CMP Journal 2026-03-23
Statistics
Nature Materials: 3
Nature Nanotechnology: 2
arXiv: 72
Nature Materials
Observation of Floquet-induced gap in graphene
Original Paper | Electronic properties and devices | 2026-03-22 20:00 EDT
Fei Wang, Xuanxi Cai, Xiao Tang, Jinxi Lu, Wanying Chen, Tianshuang Sheng, Runfa Feng, Haoyuan Zhong, Hongyun Zhang, Pu Yu, Shuyun Zhou
Floquet engineering provides a powerful pathway for creating non-equilibrium phases of matter with tailored electronic structures and properties through time-periodic driving. As the original theoretical prototype, graphene established the framework in which the Floquet topological insulator with the light-induced anomalous Hall effect was proposed. However, the defining spectroscopic signature of Floquet engineering in graphene, light-induced hybridization (avoided-crossing) gap at Floquet band crossings, has remained experimentally elusive. Here we report the direct observation of a Floquet-induced hybridization gap in monolayer graphene under resonant driving by a strong light field. Time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy reveals a gap opening at Floquet band crossings, accompanied by coherent Floquet sidebands. The gap exhibits pronounced momentum anisotropy, featuring two Dirac nodes protected by spatiotemporal symmetry and tunable by light polarization. These results provide the long-sought experimental demonstration of Floquet band engineering in graphene, opening up opportunities for light-field-engineered quantum phases in graphene and related materials.
Electronic properties and devices, Electronic properties and materials, Ultrafast photonics
Mechanisms of active wetting and fluidification in epithelial cell collectives
Original Paper | Biomaterials - cells | 2026-03-22 20:00 EDT
Stefano Marchesi, Chiara Guidolin, Andrew E. Massey, Gregoire Lemahieu, Zeno Lavagnino, Galina V. Beznoussenko, Alexandre A. Mironov, Brenda J. Green, Elisa Allievi, Emanuele Martini, Serena Magni, Andrea Ghisleni, Caterina Lomazzi, Andrea Francesco Benvenuto, Andreas Schertel, Diana A. van Faassen, Stefano Freddi, Giovanni Bertalot, Dario Parazzoli, Paolo Maiuri, Marina Mapelli, Salvatore Pece, Sara Sigismund, Nils C. Gauthier, Elisabetta A. Cavalcanti-Adam, Alexander X. Cartagena-Rivera, Fabio Giavazzi, Giorgio Scita, Andrea Disanza
Tissue-level phase transitions are emerging as a crucial mechanism in tumour development and metastasis. When becoming invasive, epithelial tumours undergo a transition from a solid-like state to a more fluid-like one. Although the contributions of cell adhesions, traction forces and cell migration for such behaviour are known, the exact biophysical and molecular mechanisms controlling these transitions are not fully understood. Here we show that breast cancer cell fluidity is regulated by IRSp53, a protein linking plasma membranes to the cytoskeleton. In both two-dimensional monolayers and three-dimensional spheroids, the depletion of IRSp53 increases fluidity and active wetting of the substrate due to a decrease in intercellular friction and enhanced local cell rearrangements. Molecularly, IRSp53 interacts with the junctional protein Afadin to control global tensile state and active wetting, establishing these proteins as key regulators of epithelial collectives’ viscosity in breast cancer tumouroids. In breast cancer patient samples, low IRSp53 expression levels and aberrant localization correlate with worse clinical outcomes. These findings support the broader relevance of IRSp53-regulated mechanics in epithelia and their potential prognostic value in cancer.
Biomaterials - cells, Cellular motility
Perovskite-organic tandem solar cells with superior reverse-bias stability
Original Paper | Solar cells | 2026-03-22 20:00 EDT
Jiaming Huang, Yu Han, Zhiwei Ren, Guang Yang, Yongmin Luo, Lei Cheng, Like Huang, Sudhi Mahadevan, Wei Song, Chujun Zhang, Bo Yuan, Arsenii S. Portniagin, Qiong Liang, Jiehao Fu, Jiyao Zhang, Hrisheekesh Thachoth Chandran, Xiaokang Sun, Yung-Kang Peng, Hanlin Hu, Jinhui Tong, Han Yu, Andrey L. Rogach, Sai-Wing Tsang, Junliang Yang, Ziyi Ge, Jiaying Wu, Jinsong Huang, Gang Li
The industrial deployment of thin-film solar cells faces challenges under reverse bias, particularly concerning perovskite materials with poor reverse-bias stability. Meanwhile, the reverse-bias characteristics of organic solar cells (OSCs) remain underexplored. This study first elucidates the mechanism that reverse tunnelling in OSCs, fundamentally dominated by deep trap state within a bulk heterojunction, triggering reversible/irreversible breakdowns under reverse bias. Building on this, we demonstrated high-performance OSCs with superior irreversible breakdown voltage exceeding -35 V by modulating the deep trap state through suppressing an isolated acceptor cluster in the donor-acceptor intermix region. Moreover, through strategically shielding perovskite by OSC with suppressed reverse tunnelling, n-i-p perovskite-organic tandem solar cells maintain over 90% of the initial efficiency when subjected to -40 V. These tandem devices retain 90% and 97% of the initial efficiency after stressing at -20 V for 12 h and -4.5 V for 2,000 h, respectively, outperforming all existing thin-film solar technologies. The exceptional reverse-bias stability under shadowing conditions was further demonstrated in scalable perovskite-organic tandem solar cell minimodules.
Solar cells, Solar energy and photovoltaic technology
Nature Nanotechnology
Universal logical operations in a silicon quantum processor
Original Paper | Electronic and spintronic devices | 2026-03-22 20:00 EDT
Chunhui Zhang, Feng Xu, Shihang Zhang, Mingchao Duan, Dupeng Zhong, Xuesong Bai, Hao Wang, Chao Huang, Yi Deng, Miao Gao, Yu-Ning Zhang, Jiaze Liu, Chunhui Li, Yan Jiang, Baolong Zhao, Huan Shu, Kunrong Wu, Keji Shi, Qiming Ding, Zhen Tian, Guanyong Wang, Xiao Yuan, Tao Xin, Guangchong Hu, Song Liu, Tianluo Pan, Peihao Huang, Yu He, Dapeng Yu
Quantum errors induced by environmental noise are unavoidable and preclude the direct implementation of practical quantum computation. Fault-tolerant quantum computation offers one of the viable paths, necessitating the encoding and processing of information within logical qubits to curb such errors. Although substantial progress has been achieved recently in building silicon quantum computers, logical operations still haven’t been realized in silicon. Here we demonstrate a logical quantum processor using a phosphorus donor cluster in silicon. By implementing the [[4, 2, 2]] code, we realize the essential components for logical operations, which include fault-tolerant preparation of logical states and the characterization of a universal gate set comprising logical single-qubit and two-qubit gates. In particular, the logical T gate is achieved using the gate-by-measurement method, and magic states based on this gate are prepared. Furthermore, we execute the variational quantum eigensolver algorithm using two logical qubits and simulate the ground state of the electronic structure of the water molecule H2O. This work represents a key step towards scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computation in silicon spin qubits.
Electronic and spintronic devices, Electronic devices, Quantum dots, Quantum information, Qubits
Magnetic circular dichroism imaging of atomic-scale antiferromagnetic order at a buried interface
Original Paper | Characterization and analytical techniques | 2026-03-22 20:00 EDT
Dongsheng Song, Fengshan Zheng, Lin Hao, Lei Jin, Yajiao Ke, Yizhou Liu, Mingliang Tian, Binghui Ge, Rafal E. Dunin-Borkowski, Haifeng Du
Magnetic circular dichroism utilizing electrons or X-rays serves as a powerful tool for the investigation of magnetism in ferromagnets, but antiferromagnets pose a severe challenge to the technique due to their vanishing net magnetization. Although transmission electron microscopy has demonstrated the atomic-scale characterization of antiferromagnetism using elastically scattered electrons, separating the weak magnetic signal from the dominant electrostatic background remains challenging, and applicability is largely limited to perfect crystals. Here we develop atomic-column-resolved electron magnetic circular dichroism to resolve antiferromagnetic order using a scanning transmission electron microscope. By exploiting chirality around individual magnetic atomic columns, we localize the magnetic circular dichroism signals around the transmitted electron beam with enhanced strength and signal-to-noise ratio, enabling atomic-column magnetic measurements. Applying this technique to antiferromagnets, we not only distinguish the characteristic G-type and C-type antiferromagnetic orderings in DyFeO3 and α-Fe2O3 but also identify a one-unit-cell-thick magnetic dead layer at the buried DyScO3-SmFeO3 interface. Our work establishes a readily accessible method for atomic-scale magnetic order mapping, with potential applications in fields such as interfacial magnetism, topological magnetism, antiferromagnetism and altermagnetism.
Characterization and analytical techniques, Microscopy
arXiv
Transient Thermodynamic Efficiency of Adaptive Inference in Continuously Nonstationary Environments
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Adaptive physical and biological systems continually process fluctuating information from their environments. When the environment is nonstationary, inference itself becomes a nonequilibrium process with thermodynamic cost. We analyse a minimal stochastic model which is an overdamped particle in an adaptive double well potential whose control parameter tracks a drifting Ornstein Uhlenbeck signal. Using stochastic energetics, we derive explicit expressions for entropy production, mutual information rate, and a time dependent learning efficiency. High precision Langevin simulations reveal transient peaks in learning efficiency during rapid environmental shifts, absent in steady state averages. These results identify transient adaptive regimes as moments of maximal information to energy conversion, highlighting that maximal thermodynamic learning performance arises transiently rather than in steady state. Throughout this work, the environment is treated as an externally driven stochastic signal rather than a thermodynamic subsystem under control, and its intrinsic entropy production is therefore excluded from the thermodynamic accounting.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
8 pages, 7 figures, 17 equations
Crossover and Critical Behavior in the Layered XY Model
New Submission | Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Roman Kracht, Andrea Trombettoni, Ilaria Maccari, Nicolò Defenu
Motivated by the interplay between 2D and 3D scaling signatures observed in unconventional layered superconductors, we present a systematic Monte Carlo study of the three-dimensional classical XY model with anisotropic in-plane $ J_\parallel$ and inter-plane $ J_\perp$ couplings. Our study includes very small values of the system anisotropy $ \Delta=J_\perp /J_\parallel$ not studied before, and focuses on characterizing the crossover from quasi-2D topological scaling to genuine 3D critical behavior. The numerical results for the critical temperature unambiguously reveal a logarithmic scaling with $ \Delta$ , directly related to the topological scaling in the 2D limit. Despite the 3D nature of the layered XY criticality, topological scaling signatures survive up to system sizes comparable to the crossover length $ \ell_J$ , which diverges at small $ \Delta$ with a scaling behavior reminiscent of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition. This shows that genuine 3D symmetry-breaking behavior emerges only at exceedingly large system sizes when the anisotropy is very strong. Our results indicate that new experimental evidence is required to clarify the extent to which the critical signatures observed in layered strongly correlated materials are shaped by their pronounced anisotropy.
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
9+8 pages, 5+8 figures; Supplemental material included
Logarithmic growth of operator entanglement in a clean non-integrable circuit
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
We study a so-called semi-ergodic brickwork dual-unitary circuits where, in the infinite volume limit, the two-point correlation functions of single-site operators exhibit ergodic behavior along one light ray and non-ergodic behavior along the other light ray. Here, however, we study intermediate and long-time dynamics of a system in a finite, large volume. Under such dynamics, the Heisenberg evolution of a single traceless single-site operator lies within a restricted subspace, and this time evolution can be mapped to a simpler problem of a single qutrit scattering with a bunch of qubits sequentially. Despite the model being non-integrable and free from any quenched disorder, the operator entanglement grows at most logarithmic in time, contrary to prior expectations. The auto-correlation function can be written in terms of a sum of products of $ SO(3)$ matrices, allowing for a random matrix prediction for the auto-correlation function at late times. The operator size distribution also becomes bimodal at certain times, displaying intermediate behavior between chaotic and free systems.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
Deciphering Molecular Charge Anisotropy: the Case of Antibody Solutions
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Fabrizio Camerin, Susana Marin-Aguilar, Anna Stradner, Peter Schurtenberger, Emanuela Zaccarelli
Electrostatic interactions fundamentally govern the structure, stability, and dynamics of charged (bio)matter, yet the impact of heterogeneous and anisotropic charge distributions on the behavior of protein solutions remains elusive. Here, we introduce a versatile multiscale framework that directly connects molecular-level electrostatics to collective properties via a colloid-inspired coarse-grained modeling combined with neural network-assisted optimization. Using monoclonal antibodies as model system, our inverse design approach identifies charge patterns capable of reliably reproducing experimental structure factors, osmotic compressibility and collective diffusion coefficients in a wide region of protein concentrations. Close inspection of our data further uncovers how specific physical features and spatial arrangements of localized charge patches significantly influence the solution structure. This transferable strategy provides a predictive pathway to decode and control charge-driven interactions in complex biomolecules and, more generally, in heterogeneously-charged soft matter systems, with immediate relevance to protein formulation and biomaterials engineering.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Applied Physics (physics.app-ph), Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph), Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph)
Tailoring Corner States and Exceptional Points in Altermagnets
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Xiao-Ming Zhao, Cui-Xian Guo, Xin-Ran Ma, Xiao-Ran Wang, Su-Peng Kou
Altermagnets (AMs) exhibit vanishing net magnetization but strong momentum-dependent spin splitting enforced by crystal symmetry. Here, we explore the non-Hermitian effects in dissipative two-dimensional AMs. We show that symmetry-compliant dissipation naturally induces an imaginary staggered exchange field, driving a NH topological phase transition absent in conventional antiferromagnets. In the topologically nontrivial phase, hybrid skin-topological modes driven by altermagnetic d-wave anisotropy emerge, as captured by the chiral skin effect framework. In the gapless phase, we elucidate the creation and annihilation dynamics of exceptional points. Crucially, we analytically prove via the transfer matrix method that corner states are deterministically controlled by the boundary sublattice termination. Owing to the symmetry constraints and the robustness of chiral states, these findings hold universally across all topological AMs. A general framework is established for controlling topological corner states, offering a new strategy for designing magnetic materials with tailored non-Hermitian properties.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Mathematical Physics (math-ph)
8 pages,5figures
Matrix Product States for Modulated Topological Phases: Crystalline Equivalence Principle and Lieb-Schultz-Mattis Constraints
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Shang-Qiang Ning, Hiromi Ebisu, Ho Tat Lam
Modulated symmetries are internal symmetries that act in a spatially non-uniform manner. Consequently, when a modulated symmetry $ G_{\text{int}}$ is combined with a spatial symmetry $ G_{\text{sp}}$ , the total symmetry group takes the form of a semidirect product $ G=G_{\text{int}}\rtimes G_{\text{sp}}$ . Using matrix product states, we classify topological phases protected by modulated symmetries together with spatial symmetries in one spatial dimension. We show that these modulated symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases are classified by $ H^{2}(G,U(1)_s)$ , in agreement with the crystalline equivalence principle, which states that SPT phases protected by symmetries involving spatial elements are in one-to-one correspondence with internal SPT phases protected by the same symmetries, viewed as acting internally. Furthermore, we provide a matrix product state derivation of the Lyndon-Hochschild-Serre spectral sequence for the corresponding internal SPT phases, which enables us to construct an explicit correspondence between modulated SPT phases and internal SPT phases. As applications of this classification, we prove a Lieb-Schultz-Mattis (LSM) theorem for modulated symmetries that forbids the existence of symmetric short-ranged entangled ground state, as well as an SPT-LSM constraint that enforces nontrivial entanglement in the SPT ground state. Finally, we use the classification to establish a similar LSM-type constraints for non-invertible Kramers-Wannier reflection symmetries.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th), Mathematical Physics (math-ph), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
19 pages, 2 figures
Electrically switchable ferron upconversion in a van der Waals ferroelectric
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Sujan Subedi, Wuzhang Fang, Fan Fei, Zixin Zhai, Jack P. Rollins, Carter Fox, Alaina Drew, Bing Lv, Yuan Ping, Jun Xiao
Nonlinear phononics provides a powerful ultrafast route to control lattice excitations, enabling access to hidden quantum orders, phononic computing, and quantum transduction. However, dynamic control of anharmonic phonon interactions remains limited, as these interactions are typically fixed by the equilibrium crystal lattice and lack external tunability. Emergent ferrons in ferroelectrics, which are collective oscillations of the spontaneous electric polarization, may offer a promising platform to overcome this limitation by combining intrinsic phononic nonlinearity with direct electrical control of the ferroelectric order parameter. Here we report electrically controllable nonlinear ferron upconversion in the van der Waals ferroelectric NbOI2. We show that resonant THz excitation of a 3.1 THz ferron drives coherent upconversion to a 7.0 THz optical phonon. Using two-dimensional THz spectroscopy, we directly resolve off-diagonal coupling features and establish the nonlinear upconversion pathway. Supported by first-principles calculations and analytical modeling, we identify the microscopic origin as a cubic anharmonic lattice coupling. Importantly, in situ electric-field switching enables nonvolatile control of both the ferron dynamics and the associated upconversion process. The phase reversal and hysteretic behavior across the coercive fields establish that the ferron-mediated nonlinear phononic interaction is strongly dependent on the underlying ferroelectric order parameter. These results introduce ferron upconversion as a new and universal regime of nonlinear phononics in ferroelectrics and establish an electrically programmable platform for coherent lattice control, paving the way for ferronic information processing and quantum phononic transduction.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
Programmable, Spontaneous Superlattice Memory in a Monolayer Topological Insulator
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Jian Tang, Thomas Siyuan Ding, Shuhan Ding, Jiangxu Li, Changjiang Yi, Tianxing Tang, Zumeng Huang, Xuehao Wu, Zhiheng Huang, Birender Singh, Tiema Qian, Vsevolod Belosevich, Mingyang Guo, Anyuan Gao, Nikolai Peshcherenko, Zhe Sun, Mohamed Shehabeldin, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Abhay N. Pasupathy, Claudia Felser, Kenneth S. Burch, Ni Ni, Yao Wang, Yang Zhang, Su-Yang Xu, Qiong Ma
Memory is a foundational concept across disciplines, from neurobiology and electronics to artificial intelligence and quantum gravity. In materials, memory effects typically arise from ferroic orders, such as ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism, where information is stored in charge or spin degrees of freedom. Here, we report a surprising discovery of a nonvolatile superlattice memory effect in monolayer TaIrTe4, a dual quantum spin Hall insulator, where information is encoded through sharply contrasting lattice periodicities. In particular, in a pristine monolayer, we observe the spontaneous emergence of a long-period superlattice that can be programmed ON and OFF in a nonvolatile manner by electrostatic tuning of low-energy electronic states. This switching toggles the system between two structural configurations with unit cell areas differing by nearly two orders of magnitude. Mechanistically, our results reveal two independent and distinct instabilities, one in the lattice and the other in the QSH electrons, which are coupled, leading to electrostatic control of lattice configurations with nonvolatile memory. This finding is enabled by combining linear and nonlinear transport measurements, Raman spectroscopy, and scanning tunneling microscopy, which probe complementary aspects of the underlying orders. Remarkably, this nonvolatile memory effect stabilizes a spontaneous superlattice with a periodicity on the few-nanometer scale that remains robust across a wide doping range, persists over days, and survives above 70 K. Combined with the QSH topology, this stability offers a promising route to nonvolatile memory control of topological flat bands and their filling enabled quantum states. Our preliminary data indeed show the emergence of new insulating states at fractional superlattice fillings, which can be clearly switched ON and OFF together with the superlattice.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
33 pages, 16 figures, submitted version
Dynamic scaling near the Kasteleyn transition in spin ice: critical relaxation of monopoles and strings following a field quench
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
We study dynamics in classical spin ice following a magnetic field quench to close to the Kasteleyn transition, using Monte Carlo simulations and dynamic scaling theory to characterize the relaxation of the magnetization and the density of magnetic monopoles. We have previously argued that this dynamics can be described in terms of seeding and growth of strings of flipped spins, and our results here demonstrate that a solvable stochastic model based on independent strings correctly describes the relaxation as well as the distribution of string lengths within the critical scaling regime near the transition. We also show how generalized scaling forms capture the behavior over a broader range of monopole densities and provide a clear understanding of the breakdown of the scaling picture further from the critical point.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
21 pages, 26 figures
Level 2.5 large deviations and uncertainty relations for self-interacting jump processes: tilting constructions and the emergence of time-scale separation
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Francesco Coghi, Juan P. Garrahan
Self-interacting jump processes (SIJPs) describe systems with non-Markovian stochastic dynamics in which transition rates depend on empirical observables of the process, which gives rise to long-range memory and feedback. We derive the ``level-2.5’’ large deviation (LD) principle governing the joint fluctuations of empirical occupation measure and the flux matrix for a broad class of SIJPs with general functional dependence on an empirical observable. The derivation is based on an exponential tilting construction and reveals a separation between a faster timescale of the microscopic dynamics and a slower timescale of the memory-driven evolution of transition rates, which is expressed through an exponentially discounted LD rate functional. Using this variational framework, we derive kinetic and thermodynamic uncertainty relations that extend classical Markovian bounds to non-Markovian systems, and illustrate their performance with simple examples.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Probability (math.PR)
19 pages, 5 figures
Sorting by Resetting
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
A novel paradigm for sorting is introduced, based upon resetting. Using simple examples, we demonstrate that sorting is achieved by resetting the velocity component(s) or orientation of the particles, rather than position. The objects to be sorted are microparticles, modeled as suspended and spatially extended Brownian particles. This sorting-by-resetting scheme illustrates that stochastic resetting can create non-equilibrium conditions which enable tasks forbidden at thermodynamic equilibrium.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
7 pages, 5 figures
Tailoring Emergent Magnetic Moment in La${0.7}$Sr${0.3}$MnO$_3$-Bi$_2$Te$_3$ Heterostructures via Interfacial Reconstructions
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Damian Brzozowskim, Yu Liu, Øyvind Finnseth, Egil Y. Tokle, Andrew J. Caruana, Christy J. Kinane, Alexander J. Grutter, Dennis G. Meier, Ingrid Hallsteinsen
We report emergent magnetic behavior in heterostructures composed of (111)-oriented La$ _{0.7}$ Sr$ _{0.3}$ MnO$ _3$ (LSMO) and (00$ l$ )-oriented Bi$ _2$ Te$ _3$ (BT), controlled by interfacial reconstructions. When BT is deposited directly onto LSMO, an intermediate interfacial layer forms between the two materials. Polarized Neutron Reflectometry modeling reveals that this reconstructed region stabilizes a secondary magnetically ordered phase that is coupled to the underlying ferromagnetic LSMO layer. As a consequence, the heterostructures exhibit unconventional self-crossing magnetic hysteresis loops at room temperature, characterized by a reversal of the net magnetization at low applied fields. In contrast, the introduction of a tellurium seed layer results in a sharper LSMO-BT interface, while preserving the anomalous hysteresis behavior and enhancing the saturation magnetization. Element-specific X-ray absorption spectroscopy suggests that the emergent magnetic phase originates from the chemical reconstruction of manganese species. These results demonstrate that interface engineering in magnetic oxide-topological insulator heterostructures provides a pathway to control emergent magnetic coupling and emergent magnetic states in oxide-topological insulator heterostructures.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
Spin transport analysis for a spin pseudovalve-type L_l/SC/L_r trilayer for L = {FeCr, Fe, Co, NiFe, Ni} and SC = {GaSb, InSb, InAs, GaAs, ZnSe}
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Julián A. Zúñiga, Arles V. Gil Rebaza, Diego F. Coral
In this work, we present a theoretical study of spin transport in a trilayer pseudospin-valve (PSV) heterostructure composed of electrode (L_l)/insulator/electrode (L_r). The insulating layer corrresponds to a semiconductor (SC) with a zinc-blende crystal structure from the III-V (GaSb, InSb, InAs, and GaAs) or the II-VI (ZnSe), while the electrodes are ferromagnetic materials L_j = {FeCr, Fe, Co, NiFe, Ni}. This combination yields 125 possible PSV configurations. The theoretical model implemented is based on the approach proposed by J. C. Slonczewski. In our approach, the exchange splitting in the ferromagnetic materials and the spin-orbit coupling (SOC) of the Dresselhaus and Rashba types in the semiconductors are included, allowing control of the wave vector associated with the spin states.
The tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) is calculated at low temperature as a function of the semiconductor thickness, parameterized with respect to the crystallographic axis that favors the magnetization direction in the ferromagnetic electrodes, within the Landauer–Büttiker formalism in the single-channel regime. The results show that the TMR reaches its maximum value independently of the relative orientation between the magnetization vector and the crystallographic direction. The most efficient configuration corresponds to Fe_{90}Cr_{10}/GaSb/Fe_{90}Cr_{10}, with a TMR value of 83.60%. Furthermore, the Dresselhaus SOC contributes more significantly to the TMR than the Rashba SOC. Finally, the TMR varies when the electrodes L_j are permuted, due to differences in their Fermi energies. The obtained results are compared with previous studies reported in the literature based on alternative theoretical frameworks or assumptions, showing good agreement.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
Auxetic Response in Two-Dimensional MXenes with Atomically Defined Perforations
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Recent advances in nanoscale fabrication enable atomic-scale manipulation of two-dimensional (2D) materials by introducing engineered pores and perforations. This provides new opportunities to tailor functional properties of 2D materials for applications such as selective ion transport, desalination membranes, and molecular filtration. Despite this progress, the auxetic mechanical behavior of perforated 2D materials has received little attention. In this work, large-scale reactive molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, validated against experimental measurements and first-principles calculations, are employed to investigate the mechanical response of perforated monolayer titanium-based MXene metamaterials. Architectures containing rectangular perforations with straight ligaments and sinusoidally curved ligaments are systematically examined under uniaxial tension and compression over a range of geometric parameters and temperatures, from the onset of deformation to fracture. The results demonstrate that MXene metamaterials exhibit a tunable negative Poisson’s ratio (NPR), which can be controlled through the perforation geometry and surface termination. Atomistic stress analysis reveals alternating in-plane shear stresses at the junctions that induce rotational deformation of the ligaments. This rotating-junction mechanism is coupled with out-of-plane deflections arising from the low bending rigidity of atomically thin materials, producing complex three-dimensional deformations. Comparison with graphene metamaterials indicates that the perforation geometry governs qualitative auxetic trends, whereas intrinsic material properties determine quantitative responses. These findings identify MXenes as a versatile candidate for the design of tunable 2D mechanical metamaterials and provide atomistic insight into the interplay between geometry, bending rigidity, and auxetic deformation mechanisms.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph)
Ultrastrong Coupling and Coherent Dynamics in a Gate-Tunable Transmon Qubit
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
I. Casal Iglesias, F. J. Matute-Cañadas, G. O. Steffensen, A. Ibabe, L. Splitthoff, T. Kanne, J. Nygard, V. Rollano, D. Granados, A. Gomez, R. Aguado, A. Levy Yeyati, E. J. H. Lee
Ultrastrong light-matter coupling (USC) gives access to exotic quantum phenomena and promises faster quantum gates, yet coherent time-domain control in this regime remains largely unexplored. Here, we realize USC in a hybrid system consisting of an InAs nanowire-based gatemon qubit coupled to a superconducting resonator. Spectroscopy reveals an avoided crossing that cannot be captured by the Jaynes-Cummings (JC) model, as well as photon-number-dependent transitions whose energies deviate markedly from the JC ladder expected in the strong coupling regime. Beyond demonstrating USC, we achieve time-resolved coherent control of the qubit and measure coherence times comparable to gatemons operating outside the USC regime. These results establish that hybrid semiconductor-superconductor qubits can retain coherent control in USC and provide a platform for exploring quantum dynamics and device concepts in this regime.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
7 pages, 6 figures
Energy renormalizations of resident carriers and excitons in transition metal dichalcogenide monolayers
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Dinh Van Tuan, Junghwan Kim, Hanan Dery
Energy renormalizations of resident carriers and excitons are studied theoretically, and compared with recent experiments of electrostatically-doped WSe$ _2$ monolayers. The calculated energy renormalization of resident carriers, subjected to strong out-of-plane magnetic field, reveals the importance of dynamical screening in transition metal dichalcogenides. The energy renormalization of tightly bound excitons is analyzed through the exchange interaction between the electron (or hole) component of the exciton and resident carriers that share the same spin and valley quantum numbers. Our theory explains the weak energy shift of excitonic resonances despite the strong energy renormalization of resident carriers. We identify the dependence of the energy renormalization on the envelope function of a tightly-bound exciton, showing that unlike free electron-hole pairs, this energy renormalization is not the added renormalizations of a resident electron and resident hole.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
13 pages, 8 figures. We welcome your feedback
Theoretical investigation of the photovoltaic properties of MgSnN$_{2}$ for multi-junction solar cells
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Issam Mahraj, Mossab Oublal, Andrzej Ptok
The orthorhombic crystal structure of the MgSnN$ _2$ compound with Pna2$ _1$ symmetry has been investigated as a low-cost, non-toxic material for photovoltaic (PV) applications using density functional theory (DFT) and spectroscopic limited maximum efficiency (SLME) calculations. A detailed analysis of the electronic and optical properties was performed using the mBJ semilocal exchange functional. The bandgap of MgSnN$ _2$ is found to be 2.45 eV. SLME photovoltaic analysis suggests that a thin film of MgSnN$ _2$ with a thickness of 2 $ \mu$ m can reach an efficiency of 13.17% at room temperature. This efficiency was further improved through the simulation of a multi-junction device, where the tandem configuration increased the efficiency from 12.80% (single-junction) to 22.42%. Furthermore, introducing cation disorder can further reduce the bandgap, enhancing its suitability for solar cell applications.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Physica B 713, 417261 (2025)
First principles characterization of spinterfaces between magnetic Cobaltocene molecule and 2D magnets (CrI$_3$, Fe$_3$GeTe$_2$)
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Nikola Machacova, Biplab Sanyal
In this paper, we examine the properties of spin-polarized interfaces consisting of single-molecule magnet bis(cyclopentadienyl)cobalt(II) (cobaltocene) and two-dimensional magnetic materials, semiconducting CrI$ _3$ and metallic Fe$ _3$ GeTe$ _2$ , using first-principles density functional theory based calculations. Our calculated adsorption energies indicate the stability of these hetero-interfaces with the observation of hybridization of electronic states across the interface. Magnetic exchange interaction parameters have been obtained from both total energy differences and the Liechtenstein-Katsnelson-Antropov-Gubanov (LKAG) formalism in the basis of maximally localized Wannier functions (MLWFs). Analysis of these parameters shows a strong directional anisotropy in the magnetic substrate-molecule interaction in agreement with the nature of orbital hybridization. Additionally, possible exchange mechanisms are proposed based on orbital-resolved exchange and hopping parameters. We also show that the molecular adsorption may enhance the intralayer exchange interactions, with some exchange parameters reaching up to a 3-fold increase in magnitude compared to the freestanding case. Finally, we observe a 100 % spin polarization at the Fermi level in the cobaltocene/CrI$ _3$ interface, which makes it particularly promising for spin-transport applications.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
11 pages, 7 figures
Quantum transfer in high-root topological insulators
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
G. F. Moreira, A. Lykholat, R. G. Dias, A. M. Marques
This paper focuses on the quantum state transfer in a one-dimensional (1D) high-root topological insulator (HRTI) with an arbitrary number of domains. We present the possibility of having multiple transfer processes in the same model due to the existence of various edge states in distinct energy gaps, which may benefit recent (de)multiplexing technologies. We also derived the relations between transfer times of different root models and different gaps in the same model. We show how the exponential decay in transfer time caused by the fragmentation of a parent chain into domains can be generalized to its higher-root versions while maintaining a high transfer fidelity, and how the increasing number of domain wall states leads to a higher transfer fidelity against a general disorder regime due to the topological protection inherited from the parent model.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
11 pages, 14 figures
Non-collinear ferromagnetism in the Kondo lattice Ce$_5$CoGe$_2$
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Jinyu Wu, Jiawen Zhang, Toni Shiroka, Shams Sohel Islam, Mingyi Wang, Yongjun Zhang, Devashibhai T. Adroja, Yu Liu, Huiqiu Yuan, Michael Smidman
The dense Kondo lattice Ce$ _5$ CoGe$ _2$ exhibits superconductivity once the magnetic ordering is suppressed by pressure. Here the ambient pressure magnetic state is investigated via magnetization, heat capacity, powder neutron diffraction, and muon spin relaxation ($ \mu$ SR) measurements. Neutron diffraction results reveal a noncollinear ferromagnetic structure, where the four inequivalent Ce sites exhibit different magnetic moments. Point-charge model calculations of the crystalline-electric field (CEF) ground states corroborate different moments between the sites, and suggest sizeable components of the moments along different directions, consistent with the non-collinear structure. Analysis of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction for the bonds connecting Ce atoms demonstrates that most of these bonds exhibit a nonzero DM vector, suggesting that competition between intersite magnetic exchange interactions, CEF driven single-ion anisotropy, the Kondo effect and the DM interaction may drive the non-collinear ferromagnetism.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
11 pages, 6 figures
The effect of interactions on elastic cavitation
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Ali Saeedi, S Chockalingam, Mrityunjay Kothari
Cavitation refers to the sudden, unstable expansion of a defect or cavity within a material in response to applied loads, when the loads reach a critical threshold. It is widely recognized as a common failure nucleation mechanism in soft and biological materials. For an isolated cavity in the bulk of an incompressible neo-Hookean solid loaded by remote hydrostatic tension, the classical cavitation pressure is well established as $ 2.5 \mu$ , where $ \mu$ is the shear modulus. However, in realistic settings the cavitation threshold is influenced by interaction of the cavity with nearby interfaces and other cavities. Interface interaction effects are particularly relevant in multi-material systems and additively manufactured structures, where defects frequently occur near material boundaries. Meanwhile, cavity-cavity interactions become important in materials exhibiting finite porosity, such as foams, porous solids, and phase-separating polymers.
Here, we characterize the effect of interactions on cavitation pressure for (i) a nearby rigid interface and (ii) a neighboring identical cavity. For cavities near a rigid interface, our analysis shows that the cavitation pressure increases as the initial cavity-interface distance decreases, starting from the bulk value for a distant cavity and approaching the cavitation pressure value for a defect situated at an interface ($ \approx3.5\mu$ ) as the cavity approaches the interface boundary. In contrast, interacting cavities exhibit a non-monotonic dependence of the cavitation pressure on the initial inter-cavity distance $ d$ : the threshold approaches the bulk value of $ 2.5\mu$ for distant cavities and reaches a maximum of $ \sim2.8\mu$ at $ d\sim5.7R$ , where $ R$ is the initial cavity radius.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
Discontinuous change of viscosity in a sheared granular gas with velocity-dependent restitution
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Makoto R. Kikuchi, Yuria Kobayashi, Satoshi Takada
We investigate the rheology of a sheared granular gas composed of hard spheres with a velocity-dependent restitution coefficient. Using kinetic theory, we derive the shear viscosity and show that it exhibits an S-shaped dependence on the shear rate when the restitution coefficient switches between two values depending on the collision velocity. As a result, a discontinuous change of viscosity emerges between low- and high-shear regimes, both characterized by Bagnold-type scaling. While the phenomenology resembles the Wyart-Cates scenario for dense suspensions, the present transition arises purely from kinetic effects without frictional contacts or jamming.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
5 pages, 4 figures
Realizing giant valley polarization effect based on monolayer altermagnets
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Weifeng Xie, Libo Wang, Xiong Xu, Yunliang Yue, Huayan Xia, Longhui He, Hui Wang
Stable and remarkable valley polarization effect is the key to utilizing valley degree of freedom in valleytronic devices. According to first-principles calculations and symmetry analysis, we reveal that valley polarization effect in monolayer V2Se2O altermagnet is correlated with the net magnetic moment between magnetic V atoms under uniaxial strain, thereby proposing two strategies for achieving giant valley polarization effect. Firstly, substituting one V atom in V2Se2O with Cr to construct a ferrimagnetic monolayer VCrSe2O enhances the net magnetic moment between magnetic atoms, thereby realizing a giant valley polarization effect. Applying uniaxial strain along either the a-axis or b-axis significantly increases the value of valley polarization, which exhibits a nearly linear relationship with the net magnetic moments between the magnetic atoms. Secondly, constructing a van der Waals heterostructure composed of V2Se2O and {\alpha}-SnO monolayers breaks mirror symmetry, thereby inducing a net magnetic moment, which in turn causes a remarkable valley polarization effect. Compressing the interlayer distance of the heterostructure can increase the net magnetic moment between V atoms, then enhancing the value of valley polarization to nearly 400 meV. This work reveals that valley polarization in monolayer altermagnet is correlated with the net magnetic moment between magnetic atoms. Finally, we propose two strategies to achieve giant valley polarization based on monolayer altermagnets, providing theoretical guidance for the potential applications of ferrimagnetic monolayers and altermagnet-based heterostructures in valleytronics.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
19 pages, 7 figures
Acta Phys. Sin., 2025, 74(22): 227502
Continuous crossover between high-pressure ice phases VII and X driven by monopole screening: a model study
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Sena Watanabe, Yukitoshi Motome, Haruki Watanabe
The proton-disordered molecular phase of water ice (ice-VII) and its ultrahigh-pressure non-molecular phase (ice-X) share identical macroscopic crystal symmetry (space group $ Pn\bar{3}m$ ). This raises a fundamental thermodynamic question: are they distinct phases separated by a singularity, or are they adiabatically connected via a continuous crossover? To resolve this paradox, we investigate the finite-temperature phase diagram of high-pressure ices VII and X, as well as VIII, the proton-ordered phase that emerges at lower temperatures, using an effective classical spin-$ 1$ Blume-Capel model on the pyrochlore lattice. Through Monte Carlo simulations, we demonstrate that within this model, the transformation between the states corresponding to ice-VII and ice-X lacks a thermodynamic singularity, as characterized by non-divergent and non-coinciding peaks in the specific heat and susceptibility associated with the $ S^z=0$ occupation. We attribute this continuous crossover behavior to the topological fragility of the hydrogen-bond network: the thermal proliferation of point-like monopole excitations (violations of the ice rules) induces Debye-Hückel screening of the emergent gauge field, destroying the topological Coulomb phase at any finite temperature. In contrast, the destruction of the proton-ordered ice-VIII phase involves spontaneous symmetry breaking and remains a first-order phase transition. Our findings provide a microscopic rationale that reconciles the macroscopic crystallographic symmetries of dense ice with its underlying topological properties.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
11 pages, 5 figures
Magnetic anisotropy from interligand hopping in strongly correlated insulators: application to the magnon spectrum of CrI$_3$
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Evgenii Barts, Paolo Barone, Maxim Mostovoy
Spin-orbit coupling (SOC) gives rise to complex magnetic states such as spin liquids, skyrmion crystals, and topological spin-wave excitations. We consider exchange interactions in multi-orbital Mott insulators where SOC is strong on ligand ions. SOC on the ligands enables electron hopping accompanied by spin flips and fluctuations in the orbital state of the ligand hole. These processes generate anisotropic exchange interactions and greatly increase the number of possible exchange paths. The number grows further with the inclusion of hopping between ligands, which mediates interactions between more distant spins. We propose an effective method to calculate exchange interactions at arbitrary separations between spins. Applying it to monolayer CrI$ _3$ , we obtain anisotropic interactions between nearest-neighbor and next-nearest-neighbor Cr spins, as well as single-ion anisotropy induced by long-range hopping. In this material, magnetic anisotropy stabilizes long-range ferromagnetic order and opens a magnon gap at the Dirac points, which defines a nontrivial magnon band topology. Using Hubbard model parameters from first-principles calculations, the resulting spectrum agrees well with the spin-wave dispersion observed experimentally in bulk CrI$ _3$ , except that the calculated Dirac gap is much smaller.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Coherent canted ferrimagnetism and higher-order anisotropy in the nodal-line magnetic semiconductor Mn3Si2Te6
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Chang-woo Cho, Beomtak Kang, Ildo Choi, Jitae Gwak, Jisung Lee, Seung-Young Park, Seyoung Kwon, Sungkyun Park, Joonyoung Choi, Younjung Jo, Benjamin A. Piot, Jun Sung Kim
The interplay between magnetic order and electronic topology in van der Waals materials enables extreme responses to external stimuli. The nodal-line semiconductor Mn3Si2Te6 exemplifies this, exhibiting colossal angular magnetoresistance (CAMR) where resistivity changes by orders of magnitude upon rotating the magnetic field. While this phenomenon implies a profound coupling between spin orientation and charge transport, the microscopic magnetic potentials driving spin orientations remain elusive. Here, we combine thermodynamic torque magnetometry and electron spin resonance spectroscopy to reconstruct the magnetic anisotropy energy that controls magnetization rotation in Mn3Si2Te6. We show that low-temperature ground state is a coherent canted ferrimagnet stabilized by competing second- (K1) and fourth-order (K2) magnetic anisotropy. Crucially, torque requires a substantial symmetry-allowed sixth-order term (K3), which provides near-plane stiffness and sustains canting at high fields. Using the resulting anisotropy parameters, we compute the non-linear relation between field angle {\theta}_H and magnetization angle {\theta}_M and reparameterize CAMR in terms of {\theta}_M, providing a concrete magnetic basis for how sharp angular transport features can emerge near the in-plane configuration.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
Influence of oxygen ion implantation on magnetic microstructure in Pt/Co/Pt multilayers with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Anmol Sharma, Mukul Gupta, Prasanta Karmakar, V. Raghavendra Reddy, Vivek K. Malik, Andrei Gloskovskii, Ranjeet Kumar Brajpuriya, Ajay Gupta, Vishakha Kaushik, Sachin Pathak
The interaction of oxygen with cobalt and cobalt-based alloys has been a very important topic in the field of spintronics as it leads to enhanced orbital anisotropy and interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI), which are crucial in the context of applications such as magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) based data storage and domain wall (DW) motion. To understand the complex and interesting relationship between oxygen and ferromagnetic (FM)/heavy metal (HM) interfaces, we studied controlled oxygen ion implantation in a cobalt layer located in a Pt/Co 1.2 /Pt (nm) multilayer with a specific structure. At high implantation fluence, the perpendicular anisotropy was lost, as verified by in-plane hysteresis measurements. Under low magnetic field conditions, the DW dynamics of Co/Pt multilayers were analyzed, highlighting key parameters such as DW velocity, roughness amplitude, and roughness exponent. After O+-ion implantation, the DW velocity increased by more than 50 times, rising from 5 um/s to 300 um/s compared with the as-deposited multilayer. The fundamental cause of this improvement is the structural and magnetic changes brought by the implantation, which successfully lower the energy barriers preventing DW movements. The results show how oxygen implantation can be used to precisely tailor the ferromagnetic interfaces, leading to promised improvements in the functionality of next-generation spintronic devices.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
17 pages and 5 figures
Helicity-Selective Phonon Absorption and Phonon-Induced Spin Torque from Interfacial Spin-Lattice Coupling
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
In magnetic heterostructures with broken inversion symmetry, the Rashba effect gives rise to a gradient-free interaction between magnons and phonons, which we term interfacial spin-lattice coupling. Here, we investigate the dynamic consequences of this interfacial coupling in ferromagnetic heterostructures. By expressing the interaction in terms of circular variables for magnetization and lattice displacement, we reveal a direct interface-induced helicity-helicity coupling hat does not rely on lattice deformation gradients. Consequently, it leads to helicity-dependent phonon absorption, enabling in-plane acoustic waves to exert a spin torque on the magnetization, which becomes dominant in thin magnetic films. Our findings highlight the crucial, yet overlooked, role of inversion-asymmetric interfaces in angular-momentum conversion between spin and lattice, opening up possibilities for efficient phonon-driven magnetic devices that are enabled by interface engineering.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
9 pages and 8 figures
Commensurate moiré superlattices in anisotropically strained twisted bilayer graphene
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Ayan Mondal, Bheema Lingam Chittari
We investigate how anisotropic strain reorganizes commensurate moiré superlattices and electronic structure in twisted bilayer graphene across a finite range of twist angles. Motivated by experiments demonstrating robust magic angle phenomenology under angular disorder and heterostrain, we construct exact commensurate moiré supercells generated by general anisotropic strain applied to the top graphene layer. At fixed effective moiré deformation, with particular focus on the $ \pm 6.008^\circ$ twist angle, we uncover two distinct and symmetry inequivalent commensurate geometries: tilted two dimensional moiré superlattices and quasi one dimensional stripe like patterns. Anisotropic strain qualitatively reshapes the low energy band structure by reducing the number of Dirac points in the moiré Brillouin zone, leading to sharply different electronic and magnetic field responses in these regimes. Strikingly, tilted two dimensional structures near pristine angles preserve bandwidths and AA region localization comparable to the unstrained case, providing a natural explanation for the persistence of magic angle physics over a finite distortion window, whereas quasi one dimensional moiré patterns exhibit dimensional reduction and immediate Hofstadter butterfly splitting at infinitesimal magnetic fields. Our results identify anisotropic strain as a unifying geometric mechanism controlling commensurate moiré physics beyond the pristine twist angle limit.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Effects of Divalent Cations on Diffusion Dynamics of Biological Water Confined between Lipid Membranes
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Minho Lee, Jinwon Park, Ji-Hyun Kim, Minhaeng Cho, Jaeyoung Sung
Biological water is an ionic solution containing both monovalent and divalent ions. However, the effects of divalent ions on the dynamics of biological water remain largely unknown. Here, we investigate how the transport dynamics of water molecules nanoconfined between lipid membranes depends on the concentration of calcium (Ca2+) and magnesium (Mg2+) ions by using molecular dynamics simulations and the generalized transport equation for biological water. We find that the diffusion coefficient of biological water monotonically increases with Ca2+ ion concentration but exhibits a largely opposite, non-monotonic dependence on Mg2+ concentration. The deviation of the water molecules’ displacement distribution from the Gaussian also shows distinct dependence on the concentrations of Mg2+ and Ca2+. These contrasting behaviors originate from the different hydration radii of these divalent ions and their distinct effects on the interfacial structure and dynamics of biological water. The relaxation of the lateral displacement distribution of water molecules toward a Gaussian is determined by the time-correlation function of diffusion coefficient fluctuations, whose relaxation time increases with salt concentrations. The primary source of the lateral diffusion coefficient fluctuation is thermal motion of water molecules in the longitudinal direction, along which microscopic environments surrounding a water molecule, including the functional groups of lipid membrane and ion concentrations, drastically change.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
Flying qubits Surfing on Plasmons
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
The rapid emergence of flying qubits in graphene and other low-dimensional conductors is pushing quantum electronics into an ultrafast regime where conventional transport theories no longer apply. In these systems, single-electron wave packets propagate coherently over micrometer scales while interacting with collective charge excitations on comparable time scales. Yet existing theoretical frameworks describe either fermionic single-particle dynamics or bosonic plasmonic modes, without reconciling the two. Here we introduce a unified theory of dynamical quantum transport that bridges this long-standing divide. Starting from a gauge-invariant scattering approach, we show how a time-dependent single-electron excitation self-consistently generates a propagating internal potential that behaves as a collective plasmonic mode. Electrons propagate at the Fermi velocity while simultaneously ‘surfing’ on this self-induced plasmon wave, whose velocity is renormalized by Coulomb interactions and screening. This dynamical mean-field framework captures photon-assisted transport, charge relaxation, and edge magnetoplasmon dynamics within a single description and remains valid far beyond the low-frequency limit. By unifying single-electron and plasmonic pictures, our results provide a timely foundation for the interpretation and control of flying-qubit experiments in graphene at gigahertz/terahertz frequencies.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
Modelling the passive and active response of skeletal muscles within the adapted Voigt representation framework
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Sara Galasso, Giulio G. Giusteri
We present a constitutive model for the passive and active response of skeletal muscles. At variance with more classical approaches, the model is developed exploiting adapted Voigt representations of strain and stress tensors within the context of nonlinear Cauchy elasticity. This framework allows us to identify non-trivial stress-strain relations in a rather direct way from experimental data, enhancing the mechanical interpretability of the material functions that describe the tissue response and obtaining additional insight on the distinct role of the contractile fibres and of the surrounding extracellular matrix. We propose a two-material model, with an additive splitting of the stress contributions, in which only one component depends on an activation parameter. The constitutive model for the passive behaviour satisfactorily predicts the nonlinear stress response to elongation at different relative orientations with respect to the fibre direction and highlights the dominant role of the extracellular matrix. The activation model, essentially determined by the mechanics of the contractile fibres, captures well the isometric stress response through the prescription of an elasto-plastic evolution of the along-fibre active strain.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Tissues and Organs (q-bio.TO)
25 pages, 7 figures
Twist-Tuned Magnonic Nanocavity Mode in a Trilayer Moiré Superlattice
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Tianyu Yang, Gianluca Gubbiotti, Marco Madami, Haiming Yu, Jilei Chen
The concept of moiré superlattices has recently been introduced into the field of magnonics, enabling unprecedented control over spin-wave propagation and confinement in nanoscale magnonic devices. In this work, we report a numerical investigation on the nanocavity in a trilayer magnetic moiré superlattice structure consisting of antidot lattices. By tuning the middle layer twist angle, high tunability of the magnonic band structure can be achieved with characteristic flat bands and the corresponding nanocavity mode formation in outer layers. At an optimal twist angle of 3 deg, excitation at the flat band frequency yields nanocavity mode with linewidth of 175 nm. In contrast to its bilayer counterpart, the trilayer magnonic moiré superlattice exhibits antiphase nanocavity modes in the outer layers while showing no nanocavity formation in the middle layer. Our study indicates that the switching and distribution of the nanocavity modes can be governed by tuning the middle layer twist angle with a strong magnon intensity confinement. The trilayer magnonic moiré structure holds a distinct advantage in tunability, which opens up new avenues for the design of future moiré magnonic devices.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
Magnon-Driven Anomalous Hall Effect in Altermagnets
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
We propose a magnon-driven anomalous Hall effect in altermagnets, arising from the coupling between coherently excited chiral magnons and chiral electronic motion. Using density-matrix perturbation theory and symmetry analysis, we show that the resulting Hall conductivity is solely determined by the chiralithy of the Néel-order precession, in sharp contrast to the anomalous Hall effect from the equilibrium Néel order. It then has distinct symmetry requirements from the latter and can exist even when the latter is forbidden by symmetry. The magnon-driven anomalous Hall effect is exemplified in a minimal lattice model with the same symmetry of the altermagnet CrSb, which hosts no static anomalous Hall effect. Our results reveal a direct interplay between chiral magnons and chiral electronic motion, paving the way of probing magnon chirality and to control electronic chirality through magnons.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Spin subdiffusion in perturbed infinite-U Hubbard chain
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Jakub Rękas, Marcin Mierzejewski, Zala Lenarčič, Peter Prelovšek
The $ t$ -model represents the Hubbard model in the limit $ U \to \infty$ and is one of the basic models of strongly correlated electrons. On a one-dimensional chain, the model is integrable, and the charge dynamics corresponds to that of free spinless fermions. However, the sequence of spins is frozen, leading to the Hilbert space fragmentation and nontrivial spin dynamics. We consider integrable and perturbed models with perturbations that break integrability while preserving fragmentation, and show that they exhibit various types of spin dynamics, from ballistic transport to anomalous diffusion in the integrable case, and from diffusion to subdiffusion in the perturbed case. Due to fragmentation, in all cases considered, spin transport is mediated by charge transport, with a particular magnetization dependence, most notably leading to subdiffusion in the grandcanonical average of the perturbed model, with a mechanism distinct from subdiffusion in disordered or dipole-conserving models.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
9 pages
Increasing valley splitting in Si/SiGe by practically achievable heterostructure profiles
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Lukas Cvitkovich, Peter Stano, Dominique Bougeard, Yann-Michel Niquet, Daniel Loss
Silicon spin qubits are marred by the valley degeneracy of the conduction band. In a nanodevice, the degeneracy is lifted by interfaces and alloy disorder, but the arising valley splitting is small, of order 100 $ \mu$ eV in Si/SiGe quantum wells. Substantial efforts were invested both in theory and experiments to overcome the valley issue. Unfortunately, the existing recipes either rely on atomistic details of the interface that are beyond experimental control, or demand heterostructure profiles beyond current state-of-the-art heterostructure epitaxy. We revisit the valley splitting induced by non-trivial Ge profiles and advocate a novel view of the intervalley coupling as a backscattering on point-like impurities realized by crystal planes containing Ge atoms. This perspective reveals that enhancing the backscattering amplitude, which sets the valley splitting, requires constructive interference of multiple scatterers. % We arrive at a remarkable prediction, that the Ge content along the heterostructure growth direction does not have to have any specific periodicity, including the practically unreachable $ 2\pi/(2k_0)$ period, to significantly increase the valley splitting. This statement is corroborated with numerical evidence from tight-binding simulations and intuitive physical interpretations. We devise profiles that seem within the capabilities of current MBE growth techniques and boost the valley splitting beyond the 1,meV scale.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
26 pages, 11 appendices, 18 figures
Ellipticity-Controlled Bright-Dark Coherence Transition in Monolayer WSe2
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Kang Lan, Xiangji Cai, Zhongxiao Man, Shijie Xie, Ning Hao, Ping Zhang, Jiyong Fu
The generation of exciton valley coherence typically requires linearly polarized (LP) light as an external coherent drive, whereas circularly polarized (CP) light fails to induce coherence. Here, we develop a unified, microscopically-grounded open-quantum-system framework within a five-level model incorporating bright-dark exciton interactions in monolayer WSe2, and demonstrate that the polarization ellipticity of the excitation field provides selective control over distinct exciton species contributing to valley coherence. Specifically, LP and CP excitations generate bright and dark coherence, respectively, with continuous ellipticity tuning enabling controlled transitions between these states. We further reveal dual magnetic advantages for manipulating dark coherence even in the absence of initial coherence: (i) an out-of-plane magnetic field suppresses coherence decay and (ii) an in-plane field enables its optical readout, with quantitatively realistic field strengths. These findings provide a powerful mechanism for accessing hidden dark states via ellipticity-driven coherence transfer, and establish a new pathway for harnessing bright-dark valley-coherence transitions in future quantum control.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
7 pages, 4 figures
Amorphous Silicates – Time-Current Superposition and the Dynamics of Plastic Flow in the Glassy State
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Matthieu Bourguignon, Gustavo A. Rosales-Sosa, Yoshinari Kato, Sergio Sao-Joao, Morgan Rusinowicz, Guillaume Kermouche, Etienne Barthel
Electron irradiation enables quantitative control over the plastic flow dynamics of silicate glasses, even far below the glass transition temperature. Through stress-relaxation experiments spanning ambient to near-glass-transition temperatures, we uncover a time-current equivalence that grants direct access to steady-state plastic flow over five decades in strain rate. This equivalence allows reconstruction of the intrinsic plastic-flow curve and quantitative assessment of the roles of network connectivity and temperature. Notably, the observed temperature dependence reveals a striking discrepancy with existing theoretical frameworks, highlighting the need for a comprehensive model of plastic flow dynamics in the glassy state.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
First-principle study of the influence of hydroxyapatite on magnesium surfaces
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Anthony Veit Berg, Ablai Forster, Tim Hansson, Alexandra J. Jernstedt, Emmy Salminen, Elsebeth Schröder
Hydroxyapatite (HA) on a magnesium (Mg) surface is studied using density functional theory, to help understand the effect of HA coating and alloying in the surfaces of Mg-based biodegradable implants. We determine the adsorption energies and structural changes of a single layer of HA on pure Mg(0001) and on sparsely calcium (Ca) or zinc (Zn) doped Mg(0001) and find that both Zn and Ca doping improves the adsorption, except in a few positions of HA relative to the dopant position. All adsorption configurations, whether with pure or doped Mg surfaces, show deformation of the surface and HA layer. For Ca doping, we found that for a certain adsorption configuration, the dopant Ca atom moves out of the Mg surface and into the HA layer, leaving behind a Mg vacancy in the top layer of the Mg surface. Plots of electron density changes show that electrons accumulate around the Ca dopant and the neighboring Mg atoms, while in Zn doping this is less pronounced. Overall, our results demonstrate that the dopant choice and relative position of HA influence the interaction between HA and Mg-surfaces, and affect both adsorption energies and atomic and electronic structures.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph), Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph)
12 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables
Starvation suppression in scale-free metabolic networks: Dynamical mean-field analysis of dense catalytic reaction networks
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Kota Mitsumoto, Shuji Ishihara
Cellular metabolic networks exhibit scale-free topologies with power-law degree distributions across diverse organisms. Although such topologies are often linked to mutational robustness and evolutionary advantage, their role in metabolic dynamics remains unclear. Using dynamical mean-field theory, we derive an exact solution for an intracellular catalytic reaction model on dense random networks with arbitrary degree distributions. We show that the metabolic-starvation transition observed under nutrient-poor conditions for homogeneous degree distributions disappears when the out-degree distribution is scale-free. We also show that the power-law distribution of biomolecular abundances observed in real cells reflects the power-law in-degree distribution of the underlying catalytic reaction network. Large-scale numerical simulations validate these predictions. Our results provide a theoretical framework linking network topology and metabolic dynamics, and identify a dynamical advantage of scale-free topology under nutrient limitation.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn), Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems (nlin.AO), Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph)
17 pages, 6 figures
Anatomy of the modern theory of orbital magnetism from first-principles: term-by-term analysis in the gauge-covariant formalism
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Hojun Lee, Insu Baek, Mirco Sastges, Yuriy Mokrousov, Hyun-Woo Lee, Dongwook Go
We present an in-depth analysis of the orbital magnetism by means of the so-called modern theory based on the Berry phase across distinct classes of materials-d transition metals, sp metals, and transition metal dichalcogenides-highlighting the microscopic nature of band structure characteristics. We adopt a gauge-covariant formulation of the modern theory proposed in [Lopez et al. Phys. Rev. B 85, 014435 (2012)], which enables the calculation of orbital magnetism in a controlled manner in any chosen gauge of Wannier functions and gives the total contribution as a gauge-invariant measurable. This captures consistently the contributions due to the anomalous position, velocity, and orbital angular momentum of Wannier basis, as well as the contributions due to Hamiltonian such that their sum is gauge-invariant. For d transition metals, we find that the atom-centered approximation captures the majority of the total contribution given by modern theory, which we attribute to localized nature of d electrons. However, 5d metals tend to exhibit larger deviation between the two methods than 3d metals do, as 5d electrons are more delocalized than 3d electrons. On the other hand, sp metals exhibit a strong deviation between the two methods, where large kinetic energy of sp electrons is important. Finally, in 1H-MoS2, we find that the valley orbital moment far exceeds the atomic limit of d electrons due to coherent hybridization between valence and conduction bands in direct band gaps. Our work elucidates the interplay of the chemical nature of electronic orbitals and the effect of band structures in a consistent manner and highlights the role of Berry phase in orbital magnetism. The results suggest a promising direction of orbitronics beyond controlling atomic orbitals, in which the orbital magnetism can be greatly enhanced by exploiting Berry phase.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
34 pages, 12 figures
Theory of x-ray scattering from optically pumped excitons in atomically thin semiconductors
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Joris Sturm, Andrei Benediktovitch, Nina Rohringer, Andreas Knorr
We propose a framework to explore the internal charge distribution of mesoscopic quasiparticles by inelastic x-ray scattering, while also accounting for the conventional scattering from electrons. Specifically, we investigate a new contribution of intrinsic and optically pumped excitons (bound electron-hole pairs) to the x-ray scattering spectrum of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs). The optical excitation leads to the creation of Wannier exciton populations, adding new quasi-elastic processes beyond the conventional electronic features to the x-ray scattering spectra. Differential spectra (with and without optical pumping) can be used to isolate and identify the internal charge distribution of the optically pumped excitons in the scattering response, potentially offering insights into many-body interactions and quasi-particle dynamics in 2D systems.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
Pareto fronts and trade-off relations from exact multi-objective optimization of thermal machines
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
José A. Almanza-Marrero, Édgar Roldán, Gonzalo Manzano
Thermal machines are physical systems that, when fueled by input energy, perform output tasks such as heat pumping or the production of work. Their performance is characterized with several, often competing quantities, such as power, efficiency, energy waste, and resilience to environmental noise. Multi-objective optimization provides a key tool to investigate the characterization of the best thermal machines operating in the irreversible linear-response regime. Here, we derive exact analytical parameterizations for the optimal (Pareto) fronts associated with any given choice of relative weights assigned to their mean extracted power $ P$ , efficiency $ \eta$ , entropy production $ \Sigma$ and the amplitude of power fluctuations $ \sigma^2_P$ . The geometry of the front of endoreversible machines is universal: two-, three-, and four-objective trade-offs follow analytical formulae that do not depend on the value of any physical parameter of the machine. We show that such universal thermodynamic Pareto fronts also set quantitative fundamental limits for the performance of non-endoreversible machines. Furthermore, we demonstrate that our results apply to existing experimental data from different physical systems also beyond the linear regime, ranging from atomic to macroscopic scales, including single-atom engines, colloidal systems, macroscopic engines and power plants.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
15+11 pages, 3 figures
Macroscopic Mpemba Effect from Cumulative-Heat-Enhanced Relaxation
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Yun-Qian Lin, Z. C. Tu, Yu-Han Ma
The counterintuitive Mpemba effect, wherein a hotter system cools faster, critically lacks a universal macroscopic theory. Here, starting from linear irreversible thermodynamics, we formulate a generalized Newton’s cooling law for the system-reservoir temperature difference $ \Delta T$ , given by $ \mathrm{d}\Delta T/\mathrm{d}t = -[\gamma_0 + \mathcal{M}Q(t)][\Delta T - \mathcal{I}Q(t)]$ , where $ \gamma_0$ is the bare relaxation rate, and the cumulative heat exchange $ Q(t)$ explicitly encodes initial-state memory. The coefficients $ \mathcal{M}$ and $ \mathcal{I}$ , arising from the interplay between heat flux and structural evolution, govern diverse anomalous relaxation behaviors. Specifically, $ \mathcal{M} > 0$ ($ \mathcal{M} < 0$ ) induces the (inverse) Mpemba effect, while $ \mathcal{I}$ imposes a non-vanishing asymptotic $ \Delta T$ , predicting incomplete thermalization. Our findings capture the full spectrum of memory-dependent relaxation, bridging kinetic speedup with structural freezing in complex systems.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Classical Physics (physics.class-ph), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
Bringing Mpemba research back to the macroscopic world. Never forget the original inquiry, and the ultimate truth shall be reached
A Federated Many-to-One Hopfield model for associative Neural Networks
New Submission | Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Andrea Alessandrelli, Fabrizio Durante, Andrea Ladiana, Andrea Lepre
Federated learning enables collaborative training without sharing raw data, but struggles under client heterogeneity and streaming distribution shifts, where drift and novel data can impair convergence and cause forgetting. We propose a federated associative-memory framework that learns shared archetypes in heterogeneous, continual settings, where client data are independent but not necessarily balanced. Each client encodes its experience as a low-rank Hebbian operator, sent to a central server for aggregation and factorization into global archetypes. This approach preserves privacy, avoids centralized replay buffers, and is robust to small, noisy, or evolving datasets. We cast aggregation as a low-rank-plus-noise spectral inference problem, deriving theoretical thresholds for detectability and retrieval robustness. An entropy-based controller balances stability and plasticity in streaming regimes. Experiments with heterogeneous clients, drift, and novelty show improved global archetype reconstruction and associative retrieval, supporting the spectral view of federated consolidation.
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn), Machine Learning (stat.ML)
DSC curve fingerprints directly encode mechanical properties of aluminum alloys
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Lukas Pichlmann, Samuel Studer, Aurel R. Arnoldt, Paul Oberhauser, Johannes A. Österreicher
Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) is a standard tool for studying precipitation and phase transformations in aluminum alloys, yet its relation to mechanical performance has so far remained mostly indirect. Here, we demonstrate that DSC curves themselves act as fingerprints that directly encode mechanical properties. Four representative 6xxx series alloys (Al-Mg-Si) were subjected to different natural and artificial aging regimens, followed by DSC heat-flow measurements and tensile testing. Machine learning models trained on the thermograms predicted yield strength, ultimate tensile strength, and uniform elongation in five-fold grouped cross-validation, with the best model (Lasso) achieving R^2 values of 0.93, 0.86, and 0.87 and mean absolute errors of 14.3 MPa, 11.1 MPa, and 1.5 percent, respectively. Leave-one-alloy-out evaluation with sparse calibration using anchor samples further demonstrated generalization across alloy chemistries. While direct prediction on unseen alloy data degraded performance substantially, inclusion of as few as one to two anchor conditions from the target alloy recovered predictive accuracy, approaching that of the standard cross-validation. Feature importance analysis revealed that the 230 to 270 C region, associated with precipitation of the primary hardening phase beta’’, contributed most strongly to predictive accuracy, providing direct mechanistic validation of the model. These findings establish DSC as a diagnostic tool that can serve as a rapid proxy for mechanical property evaluation, enabling accelerated alloy screening, process optimization, and integration of thermal analysis into data-driven manufacturing.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Interfacial Charge Transfer Driven Enhanced Transport and Thermal Stability in Graphene-MoS2 Vertical Heterostructure Field-Effect Transistors
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Ashis Kumar Panigrahi, Alok Kumar, Babulu Pradhan, Priyanka Sahu, Smruti Ranjan Senapaty, Monalisa Pradhan, Gopal K Pradhan, Satyaprakash Sahoo
In this work, we demonstrate interfacial charge transfer-driven transport enhancement in few-layer graphene monolayer MoS2 vertical heterostructure field-effect transistor. Raman scattering and Raman intensity mapping results confirm the successful stacking of FL graphene on ML MoS2. Pronounced photoluminescence (PL) quenching of MoS2 and spectral redshift in the heterostructure suggest efficient interlayer charge transfer and strong electronic coupling at the vdW interface. Electrical measurements show enhanced drain current, field-effect mobility, and conductivity in Gr-MoS2 device compared to pristine MoS2 transistor with Ag contacts. The energy band considerations under equilibrium and gate bias conditions suggest improved Fermi-level alignment and reduced effective Schottky barrier effects at the graphene-MoS2 interface, enabling efficient carrier injection. Temperature-dependent transport (300-400 K) reveals phonon-dominated mobility and conductivity degradation in both devices; however, the heterostructure exhibits significantly suppressed performance degradation. The mobility enhancement factor increases from ~1.6 at 300 K to ~4.0 at 400 K, accompanied by a corresponding improvement in conductivity stability, demonstrating superior thermal robustness for the Gr-MoS2 heterostructure. The power-law analysis indicates that transport in pristine MoS2 is influenced by both intrinsic phonon scattering and additional thermally activated extrinsic processes such as contact and interfacial effects, whereas the weaker temperature dependence in the Gr-MoS2 device reflects moderated extrinsic contributions and transport behaviour approaching a predominantly phonon-limited regime. These findings demonstrate graphene contact engineering as a viable pathway toward improved performance and thermally stable two-dimensional semiconductor electronics.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
Physics-aware neural networks enable robust and full atomic structure determination via low-dose atomic electron tomography
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Yao Zhang, Lanyi Cao, Zhen Sun, Jihan Zhou
Atomic electron tomography (AET) determines the three-dimensional (3D) coordinates and chemical identities of individual atoms from a series of scanning transmission electron microscopy images taken at different tilt angles. However, under the low dose conditions required to mitigate beam damage, the reduced signal-to-noise ratio forces a trade off among accuracy, robustness, and throughput, which ultimately limits the broader application of AET. Here, we introduce a physics aware, two stage neural networks (PANN) that incorporates physical constraints throughout its workflow to achieve accurate AET under low-dose imaging. First, a global local 3D ResUNet refines the initial reconstruction and corrects geometric distortions in the volume. Second, the local density around each identified atom is encoded using 3D Zernike moments. These feature descriptors, along with the atomic coordinates are then processed by a graph attention Transformer to classify the elemental species. We benchmark the PANN workflow using a dataset of 42,588 reconstructed volumes, covering diverse noise models, materials morphologies, and dose settings. Under low dose conditions, PANN significantly improves performance, reducing the atomic coordinates error and leading to an increase in the atomic recovery rate. The framework’s performance on experimental lose dose AET data across nanoparticles of varying morphology and composition demonstrate robust generalization. We anticipate this approach will extend the applicability of AET, particularly in investigating materials sensitive to electron dose or chemical state, including halide perovskites, zeolite, and quantum dot.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
25 pages, 5 figures; 25 pages of supporting information
Quantum Fisher Information as a Probe of Critical Scaling in Frustrated Magnets: Signatures from Kagome Quantum Spin Liquid
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Zhengbang Zhou, Chengkang Zhou, Menghan Song, Yong Baek Kim, Zi Yang Meng
Quantum Fisher information (QFI) is a measure of multipartite quantum entanglement that can be obtained from inelastic neutron scattering data on quantum magnets. In this work, we demonstrate that the QFI can distinguish an unconventional quantum critical point (QCP) with fractionalization and emergent gauge structure from conventional ones within the Landau paradigm. We compute the QFI, via large-scale quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations and exact diagonalization, in a kagome lattice quantum spin liquid (QSL) model with an XY and a cluster-Ising interactions. When the XY interaction is ferromagetic, the QFI obtained by QMC reveals a large anomalous dimension, which is a fingerprint of the (2+1)d XY$ ^\ast$ universality class for the transition from the ferromagnetic phase to the $ \mathbb{Z}_2$ QSL. The investigation of thermal and dynamical properties of QFI is further extended to the case of antiferromagnetic XY interaction via exact diagonalization. In this regime, a transition to a possibly distinct QSL phase is suggested via both entanglement-based probes, such as QFI and genuine multipartite negativity, and analyses of the energy spectrum and structure factors. These results not only demonstrate the versatility of QFI in identifying QSL states and unconventional QCPs but also provide useful guidance for future theoretical and experimental studies of frustrated magnets.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
8+6 pages, 4+10 figures
Lattice Dynamics of LiFeAs studied by Inelastic Neutron Scattering and Density Functional Theory calculations
New Submission | Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Akshay Tewari, Navid Qureshi, Rolf Heid, Andrea Piovano, Yvan Sidis, Luminita Harnagea, Sabine Wurmehl, Bernd Buchner, Markus Braden
We investigated the lattice dynamics of the unconventional superconductor LiFeAs using inelastic neutron scattering experiments and density-functional theory (DFT) calculations. By comparing the neutron scattering intensities with lattice-dynamics simulations we can identify the polarization symmetry of all modes along the main-symmetry directions yielding a complete experimental picture of the phonon dispersion. Overall there is good agreement between the experimental and DFT results, which renders an overlooked strong electron phonon coupling unlikely. Our DFT calculations reveal only a small averaged electron-phonon coupling constant. The transversal acoustic in-plane branches exhibit a normal dispersion for small propagation vectors indicating the absence of a nematic instability. Several modes exhibit considerable hardening upon cooling that can be attributed to the anisotropic shrinking of the LiFeAs lattice.
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
18 pages, 12 figures
Reply to: Comment on “Electric conductivity of graphene: Kubo model versus a nonlocal quantum field theory model”
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Pablo Rodriguez-Lopez, Jian-Sheng Wang, Mauro Antezza
In the Comment by Bordag et al. (arXiv:2506.10792), concerns are raised regarding the validity of the results presented in Phys. Rev. B 111, 115428 (2025) (arXiv:2403.02279), where the theoretical descriptions of the electric conductivity of graphene obtained from the Kubo formula and from quantum field theory via the polarization tensor are compared. In this Reply, we show that these concerns arise from misinterpretations of Phys. Rev. B 111, 115428 (2025), in which the results are either inaccurately represented or applied outside the domain of validity of the model. We address the comments concerning the derivation of the Luttinger formula for the electric conductivity from the Kubo formula and clarify why the results of Phys. Rev. B 111, 115428 (2025) cannot be arbitrarily extended to make claims on the gauge invariance. We further demonstrate that our findings are fully consistent with the established and widely accepted literature cited in the Comment. We confirm that the model for electric conductivity discussed in Phys. Rev. B 111, 115428 (2025) correctly predicts a vanishing electric current in the absence of an external electric field, as physically required, and in contrast with the model advocated by the Authors of the Comment. We also show that the electric permittivity does not exhibit a double pole in $ \omega$ , contrary to the claim made in the Comment. Finally, we emphasize that the inclusion of losses is a standard and well-established approach in the study of transport properties of materials, including graphene, and we take the opportunity to correct a few minor typographical errors in Phys. Rev. B 111, 115428 (2025). We show and maintain that all results derived in Phys. Rev. B 111, 115428 (2025) are fully valid and correct.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
5 pages, no figures. Reply to the Comment published in arXiv:2506.10792
Continuous Specialization Transition in the Soft Committee Machine with ReLU Activation
New Submission | Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
We analyze the soft committee machine with Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) activation by means of the replica method. In a realizable teacher–student setting, we compute the quenched free energy within a replica-symmetric ansatz and obtain the typical generalization behavior from the saddle-point equations for the macroscopic order parameters. The system exhibits a transition from an unspecialized symmetric phase to a specialized phase in which the permutation symmetry among hidden units is broken. We determine the critical training-set size as a function of the inverse training temperature and derive analytic expressions both near the transition and in the asymptotic large-sample regime. Unlike the corresponding model with sigmoidal activations, which undergoes a first-order transition, the ReLU soft committee machine shows a continuous specialization transition. These results show that the activation function plays a decisive role in the phase structure and generalization behavior of multilayer networks.
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn)
Domain walls in a dipole-coupled transverse magnetic island chain
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
I analyze the nonlinear Hamiltonian equations of motion for a one-dimensional chain of transverse magnetic nano-islands, seeking solutions for different types of static domain-walls (DWs) connecting uniform static states. The system of elongated magnetic islands oriented transverse ($ y$ -direction) to the chain direction ($ x$ -direction) experiences an applied magnetic field transverse to the chain. The macro-spin model includes dipole interactions between islands, their uniaxial and easy-plane anisotropies, and Oersted energy of the applied field. DWs can form most easily between pairs of degenerate uniform states, described by their local magnetizations as oblique, $ y$ -parallel, and $ y$ -alternating. The DWs between oblique states are well-described with scalar $ \varphi^4$ theory. General DW structures are found via a numerical energy relaxation scheme. At some anisotropy and field parameters, nearest-neighbor dipole interactions drive antiferromagnetic order inside the DW itself. The variety of DWs present in the model might be exploited for their sensitivity to parameter changes in detectors or switching technology.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
17 pages, 20 figures
Symmetric mixtures in slit-like pores with selective walls
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Symmetric mixtures characterized by high negative geometric and energetic non-additivity do not exhibit phase separation in the bulk. However, the phase separation occurs when such mixtures are confined in slit pores with selective walls. It is demonstrated that the wall selectivity affects the pore filling. When the difference of the interaction energies between the mixture components and pore walls is lower than a certain threshold value, condensation occurs between a dilute phase and the mixed liquid. When this difference exceeds the threshold value, the pore filling may occur in two steps. The first is the condensation of a dilute phase into the demixed liquid, and the second step leads to the formation of the mixed liquid. We have elucidated the changes in the phase behavior caused by non-additivity of symmetric mixtures, and by the difference in the interaction energies of the components with pore walls.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
13 pages, 12 figures
II. Temperature trends in the properties of simple monohydric alcohols. Molecular dynamics simulations of united atom UAMI-EW model
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
M. Aguilar, E. Núñez-Rojas, O. Pizio
We explore the dependence of a wide set of properties of monohydric alcohols on temperature by using the isobaric-isothermal molecular dynamics computer simulations. Namely, methanol (MeOH), ethanol (EtOH) and 1-propanol (PrOH) alcohols are studied. The recently proposed united atom, non-polarizable force field for each of alcohols [V. García-Melgarejo et al., J. Mol. Liq., 2021, 323, 114576] is applied for this purpose. Accuracy of the force field is discussed comparing predictions from simulations and experimental data for density, dielectric constant, surface tension, and self-diffusion coefficient. Supplementary insights concerning applicability of the model are obtained by exploration of the composition dependence of various properties for MeOH-PrOH mixtures. Peculiarities of mixing of species in this system are elucidated in terms of density, excess mixing volume and excess mixing enthalpy. Static dielectric constant of the mixture and the corresponding excess are obtained. Perspectives of modelling are commented finally.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
15 pages, 10 figures
Surfactant solutions confined in homogeneous and Janus-like slits
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
We study the behavior of aqueous surfactant solutions in the bulk phase and in slit-like pores by molecular dynamics. Adsorption and self-assembly of nonionic surfactants C$ _7$ E$ _3$ that mimic alkyl poly(ethylene oxide) molecules are investigated. We consider pores with the same walls and Janus-like slits. The individual walls are inert, hydrophilic, or hydrophobic. We focus on the morphology of the surfactant solution confined in different slits. The influence of a pore type and its width is discussed. The aggregative adsorption of surfactants was found. Our simulations show that in slits surfactants assemble into structures that do not occur in the bulk phases.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
14 pages, 9 figures, 4 tables
Pressure effects in the properties of simple monohydric alcohols. Lessons from molecular dynamics simulations of united atom type UAM-EW model
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
M. Aguilar, L. Pusztai, O. Pizio
We explore the pressure dependence of a set of properties of simple monohydric alcohols, namely of methanol, ethanol and 1-propanol, by using isobaric-isothermal molecular dynamics computer simulations. A recently proposed united atom, non-polarizable force field for each of alcohols [V. García-Melgarejo et al., J. Mol. Liq., 323, 114576 (2021)] is applied. Accuracy of the force field is evaluated by comparing the simulation results and available experimental data from the literature. Specifically, the density of alcohols upon increasing pressure, the isothermal compressibility, the static dielectric constant and self-diffusion coefficient are investigated starting from 1 bar up to 3 kbar. Evolution of the microscopic structure under pressure is discussed in terms of the pair distribution functions and some coordination numbers. Conclusions of the present modelling and necessary developments to consider in future work are commented on.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
15 pages, 11 figures, 2 tables
Strong Violation of the Thermodynamic Uncertainty Relation in a Minimal Autonomous Heat Engine
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Enrique P. Cital, Viktor Holubec
Thermodynamic uncertainty relations (TURs) impose a universal trade-off between current precision and entropy production in autonomous steady states, constraining in particular the power, efficiency, and constancy of heat engines. We demonstrate strong violations of the long-time TUR in a minimal autonomous heat engine composed of a discrete ratchet generating work against a constant bias and an underdamped harmonic oscillator acting as an internal stochastic control. In the regime of time-scale separation, the model becomes exactly solvable and yields a closed analytical expression for the TUR ratio, where the influence of the continuous degree of freedom is fully captured by the Fano factor of oscillator zero crossings. We show that increasingly deterministic internal control drives the TUR ratio arbitrarily close to zero while the engine operates near maximal current and efficiency. In an appropriate limit, the model reduces to the classical pendulum-clock system of Pietzonka, Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 130606 (2022).
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
8 pages, 6 figures
How does ethane wet different substrates?
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Ł. Baran, D. Tarasewicz, W. Rżysko
Computer simulations are employed to investigate the adsorption mechanisms of ethane on both homogeneous and inhomogeneous substrates. For homogeneous surfaces, the full range of surface phase transitions - from incomplete to complete wetting - can be accessed by tuning the strength of the surface potential. The resulting layering transition temperatures show excellent agreement with experimental measurements of ethane on graphite. By contrast, although all inhomogeneous substrates exhibit a prewetting transition, the adsorption mechanisms are strongly influenced by the stripe width.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
11 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables
The interplay between thermomigration and stress-driven hydrogen transport in metals
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Daniel J. Long, Edmund Tarleton, Alan C.F. Cocks, Felix Hofmann
Thermomigration is the driving force for hydrogen transport due to a temperature gradient. It can compete with hydrogen transport induced by stress gradients. While stress-driven hydrogen migration is well established, thermomigration remains comparatively underexplored, largely due to limited mechanistic understanding and a scarcity of experimental data. In this work, we develop a thermodynamically consistent framework for hydrogen transport, incorporating a mechanistic model for thermomigration. This is implemented within a finite element framework using an effective chemical potential. Using case studies of iron and nickel heat exchangers and zirconium alloy nuclear fuel cladding, we quantify the competing and synergistic effects of thermomigration and stress-driven transport. We show that thermomigration often dominates hydrogen redistribution in heat-carrying components, even in the presence of significant thermal incompatibility stresses. However, stress-driven transport is shown to become decisive near sharp stress concentrators. A graphical method is introduced to rapidly identify the dominant transport mechanism without requiring fully coupled simulations. The results provide practical guidance for assessing hydrogen redistribution and embrittlement risk in heat-carrying structural components.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
The application of Kirkwood-Buff theory to study hydration properties of $α$-amino acids
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Protein conformational stability and function depend on non-covalent interactions that are strongly influenced by the surrounding environment. To explore protein properties, amino acids are often utilized as model systems. In this study, we determined the densities of seven $ \alpha$ -amino acids in aqueous solutions between 278.15 K and 308.15 K and calculated the apparent molar volumes. Linear extrapolation yielded standard molar volumes, which were analyzed to characterize amino-acid hydration. The contributions of side chains to the standard molar volume were determined relative to glycine. The standard molar volume increased with temperature, indicating reduced electrostriction of water around the amino acids, consistent with lower hydration numbers at higher temperatures. We employed the Ornstein-Zernike integral equation with hypernetted-chain closure and a coarse-grained Lennard-Jones bead model to calculate pair correlation functions and Kirkwood-Buff integrals, from which standard molar volumes were obtained. The model reproduced the experimental standard molar volumes very well.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
11 pages, 4 figures, 5 tables
Multiscale theory, modelling, and simulation of hemicellulose and lignin in solution
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
This review examines multiscale modelling approaches for cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) and lignocellulosic plant cell walls, with a focus on hemicellulose and lignin interactions in aqueous environments. The three-dimensional reference interaction site model with the Kovalenko-Hirata closure (3D-RISM-KH) is highlighted as a powerful molecular solvation theory applied in nanochemistry and biomolecular simulations. The method has been successfully employed to investigate hemicellulose hydrogels, the influence of hemicellulose composition on nanoscale forces in primary cell walls, and lignin-lignin and lignin-hemicellulose interactions. Findings indicate that these interactions are predominantly hydrophobic and entropy-driven, arising from water exclusion effects. Insights gained through this modeling framework deepen the understanding of molecular-scale forces in plant cell walls and inform strategies for biomass valorization, including genetic engineering and pretreatment technologies aimed at enhancing cellulose extraction and utilization.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
16 pages, 7 figures, 1 table
Edge Currents Shape Condensates in Chiral Active Matter
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Boyi Wang, Patrick Pietzonka, Frank Jülicher
Chiral active matter, which breaks both parity symmetry and time-reversal symmetry, is ubiquitous in living systems. Here, we introduce a minimal two-dimensional chiral active lattice gas by incorporating stochastic, biased local rotations. At low temperatures, the system coarsens into condensates with chiral orientations and faceted, crystal-like shapes. The interfaces align at characteristic angles with respect to the lattice axes and exhibit edge currents that are persistent, unidirectional, and angle-dependent. To generalise these findings, we propose a continuum theory by adding an active chiral edge current term to Model B, which reveals the essential role of active chiral transport in the interfacial dynamics of phase separation. Edge currents with $ n$ -fold symmetry produce condensates whose shapes resemble regular $ n$ -sided polygons. In the thin-interface limit, we construct an effective interface potential governing edge currents, from which the steady-state condensate geometry can be obtained, both in the lattice model and the continuum description.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
12 pages, 7 figures
$Δ_T$ Noise, Quantum Shot Noise, and Thermoelectric Clues to the Pairing Puzzle in Iron Pnictides
New Submission | Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
A Rajmohan Dora, Sachiraj Mishra, Colin Benjamin
Quantum noise has long served as a powerful probe of quantum transport in mesoscopic junctions. Recently, temperature-driven noise, or $ \Delta_T$ noise, has attracted growing interest due to its presence even in the absence of average charge current. In this work, we investigate a normal metal-insulator-iron-pnictide junction and demonstrate how thermovoltage, Seebeck coefficient, zero temperature quantum shot noise, finite temperature quantum noise, and $ \Delta_T$ noise can discriminate between $ S_{++}$ and $ S_{+-}$ pairing symmetries, which are relevant to iron-based superconductors. We introduce $ \Delta_T$ noise as a novel probe for distinguishing between the two pairing symmetries. In contrast to conductance, which exhibits a single peak for both $ S_{++}$ and $ S_{+-}$ states with only a difference in magnitude, the $ \Delta_T$ noise reveals qualitatively distinct features: a twin-peak structure for the $ S_{++}$ pairing symmetry and a single-peak profile for the $ S_{+-}$ state. A similar symmetry-dependent contrast is observed in both zero temperature quantum shot noise and finite temperature quantum noise, where the $ S_{++}$ state consistently exhibits a twin-peak structure, while the $ S_{+-}$ state shows a single-peak response. Furthermore, both the thermovoltage and the Seebeck coefficient display sign reversals for the two pairing symmetries, with opposite trends in the $ S_{++}$ and $ S_{+-}$ cases. Our results demonstrate that noise-based measurements, together with Seebeck coefficient and thermovoltage, form a mutually reinforcing set of probes that enables reliable identification of superconducting gap symmetry in Iron Pnictide superconductors.
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con), Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph), Mathematical Physics (math-ph), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
24 pages, 20 figures, 1 table
Micromagnetic Modeling of Surface Acoustic Wave Driven Dynamics: Interplay of Strain, Magnetorotation, and Magnetic Anisotropy
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Florian Millo, Pauline Rovillain, Massimiliano Marangolo, Daniel Stoeffler
We study the coupling mechanism of surface acoustic waves (SAW) with spin waves (SW) using micromagnetic analysis. The SAW magnetoacoustic excitation field is fully implemented, i.e., all strain and lattice-rotation terms are included. A realistic CoFeB film with a weak in-plane uniaxial anisotropy is considered. We investigate the conditions for efficient SAW–SW coupling, with particular emphasis on the case where the SAW propagates parallel to the external magnetic field, a configuration of special interest for magnonic applications. Remarkably, we find that the anisotropy orientation serves as a knob to tune the parallel resonant interaction. Overall, this work provides a unified and practical picture of SAW–SW coupling in thin magnetized films.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
An Analytical Model of Alkali Metal Dendrite Growth in Ceramic Solid Electrolytes based on Griffith’s Theory
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
In solid-state batteries, ceramic solid electrolytes are penetrated by dendrites when plating above a critical current density $ J_\mathrm{crit}$ . A dendrite will propagate by metal deposition at a pre-existing dendrite tip if the mechanical energy required to crack the ceramic open is less than the electrical energy (Joule heating) wasted by forcing the current to detour around the dendrite to the flat electrode surface. Based on this principle of minimal power dissipation, a dependence of $ J_\mathrm{crit}\propto c_\mathrm{max}^{3/2}$ is derived. $ c_\mathrm{max}$ is the length of the longest preexisting, sufficiently thin interfacial defect. Consequentially, scattering of $ J_\mathrm{crit}$ between samples must follow a Weibull-distribution, similar to the tensile strength of ceramic components.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Uploaded for discussion. To be included as part of my dissertation
Mechanical response of a simple DNA nanostar hydrogel: symptoms of disorder and glassy emergence of solidity
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Hajar Ajiyel, Anthony J. Genot, Soo Hyeon Kim, Nicolas Schabanel, Hervé Guillou, Catherine Barentin, Mathieu Leocmach
DNA self-assembly is a well-understood nanotechnology to obtain extremely ordered structures from the nanometer to up to the hundred of microns scale. By contrast, DNA hydrogels rely on the disordered assembly of DNA building blocks to reach macroscopic volumes. However, in order to hold the promise of DNA bulk materials, the sequence designer needs a systematic understanding of how macroscopic properties emerge from disorder. Here, we show a method to study systematically the mechanical response of a simple DNA nanostar hydrogel. This method mobilises bulk rheology, dynamic light scattering microrheology, mechanical modeling, as well as thermodynamic calculation and DNA sequence alteration. At low temperatures, we demonstrate a systematic deviation from Maxwell behaviour that is symptomatic of disordered materials. At temperatures much higher than the percolation of the DNA network, we characterise a surprising solid behaviour that we attribute to a glass transition. Our results show the importance of disorder in DNA materials. Furthermore, the method we showcase in this article can be widely applied to more complex DNA materials.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
This paper is dedicated to the memory of Anthony Genot
Nonlinear iontronic signal processing with neuromorphic Spike Rate-Dependent Plasticity
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
T.M. Kamsma, Y. Gu, D. Shi, C. Spitoni, M. Dijkstra, R. van Roij, Y. Xie
We present an integrated iontronic memristor circuit that reproduces biologically inspired Spike Rate-Dependent Plasticity (SRDP) and functions as a physical nonlinear frequency kernel, which we demonstrate can be used to classify natural auditory data. The fluidic circuit integrates two parallel memristive membranes containing short and long conical memristive channels with opposite orientations, giving rise to heterogeneous internal timescales and different potentiation responses. As a result, the circuit exhibits a nonlinear frequency response in which low-frequency inputs decrease the overall conductance, whereas higher-frequency inputs increase it, thereby emulating biological SRDP. Our experimental measurements are inspired by and consistent with predictions of a theoretical model. We demonstrate the functionality of the device by separating encoded sound signals from different insects that cannot be linearly separated. By unifying theoretical predictions with experimental realisation of coupled iontronic memristors, this work moves beyond isolated components and demonstrates how heterogeneous iontronic dynamics can unlock nonlinear time-series processing capabilities, essential for future iontronic neuromorphic computing.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
Binary colloidal mixtures in near-critical binary solvents
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Nima Farahmand Bafi, Robert Evans, Anna Maciolek
The phase behavior of a single type of colloid C suspended in near-critical solvents is known to be very rich. Motivated in part by recent experiments we consider a mixture of two colloidal types C1 and C2 in a binary solvent close to its demixing critical point. We extend a mean-field description of a lattice model, previously used to investigate systems with a single type of colloid in two dimensions, to the binary colloid case in three dimensions. The model treats the system as a full four-component mixture. For simplicity we choose C1 and C2 to be hard spheres with the same radius but with different affinities for one species, B, of the AB binary solvent. We show that intricate interplay between couplings of C1 and solvent, C2 and solvent as well as solvent-solvent interactions and hard sphere packing drive significant changes in the topology of the colloidal phase diagram when the relative volume fractions of the two different colloid types change. The behavior of the two lines of triple points is particularly interesting. Our results can provide some insight into the control of the self-assembly process for colloidal ‘alloys’ mediated by a near-critical solvent and therefore controlled by temperature in a reversible manner
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
15 pages, 11 figures
Transformer-based prediction of two-dimensional material electronic properties under elastic strain engineering
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Haoran Ma, Yuchen Zheng, Leining Zhang, Xiaofei Chen, Dan Wang
Strain engineering provides a powerful route for tuning the electronic properties of two-dimensional (2D) materials, but exploring the full multidimensional strain space with density functional theory (DFT) is computationally prohibitive due to the nonlinear coupling between normal and shear components. In this work, we introduce a Transformer-based, multi-target surrogate model framework that achieves DFT-level bandgap prediction accuracy, reaching a mean absolute error of 0.0103 eV while retaining full interpretability through attention-weight analysis. The learned self-attention map consistently identifies shear strain as the interaction center that influences both bandgap and phonon stability, an insight not readily captured by classical feature-importance metrics. This work establishes attention-based architectures as physically interpretable surrogate models for multi-property prediction, offering a generalizable strategy for accelerating deep elastic strain engineering in materials informatics.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Detecting the 3D Ising model phase transition with a ground-state-trained autoencoder
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Ahmed Abuali, David A. Clarke, Morten Hjorth-Jensen, Ioannis Konstantinidis, Claudia Ratti, Jianyi Yang
We develop a one-class, deep-learning framework to detect the phase transition and recover critical behavior of the 3D Ising model. A 3D convolutional neural network autoencoder (CAE) is trained on ground-state configurations only, without prior knowledge of the critical temperature, the Hamiltonian, or the order parameter. After training, the model is applied to Monte Carlo configurations across a wide temperature range and different lattice sizes. The mean-square reconstruction error is shown to be sensitive to the transition. Finite-size scaling of the peak location for the reconstruction error susceptibility yields the critical temperature $ T_c=4.5128(58)$ and the correlation-length critical exponent $ \nu=0.63(27)$ , consistent with results from the literature. Our results show that a one-class CAE, trained on zero-temperature configurations only, can recover nontrivial critical behavior of the 3D Ising model.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), High Energy Physics - Lattice (hep-lat), Nuclear Theory (nucl-th), Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability (physics.data-an)
8 pages, 4 figures
When Cubic Is Not Isotropic: Phonon-Exciton Decoupling in CuInSnS$_4$ Single Crystals
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-03-23 20:00 EDT
Lara Kim Linke, Yvonne Tomm, Xinyun Liu, Galina Gurieva, Daniel M. Tobbens, Pardis Adams, Michel Calame, Ryan W. Crisp, Jessica Boland, Sean Kavanagh, Susan Schorr, Mirjana Dimitrievska
Atomic-scale disorder can create hidden optical anisotropy even in crystals that are structurally cubic on average. Here, we show that CuInSnS$ _4$ single crystals host locally symmetry-broken environments arising from intrinsic In/Sn cation disorder, which affect vibrational and excitonic properties in markedly different ways. Combining polarization- and temperature-dependent Raman spectroscopy, infrared near-field microscopy, steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence, and first-principles calculations, we find that phonons remain largely symmetry-averaged and locally homogeneous on the nanoscale. In contrast, photoluminescence reveals a lower-energy band-tail emission with pronounced polarization anisotropy following a well-defined angular symmetry, highlighting the strong sensitivity of excitonic states to local symmetry breaking. This phonon-exciton decoupling reveals that intrinsic disorder can localize excitons while preserving vibrational coherence and dielectric homogeneity, thereby opening new opportunities for polarization-sensitive light sources, anisotropic photodetectors, and exciton-based optical functionalities even in nominally cubic multinary semiconductors.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)