we observe the classical counterpart of these interferences using intensity-correlation measurements. We discuss the correspondence between the classical and quantum correlations, and consider path-entangled input states which do not have a classical analogue. Our results demonstrate that waveguide lattices can be used as a robust and highly controllable tool for manipulating quantum states, and offer new ways of studying the quantum properties of light.

Light transmission measurements and frequency-delay reflectometry maps for GaAs photonic crystal membranes are presented and analyzed, showing the transition from propagation with a well-defined group velocity to a regime completely dominated by disorder-induced coherent scattering. Employing a self-consistent optical scattering theory, with only statistical functions to describe the structural disorder, we obtain excellent agreement with the experiments using no fitting parameters. Our experiments and theory together provide clear physical insight into naturally occurring light localization and multiple coherent-scattering phenomena in slow-light waveguides.

We consider the problem of oscillation damping in air of a thermally actuated microlever as it gradually approaches an infinite wall in parallel geometry. As the gap is decreased from $20\mu \mathrm{m}$ down to 400 nm, we observe the increasing damping of the lever Brownian motion in the fluid laminar regime. This manifests itself as a linear decrease in the lever quality factor accompanied by a dramatic softening of its resonance, and eventually leads to the freezing of the CL oscillation. We are able to quantitatively explain this behavior by analytically solving the Navier-Stokes equation with perfect slip boundary conditions. Our findings may have implications for microfluidics and micro- and nanoelectromechanical applications.

We measure Anderson localization in quasi-one-dimensional waveguides in the presence of absorption by analyzing the echo dynamics due to small perturbations. We specifically show that the inverse participation number of localized modes dictates the decay of the Loschmidt echo, differing from the Gaussian decay expected for diffusive or chaotic systems. Our theory, based on a random matrix modeling, agrees perfectly with scattering echo measurements on a quasi-one-dimensional microwave cavity filled with randomly distributed scatterers.

We show that the electric field driven surface instability of viscoelastic films has two distinct regimes: (1) The viscoelastic films behaving like a liquid display long wavelengths governed by applied voltage and surface tension, independent of its elastic storage and viscous loss moduli, and (2) the films behaving like a solid require a threshold voltage for the instability whose wavelength always scales as $\sim 4\times \mathrm{\text{film thickness}}$, independent of its surface tension, applied voltage, loss and storage moduli. Wavelength in a narrow transition zone between these regimes depends on the storage modulus.

We propose to use transformation optics to generate a general illusion such that an arbitrary object appears to be like some other object of our choice. This is achieved by using a remote device that can transform the scattered light outside a virtual boundary into that of the object chosen for the illusion, irrespective of the profile and direction of the incident light. This type of illusion device also enables people to see through walls. Our work extends the concept of cloaking as a special form of illusion to the wider realm of illusion optics.

A unique phenomenon in flow control is described, where the lift and drag on a circular cylinder could be modified for over eight vortex shedding cycles by a short pulse of dielectric-barrier-discharge plasma. This is equivalent to flow control for over 150 times the pulse duration, which seems to be due to a secondary vortex initiated by plasma that interacts with the von Kármán vortex formation and temporarily amplifies or suppresses the vortex street. Depending on the pulse timing, the drag and lift fluctuations could be increased by 22% and 50% or reduced by 8% and 40%, respectively, with a power saving ratio over 1000.