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We demonstrate that bound states in the continuum (BICs) form continuous lines along high-symmetry directions of momentum space in a simple phononic crystal slab. Contrary to common sense, these BICs are symmetry-protected (SP) BICs not only at the center of the Brillouin zone (gamma point) but also off the gamma point. We utilize numerical simulations, a group theory method, and a mode expansion method to comprehensively understand the formation of the BICs. It is revealed that these BICs correspond to phase singularity lines of far-field radiation, and the phase winding number can be defined as a topological index. This makes the BICs topologically protected and robust to any parameter variation that maintains periodicity and rotational symmetry. Finally, the generation of the BICs lines is experimentally demonstrated.

In this study, we uncover the intrinsic information processes in non-Hermitian quantum systems and their thermodynamic effects. We demonstrate that these systems can exhibit negative entropy production, making them potential candidates for information engines. We also identify a key informational quantity that can characterize phase transitions beyond the reach of traditional partition functions. This work enhances our understanding of the interplay between information and thermodynamics, providing a new perspective on non-Hermitian quantum systems.

We study the minimizers of a degenerate case of the Ohta-Kawasaki energy, defined as the sum of the perimeter and a Coulombic nonlocal term. We start by investigating radially symmetric candidates which give us insights into the asymptotic behaviors of energy minimizers in the large mass limit. In order to numerically study the problems that are analytically challenging, we propose a phase-field reformulation which is shown to Gamma-converge to the original sharp interface model. Our phase-field simulations and asymptotic results suggest that the energy minimizers exhibit behaviors similar to the self-assembly of amphiphiles, including the formation of lipid bilayer membranes.

An algorithm is described and tested that carries out a non negative matrix factorization (NMF) ignoring any stretching of the signal along the axis of the independent variable. This extended NMF model is called StretchedNMF. Variability in a set of signals due to this stretching is then ignored in the decomposition. This can be used, for example, to study sets of powder diffraction data collected at different temperatures where the materials are undergoing thermal expansion. It gives a more meaningful decomposition in this case where the component signals resemble signals from chemical components in the sample. The StretchedNMF model introduces a new variable, the stretching factor, to describe any expansion of the signal. To solve StretchedNMF, we discretize it and employ Block Coordinate Descent framework algorithms. The initial experimental results indicate that StretchedNMF model outperforms the conventional NMF for sets of data with such an expansion. A further enhancement to StretchedNMF for the case of powder diffraction data from crystalline materials called Sparse-StretchedNMF, which makes use of the sparsity of the powder diffraction signals, allows correct extractions even for very small stretches where StretchedNMF struggles. As well as demonstrating the model performance on simulated PXRD patterns and atomic pair distribution functions (PDFs), it also proved successful when applied to real data taken from an in situ chemical reaction experiment.

The discovery of two-dimensional superconductivity in LaAlO3/KTaO3 (111) and (110) interfaces has raised significant interest in this system. In this manuscript we report the first successful fabrication of a superconducting quantum interference device (DC-SQUID) in the KTO system. The key device elements, superconducting weak links, are created by conductive atomic force microscope (c-AFM) lithography which can reversibly control the conductivity at the LAO/KTO(110) interface with nanoscale resolution. The periodic modulation of the SQUID critical current, Ic(B), with magnetic field corresponds well with our theoretical modeling, which reveals a large kinetic inductance of the superconducting two-dimensional electron gas in KTO. The kinetic inductance of the SQUID is tunable by electrical gating from the back, due to the large dielectric constant of KTO. The demonstration of weak links and SQUIDs in KTO broadens the scope for exploring the underlying physics of KTO superconductivity, including the role of spin-orbit-coupling, pairing symmetry, and inhomogeneity. It also promotes KTO as a versatile platform for a growing family of quantum devices, which could be applicable in the realm of quantum computing and information.

Metal halide perovskites, a class of cost-effective semiconductor materials, are of great interest for modern and upcoming display technologies that prioritize the light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with high efficiency and excellent color purity. The prevailing approach to achieving efficient luminescence from pervoskites is enhancing exciton binding effect and confining carriers by reducing their dimensionality or grain size. However, splitting pervoskite lattice into smaller ones generates abundant boundaries in solid films and results in more surface trap states, needing exact passivation to suppress trap-assisted nonradiative losses. Here, an ions-induced heteroepitaxial growth method is employed to assembe perovskite lattices with different structures into large-sized grains to produce lattice-anchored nanocomposites for efficient LEDs with high color purity. This approach enables the nanocomposite thin films, composed of three-dimensional (3D) CsPbBr3 and its variant of zero-dimensional (0D) Cs4PbBr6, to feature significant low trap-assisted nonradiative recombination, enhanced light out-coupling with a corrugated surface, and well-balanced charge carrier transport. Based on the resultant 3D/0D perovskite nanocomposites, we demonstrate the perovskite LEDs achieving an remarkable external quantum efficiency of 31.0% at the emission peak of 521 nm with a narrow full width at half-maximum of only 18 nm. This research introduces a novel approach to the development of well-assembled nanocomposites for perovskite LEDs, demonstrating high efficiency comparable to that of state-of-the-art organic LEDs.

We use co-sputtering to directly synthesize thin films of the A15 phase intermetallic compound Ta3Sb, which has been predicted to have a giant spin Hall conductivity. We identify a large window of Ta:Sb flux ratio that stabilizes single-phase A15 Ta3Sb. Composition analyses of these films show a Ta:Sb atomic ratio of 4:1, which is consistent with the known Ta-Sb phase diagram. The spin Hall conductivity of thin film Ta3Sb is -3400+/-400 (hbar/2e) S/cm and the spin-orbit torque efficiency is -0.6+/-0.1 at 20 K, as determined from harmonic Hall measurements of Ta3Sb/permalloy bilayer structures. These giant values make Ta3Sb a promising material for efficient charge-to-spin conversion in spintronic applications. Large field-like spin-orbit effective fields that are independent of the ferromagnetic layer thickness have also been measured in the Ta3Sb/permalloy bilayers. We attribute the field-like spin-orbit effective field to the Rashba effect at the interface.

In the paper, we study the non-Hermitian system under dissipation and give the effective 2*2 Hamiltonian in the k-space by reducing the N*N Hamiltonian in the real space for them. It is discovered that the energy band shows an imaginary line gap. To describe these phenomena, we propose the theory of "non-Hermitian tearing", in which the tearability we define reveals a continuous phase transition at the exceptional point. The non-Hermitian tearing manifests in two forms -- separation of bulk state and decoupling of boundary state. In addition, we also explore the one-dimensional Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model and the Qi-Wu-Zhang model under dissipation using the theory of non-Hermitian tearing. Our results provide a theoretical approach for exploring the controlling of non-Hermitian physics on topological quantum states.

Rotational Bose-Einstein condensates can exhibit quantized vortices as topological excitations. In this study, the ground and excited states of the rotational Bose-Einstein condensates are systematically studied by calculating the stationary points of the Gross-Pitaevskii energy functional. Various excited states and their connections at different rotational frequencies are revealed in solution landscapes constructed with the constrained high-index saddle dynamics method. Four excitation mechanisms are identified: vortex addition, rearrangement, merging, and splitting. We demonstrate changes in the ground state with increasing rotational frequencies and decipher the evolution of the stability of ground states.

Intrinsic, two-dimensional (2D) ferromagnetic semiconductors are an important class of materials for spin-charge conversion applications. Cr$_2$Ge$_2$Te$_6$ retains long-range magnetic order in bilayer at cryogenic temperatures and shows complex magnetic interactions with considerable magnetic anisotropy. Here, we performed a series of structural, magnetic, X-ray scattering, electronic, thermal transport and first-principles calculation studies which reveal that localized electronic charge carriers in Cr$_2$Ge$_2$Te$_6$ are dressed by surrounding lattice and are involved in polaronic transport via hopping that is sensitive on details of magnetocrystalline anisotropy. This opens possibility for manipulation of charge transport in Cr$_2$Ge$_2$Te$_6$ - based devices by electron-phonon- and spin-orbit coupling-based tailoring of polaron properties.

We report thermoelectric studies of FeS$_{1-x}$Se$_x$ ($x$ = 0, 0.06) superconducting single crystals that feature high irreversibility fields and critical current density $J_c$ comparable to materials with much higher superconducting critical temperatures ($T_c$'s). The ratio of $T_c$ to the Fermi temperature $T_F$ is very small indicating weak electronic correlations. With a slight selenium substitution on sulfur site in FeS both $T_c$/$T_F$ and the effective mass $m^*$ rise considerably, implying increase in electronic correlation of the bulk conducting states. The first-principle calculations show rise of the density of states at the Fermi level in FeS$_{0.94}$Se$_{0.06}$ when compared to FeS which is related not only to Fe but also to chalcogen-derived electronic states.

Machine learning models based on convolutional neural networks have been used for predicting space groups of crystal structures from their atomic pair distribution function (PDF). However, the PDFs used to train the model are calculated using a fixed set of parameters that reflect specific experimental conditions, and the accuracy of the model when given PDFs generated with different choices of these parameters is unknown. In this paper, we report that the results of the top-1 accuracy and top-6 accuracy are robust when applied to PDFs of different choices of experimental parameters $r_\text{max}$, $Q_\text{max}$, $Q_\text{damp}$ and atomic displacement parameters.

Recent reports of superconductivity at KTaO3 (KTO) (110) and (111) interfaces have sparked intense interest due to the relatively high critical temperature as well as other properties that distinguish this system from the more extensively studied SrTiO3 (STO)-based heterostructures. Here we report nanoscale control of the metal-to-insulator transition at the LaAlO3/KTO (110) and (111) interfaces. Devices are created using two distinct methods previously developed for STO-based heterostructures: (1) conductive atomic-force microscopy lithography and (2) ultra-low-voltage electron-beam lithography. At low temperatures, KTO-based devices show superconductivity that is tunable by an applied back gate. A nanowire device shows single-electron-transistor (SET) behavior. These reconfigurable methods of creating nanoscale devices in KTO-based heterostructures offer new avenues for investigating mechanisms of superconductivity as well as development of quantum devices that incorporate strong spin-orbit interactions, superconducting behavior, and nanoscale dimensions.

We study the ternary Ohta-Kawasaki free energy that has been used to model triblock copolymer systems. Its one-dimensional global minimizers are conjectured to have cyclic patterns. However, some physical experiments and computer simulations found triblock copolymers forming noncyclic lamellar patterns. In this work, by comparing the free energies of the cyclic pattern and some noncyclic candidates, we show that the conjecture does not hold for some choices of parameters. Our results suggest that even in one dimension, the global minimizers may take on very different patterns in different parameter regimes. To unify the existing choices of the long range coefficient matrix, we present a reformulation of the long range term using a generalized charge interpretation, and thereby propose conditions on the matrix in order for the global minimizers to reproduce physically relevant nanostructures of block copolymers.

In this study, we investigate the many-body non-Hermitian skin effect at finite temperatures in the thermodynamic limit. Our findings indicate an interesting correspondence between the non-Hermitian skin effect and a linear electric potential effect in this case. This correspondence leads to a unique distribution in non-Hermitian systems; particles in these many-body non-Hermitian systems do not inhabit the energy eigenstates of their single-body counterparts. As a result, the many-body non-Hermitian skin effect is significantly different from the single-body non-Hermitian skin effect. Specifically, for fermionic systems, the non-Hermitian skin effect disrupts the original phase, leading to a real-space Fermi surface. For bosonic systems, it can direct bosons to condense in corners at a decay rate that surpasses exponential, even at high temperatures. It also triggers a remarkable phase transition, resulting in spontaneous U(1) symmetry breaking. Uniquely, this does not generate a Goldstone mode, presenting a deviation from traditional expectations as per the Goldstone theorem.

We study parity-time-symmetric non-Hermitian quantum systems at finite temperature, where the Boltzmann distribution law fails to hold. To characterize their abnormal physical properties, a new quantum statistics theory (the so-called quantum Liouvillian statistics theory) was developed, in which the Boltzmann distribution law was replaced by the Liouvillian-Boltzmann distribution law. Using it, we derived analytical results of thermodynamic properties for thermal PT systems and found that a "continuous" thermodynamic phase transition occurs at the exceptional point, where a zero-temperature anomaly exists.

Energy-efficient programmable photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are the cornerstone of on-chip classical and quantum optical technologies. Optical phase shifters constitute the fundamental building blocks which enable these programmable PICs. Thus far, carrier modulation and thermo-optical effect are the chosen phenomena for ultrafast and low-loss phase shifters, respectively; however, the state and information they carry are lost once the power is turned off-they are volatile. The volatility not only compromises energy efficiency due to their demand for constant power supply, but also precludes them from emerging applications such as in-memory computing. To circumvent this limitation, we introduce a novel phase shifting mechanism that exploits the nonvolatile refractive index modulation upon structural phase transition of Sb$_{2}$Se$_{3}$, a bi-stable transparent phase change material. A zero-static power and electrically-driven phase shifter was realized on a foundry-processed silicon-on-insulator platform, featuring record phase modulation up to 0.09 $\pi$/$\mu$m and a low insertion loss of 0.3 dB/$\pi$, which can be further improved upon streamlined design. We also pioneered a one-step partial amorphization scheme to enhance the speed and energy efficiency of PCM devices. A diverse cohort of programmable photonic devices were demonstrated based on the ultra-compact PCM phase shifter.

The dynamical and topological properties of non-Hermitian systems have attracted great attention in recent years. In this work, we establish an intrinsic connection between two classes of intriguing phenomena -- topological phases and dynamical quantum phase transitions (DQPTs) -- in non-Hermitian systems. Focusing on one-dimensional models with chiral symmetry, we find DQPTs following the quench from a trivial to a non-Hermitian topological phase. Moreover, the number of critical momenta and critical time periods of the DQPTs are found to be directly related to the topological invariants of the non-Hermitian system. We further demonstrate our theory in three prototypical non-Hermitian lattice models, the lossy Kitaev chain (LKC), the LKC with next-nearest-neighbor hoppings, and the nonreciprocal Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model. Finally, we present a proposal to experimentally verify the found connection by a nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond.

We report quantum oscillation measurements of LaAlGe, a Lorentz-violating type-II Weyl semimetal with tilted Weyl cones. Very small quasiparticle masses and very high Fermi velocities were detected at the Fermi surface. Whereas three main frequencies have been observed, angular dependence of two Fermi surface sheets indicates possible two-dimensional (2D) character despite the absence of the 2D structural features such as van der Waals bonds. Such conducting states may offer a good platform for low-dimensional polarized spin current in magnetic RAlGe (R = Ce, Pr) materials.

Dynamical quantum phase transitions (DQPTs) are characterized by nonanalytic behaviors of physical observables as functions of time. When a system is subject to time-periodic modulations, the nonanalytic signatures of its observables could recur periodically in time, leading to the phenomena of Floquet DQPTs. In this work, we systematically explore Floquet DQPTs in a class of periodically quenched one-dimensional system with chiral symmetry. By tuning the strength of quench, we find multiple Floquet DQPTs within a single driving period, with more DQPTs being observed when the system is initialized in Floquet states with larger topological invariants. Each Floquet DQPT is further accompanied by the quantized jump of a dynamical topological order parameter, whose values remain quantized in time if the underlying Floquet system is prepared in a gapped topological phase. The theory is demonstrated in a piecewise quenched lattice model, which possesses rich Floquet topological phases and is readily realizable in quantum simulators like the nitrogen-vacancy center in diamonds. Our discoveries thus open a new perspective for the Floquet engineering of DQPTs and the dynamical detection of topological phase transitions in Floquet systems.

Connections between crystal chemistry and critical temperature $T_c$ have been in the focus of superconductivity, one of the most widely studied phenomena in physics, chemistry and materials science alike. In most Fe-based superconductors, materials chemistry and physics conspire so that $T_c$ correlates with the average anion height above the Fe plane, i. e. with the geometry of the FeAs4 or FeCh4 (Ch = Te, Se, or S) tetrahedron. By synthesizing Fe$_{1-y}$Se$_{1-x}$S$_x$ (0$\leq$$x$$\leq$1, $y$$\leq$0.1), we find that in alloyed crystals $T_c$ is not correlated with the anion height like it is for most other Fe superconductors. Instead, changes in $T_c$($x$) and tetragonal-to-orthorombic (nematic) transition $T_s$($x$) upon cooling are correlated with disorder in Fe vibrations in the direction orthogonal to Fe planes, along the crystallographic c-axis. The disorder stems from the random nature of S substitution, causing deformed Fe(Se,S)4 tetrahedra with different Fe-Se and Fe-S bond distances. Our results provide evidence of $T_c$ and $T_s$ suppression by disorder in anion height. The connection to local crystal chemistry may be exploited in computational prediction of new superconducting materials with Fe/S building blocks.

We report giant thermopower S = 2.5 mV/K in CoSbS single crystals, a material that shows strong high-temperature thermoelectric performance when doped with Ni or Se. Changes of low temperature thermopower induced by magnetic field point to mechanism of electronic diffusion of carriers in the heavy valence band. Intrinsic magnetic susceptibility is consistent with the Kondo- Insulator-like accumulation of electronic states around the gap edges. This suggests that giant thermopower stems from temperature-dependent renormalization of the non-interacting bands and buildup of the electronic correlations on cooling.

Iron diantimonide is a material with the highest known thermoelectric power. By combining scanning transmission electron microscope study with electronic transport neutron, X-ray scattering and first principle calculation we identify atomic defects that control colossal thermopower magnitude and nanoprecipitate clusters with Sb vacancy ordering which induce additional phonon scattering and substantially reduce thermal conductivity. Defects are found to cause rather weak but important monoclinic distortion of the unit cell Pnnm to Pm. The absence of Sb along [010] for high defect concentration forms conducting path due to Fe d orbital overlap. The connection between atomic defect anisotropy and colossal thermopower in FeSb2 paves the way for the understanding and tailoring of giant thermopower in related materials.

We present measurements of the Faraday effect in n-type InSb. The Verdet coefficient was determined for a range of carrier concentrations near $10^{17}$ $\text{cm}^{-3}$ in the $\lambda$ = 8 $\mu$m - 12 $\mu$m long-wave infrared regime. The absorption coefficient was measured and a figure of merit calculated for each sample. From these measurements, we calculated the carrier effective mass and illustrate the variation of the figure of merit with wavelength. A method for creating a tunable bandpass filter via the Faraday rotation is discussed along with preliminary results from a prototype device.

We present first room-temperature thermoelectric signature of the skyrmion lattice. This was observed in Fe3Sn2, a Kagome Dirac crystal with massive Dirac fermions that features high-temperature skyrmion phase. The room-temperature skyrmion lattice shows magnetic-field dependence of the wavevector whereas thermopower is dominated by the electronic diffusion mechanism, allowing for the skyrmionic bubble lattice detection. Our results pave the way for the future skyrmion-based devices based on the manipulation of the thermal gradient.

The contribution of bulk and surface to the electrical resistance along crystallographic \textitb- and \textitc-axes as a function of crystal thickness gives evidence for a temperature independent surface states in an antiferromagnetic narrow-gap semiconductor CrSb$_{2}$. ARPES shows a clear electron-like pocket at $\Gamma$-$Z$ direction which is absent in the bulk band structure. First-principles calculations also confirm the existence of metallic surface states inside the bulk gap. Whereas combined experimental probes point to enhanced surface conduction similar to topological insulators, surface states are trivial since CrSb$_2$ exhibits no band inversion.

Floquet engineering has the advantage of generating new phases with large topological invariants and many edge states by simple driving protocols. In this work, we propose an approach to obtain Floquet edge states with fourfold degeneracy and even-integer topological characterizations in a spinful Creutz ladder model, which is realizable in current experiments. Putting the ladder under periodic quenches, we found rich Floquet topological phases in the system, which belong to the symmetry class CII. Each of these phases is characterized by a pair of even integer topological invariants $(w_{0},w_{\pi}) \in 2\mathbb{Z} \times 2 \mathbb{Z}$, which can take arbitrarily large values with the increase of driving parameters. Under the open boundary condition, we further obtain multiple quartets of topological edge states with quasienergies zero and $\pi$ in the system. Their numbers are determined by the bulk topological invariants $(w_{0},w_{\pi})$ due to the bulk-edge correspondence. Finally, we propose a way to dynamically probe the Floquet topological phases in our system by measuring a generalized mean chiral displacement. Our findings thus enrich the family of Floquet topological matter, and put forward the detection of their topological properties.

Strongly correlated Kagome magnets are promising candidates for achieving controllable topological devices owing to the rich interplay between inherent Dirac fermions and correlation-driven magnetism. Here we report tunable local magnetism and its intriguing control of topological electronic response near room temperature in the Kagome magnet Fe3Sn2 using small angle neutron scattering, muon spin rotation, and magnetoresistivity measurement techniques. The average bulk spin direction and magnetic domain texture can be tuned effectively by small magnetic fields. Magnetoresistivity, in response, exhibits a measurable degree of anisotropic weak localization behavior, which allows the direct control of Dirac fermions with strong electron correlations. Our work points to a novel platform for manipulating emergent phenomena in strongly-correlated topological materials relevant to future applications.

We introduce a multi-agent meta-modeling game to generate data, knowledge, and models that make predictions on constitutive responses of elasto-plastic materials. We introduce a new concept from graph theory where a modeler agent is tasked with evaluating all the modeling options recast as a directed multigraph and find the optimal path that links the source of the directed graph (e.g. strain history) to the target (e.g. stress) measured by an objective function. Meanwhile, the data agent, which is tasked with generating data from real or virtual experiments (e.g. molecular dynamics, discrete element simulations), interacts with the modeling agent sequentially and uses reinforcement learning to design new experiments to optimize the prediction capacity. Consequently, this treatment enables us to emulate an idealized scientific collaboration as selections of the optimal choices in a decision tree search done automatically via deep reinforcement learning.

We present a method for predicting the space group of a structure given a calculated or measured atomic pair distribution function (PDF) from that structure. The method utilizes machine learning models trained on more than 100,000 PDFs calculated from structures in the 45 most heavily represented space groups. In particular, we present a convolutional neural network (CNN) model which yields a promising result that it correctly identifies the space group among the top-6 estimates 91.9~\% of the time. The CNN model also successfully identifies space groups on 12 out of 15 experimental PDFs. We discuss interesting aspects of the failed estimates, which indicate that the CNN is failing in similar ways as conventional indexing algorithms applied to conventional powder diffraction data. This preliminary success of the CNN model shows the possibility of model-independent assessment of PDF data on a wide class of materials.

We present an algorithm to extract the distance list from atomic pair distribution functions (PDFs) in a highly automated way. The algorithm is constructed via curve fitting based on a Debye scattering equation model. Due to the non-convex nature of the resulting optimization problem, a number of techniques are developed to overcome various computational difficulties. A key ingredient is a new approach to obtain a reasonable initial guess based on the theoretical properties of the mathematical model. Tests on various nanostructured samples show the effectiveness of the initial guess and the accuracy and overall good performance of the extraction algorithm. This approach could be extended to any spectrum that is approximated as a sum of Gaussian functions.

Optical phase change materials (O-PCMs), a unique group of materials featuring drastic optical property contrast upon solid-state phase transition, have found widespread adoption in photonic switches and routers, reconfigurable meta-optics, reflective display, and optical neuromorphic computers. Current phase change materials, such as Ge-Sb-Te (GST), exhibit large contrast of both refractive index (delta n) and optical loss (delta k), simultaneously. The coupling of both optical properties fundamentally limits the function and performance of many potential applications. In this article, we introduce a new class of O-PCMs, Ge-Sb-Se-Te (GSST) which breaks this traditional coupling, as demonstrated with an optical figure of merit improvement of more than two orders of magnitude. The first-principle computationally optimized alloy, Ge2Sb2Se4Te1, combines broadband low optical loss (1-18.5 micron), large optical contrast (delta n = 2.0), and significantly improved glass forming ability, enabling an entirely new field of infrared and thermal photonic devices. We further leverage the material to demonstrate nonvolatile integrated optical switches with record low loss and large contrast ratio, as well as an electrically addressed, microsecond switched pixel level spatial light modulator, thereby validating its promise as a platform material for scalable nonvolatile photonics.

Iron antimonide (FeSb$_2$) is a mysterious material with peculiar colossal thermopower of about $-45$ mV/K at 10 K. However, a unified microscopic description of this phenomenon is far from being achieved. The understanding of the electronic structure in details is crucial in identifying the microscopic mechanism of FeSb$_2$ thermopower. Combining angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and first-principles calculations we find that the spectrum of FeSb$_2$ consists of two bands near the Fermi energy: the nondispersive strongly renormalized $\alpha$-band, and the hole-like $\beta$-band that intersects the first one at $\Gamma$ and Y points of the Brillouin zone. Our study reveals the presence of sizable correlations, predominantly among electrons derived from Fe-3d states, and considerable anisotropy in the electronic structure of FeSb$_2$. These key ingredients are of fundamental importance in the description of colossal thermopower in FeSb$_2$.

The iron antimonide FeSb$_2$ possesses an extraordinarily high thermoelectric power factor at low temperature, making it a leading candidate for cryogenic thermoelectric cooling devices. However, the origin of this unusual behavior is controversial, having been variously attributed to electronic correlations as well as the phonon-drag effect. The optical properties of a material provide information on both the electronic and vibrational properties. The optical conductivity reveals an anisotropic response at room temperature; the low-frequency optical conductivity decreases rapidly with temperature, signalling a metal-insulator transition. One-dimensional semiconducting behavior is observed along the $b$ axis at low temperature, in agreement with first-principle calculations. The infrared-active lattice vibrations are also symmetric and extremely narrow, indicating long phonon relaxation times and a lack of electron-phonon coupling. Surprisingly, there are more lattice modes along the $a$ axis than are predicted from group theory; several of these modes undergo significant changes below about 100 K, hinting at a weak structural distortion or phase transition. While the extremely narrow phonon line shapes favor the phonon-drag effect, the one-dimensional behavior of this system at low temperature may also contribute to the extraordinarily high thermopower observed in this material.

Size-selected anionic silicon clusters, Sin- (n=14-20), have been investigated by photoelectron spectroscopy and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Low-energy structures of the clusters are globally searched for by using a genetic algorithm based on DFT calculations. The electronic density of states and VDEs have been simulated by using ten DFT functionals and compared to the experimental results. We systematically evaluated the DFT functionals for the calculation of the energetics of silicon clusters. CCSD(T) single-point energies based on MP2 optimized geometries for selected isomers of Sin- are also used as benchmark for the energy sequence. The HSE06 functional with aug-cc-pVDZ basis set is found to show the best performance. Our global minimum search corroborates that most of the lowest-energy structures of Sin- (n=14-20) clusters can be derived from assembling tricapped trigonal prisms (TTP) in various ways. For most sizes previous structures are confirmed, whereas for Si20- a new structure has been found.

We report a study of Co-doped berthierite Fe$_{1-x}$Co$_x$Sb$_2$S$_4$ ($x$ = 0, 0.1, and 0.2). The alloy series of Fe$_{1-x}$Co$_x$Sb$_2$S$_4$ crystallize in an orthorhombic structure with the Pnma space group, similar to FeSb$_2$, and show semiconducting behavior. The large discrepancy between activation energy for conductivity, $E_\rho$ (146 $\sim$ 270 meV), and thermopower, $E_S$ (47 $\sim$ 108 meV), indicates the polaronic transport mechanism. Bulk magnetization and heat capacity measurements of pure FeSb$_2$S$_4$ ($x$ = 0) exhibit a broad antiferromagnetic (AFM) transition ($T_N$ = 46 K) followed by an additional weak transition ($T^*$ = 50 K). Transition temperatures ($T_N$ and $T^*$) slightly decrease with increasing Co content $x$. This is also reflected in the thermal conductivity measurement, indicating strong spin-lattice coupling. Fe$_{1-x}$Co$_x$Sb$_2$S$_4$ shows relatively high value of thermopower (up to $\sim$ 624 $\mu$V K$^{-1}$ at 300 K) and thermal conductivity much lower when compared to FeSb$_{2}$, a feature desired for potential applications based on FeSb$_{2}$ materials.

We report magnetotransport study on type-II Weyl semimetal WP$_2$ single crystals. Magnetoresistance (MR) exhibits a nonsaturating $H^{n}$ field dependence (14,300\% at 2 K and 9 T) whereas systematic violation of Kohler's rule was observed. Quantum oscillations reveal a complex multiband electronic structure. The cyclotron effective mass close to the mass of free electron m$_e$ was observed in quantum oscillations along $b$-axis, while reduced effective mass of about 0.5$m_e$ was observed in $a$-axis quantum oscillations, suggesting Fermi surface anisotropy. Temperature dependence of the resistivity shows a large upturn that cannot be explained by the multi-band magnetoresistance of conventional metals. Even though crystal structure of WP$_{2}$ is not layered as in transition metal dichalcogenides, quantum oscillations suggest partial two-dimensional character.

The precise nature of complex structural relaxation as well as an explanation for the precipitous growth of relaxation time in cooling glass-forming liquids are essential to the understanding of vitrification of liquids. The dramatic increase of relaxation time is believed to be caused by the growth of one or more correlation lengths, which has received much attention recently. Here, we report a direct link between the growth of a specific local-geometrical-order and an increase of dynamic-length-scale as the atomic dynamics in metallic glass-forming liquids slow down. Although several types of local geometrical-orders are present in these metallic liquids, the growth of icosahedral ordering is found to be directly related to the increase of the dynamic-length-scale. This finding suggests an intriguing scenario that the transient icosahedral ordering could be the origin of the dynamic-length-scale in metallic glass-forming liquids.

The shape equation and linking conditions for a vesicle with two-phase domains are derived. We refine the conjecture on the general neck condition for the limit shape of a budding vesicle proposed by Jülicher and Lipowsky [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf70, 2964 (1993); Phys. Rev. E \textbf53, 2670 (1996)], and then we use the shape equation and linking conditions to prove that this conjecture holds not only for axisymmetric budding vesicles, but also for asymmetric ones. Our study reveals that the mean curvature at any point on the membrane segments adjacent to the neck satisfies the general neck condition for the limit shape of a budding vesicle when the length scale of the membrane segments is much larger than the characteristic size of the neck but still much smaller than the characteristic size of the vesicle.

The crystal structure and magnetic properties of MnCoxFe1-xSi (x=0-0.5) compounds were investigated. With increasing Fe content, the unit cell changes anisotropically and the magnetic property evolves gradually: Curie temperature decreases continuously, the first-order metamagnetic transition from a low-temperature helical antiferromagnetic state to a high-temperature ferromagnetic state disappears gradually and then a spin-glass-like state and another antiferromagnetic state emerge in the low temperature region. The Curie transition leads to a moderate conventional entropy change. The metamagnetic transition not only yields a larger negative magnetocaloric effect at lower applied fields than in MnCoSi but also produces a very large temperature span (103 K for H=5 T) of delta S(T), which results in a large refrigerant capacity. These phenomena were explained in terms of crystal structure change and magnetoelastic coupling mechanism. The low-cost MnCo1-xFexSi compounds are promising candidates for near room temperature magnetic refrigeration applications because of the large isothermal entropy change and the wide working temperature span.

Quantum tunneling introduces a fundamental difference between classical and quantum mechanics. Whenever the classical ground state is non-unique (degenerate), quantum mechanics restore uniqueness thanks to tunneling. A condensate in a rotating trap with a vortex can have such a degenerate classical ground state, a degeneracy that is excluded in the absence of rotation at least when the Gross-Pitaevskii equation applies. If the rotating trap has a center of symmetry, like a figure eight (a peanut), the vortex may be on either side with the same energy yielding a degenerate ground state, a degeneracy lifted by quantum tunneling. We explain how to compute the rate of tunneling in the WKB limit by estimating the action of the trajectory in the Euclidean version of the dynamics.

In this paper, we prove the energy diminishing of a normalized gradient flow which provides a mathematical justification of the imaginary time method used in physical literatures to compute the ground state solution of Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC). We also investigate the energy diminishing property for the discretization of the normalized gradient flow. Two numerical methods are proposed for such discretizations: one is the backward Euler centered finite difference (BEFD), the other one is an explicit time-splitting sine-spectral (TSSP) method. Energy diminishing for BEFD and TSSP for linear case, and monotonicity for BEFD for both linear and nonlinear cases are proven. Comparison between the two methods and existing methods, e.g. Crank-Nicolson finite difference (CNFD) or forward Euler finite difference (FEFD), shows that BEFD and TSSP are much better in terms of preserving energy diminishing property of the normalized gradient flow. Numerical results in 1d, 2d and 3d with magnetic trap confinement potential, as well as a potential of a stirrer corresponding to a far-blue detuned Gaussian laser beam are reported to demonstrate the effectiveness of BEFD and TSSP methods. Furthermore we observe that the normalized gradient flow can also be applied directly to compute the first excited state solution in BEC when the initial data is chosen as an odd function.

Raman et al. have found experimental evidence for a critical velocity under which there is no dissipation when a detuned laser beam is moved in a Bose-Einstein condensate. We analyze the origin of this critical velocity in the low density region close to the boundary layer of the cloud. In the frame of the laser beam, we do a blow up on this low density region which can be described by a Painlevé equation and write the approximate equation satisfied by the wave function in this region. We find that there is always a drag around the laser beam. Though the beam passes through the surface of the cloud and the sound velocity is small in the Painlevé boundary layer, the shedding of vortices starts only when a threshold velocity is reached. This critical velocity is lower than the critical velocity computed for the corresponding 2D problem at the center of the cloud. At low velocity, there is a stationary solution without vortex and the drag is small. At the onset of vortex shedding, that is above the critical velocity, there is a drastic increase in drag.

For a Bose-Einstein condensate placed in a rotating trap and confined in the z axis, we set a framework of study for the Gross-Pitaevskii energy in the Thomas Fermi regime. We investigate an asymptotic development of the energy, the critical velocities of nucleation of vortices with respect to a small parameter $\ep$ and the location of vortices. The limit $\ep$ going to zero corresponds to the Thomas Fermi regime. The non-dimensionalized energy is similar to the Ginzburg-Landau energy for superconductors in the high-kappa high-field limit and our estimates rely on techniques developed for this latter problem. We also take the advantage of this similarity to develop a numerical algorithm for computing the Bose-Einstein vortices. Numerical results and energy diagrams are presented.

In this paper, we provide the different types of bifurcation diagrams for a superconducting cylinder placed in a magnetic field along the direction of the axis of the cylinder. The computation is based on the numerical solutions of the Ginzburg-Landau model by the finite element method. The response of the material depends on the values of the exterior field, the Ginzburg-Landau parameter and the size of the domain. The solution branches in the different regions of the bifurcation diagrams are analyzed and open mathematical problems are mentioned.