CMP Journal 2026-10-22
Statistics
Nature: 1
Nature Materials: 1
Nature Physics: 1
Science: 14
Physical Review Letters: 14
Physical Review X: 2
arXiv: 77
Research Square: 5
Nature
Current-Driven Molecular Machine with Rotation-Enhanced Conductance
Original Paper | Molecular machines and motors | 2026-10-21 20:00 EDT
Anil Kumar Singh, León Martin, Matea Sršen, Freja Schou Guttesen, Bing-Zhong Hu, Yuta Ito, Stephan Korsgaard Pedersen, Fadhil Suleiman Kamounah, Fabian Pauly, Michael Pittelkow, Jing-Tao Lü, Per Hedegård, Oren Tal
For more than two millennia, Archimedean screws have been used for water pumping and, more recently, as turbines in hydroelectric power stations[1]. Their helical-blade structure, essential to their function, is also found in chiral molecules and nanostructures, where injected electric current has been proposed to generate torque-mediated rotation[2,3]. Here, we present a torque-driven molecular machine with a rotor actuated by electric current and conductance enhanced by its rotation. Suspending a helicene molecule between two electrode tips, we show that an applied voltage induces cyclic molecular motion with 100% directional preference that can be inverted by the voltage’s polarity. Above a voltage threshold, the current through the rotating molecule is significantly enhanced, and the enhancement onset is tuned by stretching or compressing the helical molecule. Such effects were absent in previous helical molecular junctions, likely due to structural and operational differences[4-6]. Calculations show that molecular rotation by current-induced forces explains both the observed cyclic motion and current enhancement. This mechanism predicts a transition from stepwise to continuous rotation at a threshold voltage, yielding a current increase as rotation allows adopting highly conducting configurations not accessible at rest. Our work introduces a prototype for a new class of torque-driven molecular machines with perfect rotor unidirectionality and significant current modulation.
Molecular machines and motors, Electronic and spintronic devices, Chemical physics, Quantum mechanics, Molecular electronics
Nature Materials
Zero-field spin-wave networks with integrated non-volatile memory
Original Paper | Magnetic properties and materials | 2026-10-21 20:00 EDT
K. O. Nikolaev, D. Raskhodchikov, J. Bensmann, S. Niehues, V. D. Bessonov, E. Lomonte, L. Jin, R. Schmidt, J. Kern, S. Michaelis de Vasconcellos, R. Bratschitsch, S. O. Demokritov, W. H. P. Pernice, V. E. Demidov
Magnonic circuits that use spin waves for nanoscale signal processing and computing are widely regarded as a promising alternative to traditional semiconductor electronics. However, a key missing component of this information nanotechnology is a feasible approach for the integration of memory directly into spin-wave devices. Here we propose a strategy for the implementation of built-in non-volatile memory, which uses the static magnetization states of waveguiding elements within a magnonic network fabricated from a low-loss magnetic insulator and operating at zero bias magnetic field. We show that switching the magnetization direction in these elements enables efficient control over spin-wave propagation paths. Furthermore, we suggest an approach to achieve low-energy selective magnetization switching in such systems. Our results open new possibilities for the realization of advanced, self-contained magnonic nano-circuits.
Magnetic properties and materials, Magnetic devices
Nature Physics
Teleportation transition of surface codes on a superconducting quantum processor
Original Paper | Quantum simulation | 2026-10-21 20:00 EDT
Yiren Zou, Hong-Kuan Xia, Aosai Zhang, Xuhao Zhu, Feitong Jin, Qingyuan Wang, Yu Gao, Chuanyu Zhang, Ning Wang, Zhengyi Cui, Fanhao Shen, Zehang Bao, Zitian Zhu, Jiarun Zhong, Gongyu Liu, Jia-Nan Yang, Yihang Han, Yiyang He, Jiayuan Shen, Han Wang, Yanzhe Wang, Jiahua Huang, Xinrong Zhang, Sailang Zhou, Hang Dong, Jinfeng Deng, Yaozu Wu, Zixuan Song, Hekang Li, Zhen Wang, Chao Song, Qiujiang Guo, Pengfei Zhang, Guo-Yi Zhu, H. Wang
The surface code is a leading candidate for harnessing long-range entanglement to protect logical quantum information against errors, and teleportation of the code’s logical states is desirable for robust quantum information processing. However, large numbers of physical qubits are needed to produce well-protected logical states, making quantum teleportation a formidable experimental challenge. Here we demonstrate the teleportation of surface code states with code distances up to 7, implemented on a superconducting quantum processor with 125 qubits. We obtain a phase diagram for successful teleportation of the logical state by tuning the local entangling gates uniformly across a finite threshold. Furthermore, we show that the entangling threshold can be boosted by coherent qubit rotations that inject non-classical magic resources, restoring the duality symmetry of the surface code’s topological phase. This serves as a guiding principle to minimize the entanglement needed to achieve many-body teleportation. Our results establish the potential for surface code teleportation to enable distributed fault-tolerant quantum computation.
Quantum simulation, Phase transitions and critical phenomena, Quantum information
Science
Thermodynamic origin of the phonon Hall effect in a honeycomb antiferromagnet
Research Article | Solid-state physics | 2026-10-22 03:00 EDT
Qingkai Meng, Xiaokang Li, Jie Liu, Lingxiao Zhao, Chao Dong, Zengwei Zhu, Liang Li, Kamran Behnia
The underlying mechanism of the thermal Hall effect generated by phonons in a variety of insulators is yet to be identified. In this work, we report on a sizable thermal Hall conductivity in nickel phosphorus trisulfide (NiPS3), a van der Waals stack of honeycomb layers with a zigzag antiferromagnetic order. The longitudinal (κaa) and the transverse (κab) thermal conductivities peak at the same temperature, and the thermal Hall angle, at this peak, respects a previously identified bound. The amplitude of κab is extremely sensitive to the amplitude of magnetization along the b axis but is not correlated with the phonon mean free path, which points to an intrinsic origin.
Electronic bound states in the continuum in a two-dimensional metal
Research Article | Physics | 2026-10-22 03:00 EDT
Morgan Thinel, Xiong Huang, Daniel G. Chica, Simon Turkel, Sebastian E. Rossi, Christie S. Koay, Hong Li, Willa Mihalyi-Koch, Bipasa Samanta, Madisen Holbrook, Aravind Devarakonda, Luca M. Nashabeh, Alexandru B. Georgescu, Xavier Roy, Xiaoyang Zhu, Abhay N. Pasupathy, Raquel Queiroz
Bound states in the continuum (BICs) are quantum states that remain localized despite lying within a continuum of extended, delocalized states. Whereas optical BICs have been realized in photonic systems, achieving electronic bound states embedded in a metallic background remains an ongoing challenge. In this study, we used scanning tunneling microscopy to identify two defect-induced electronic states that remain localized within the metallic continuum of Pd5AlI2, a two-dimensional van der Waals metal. Our calculations suggest that electron-hopping interference on the decorated checkerboard lattice of Pd5AlI2 gives rise to a (quasi) flat band built from spatially localized eigenstates that are orthogonal to the dispersive continuum. Atomic defects within this frustrated lattice shift the associated flat-band localized states into the metallic continuum, forming robust, symmetry-protected BICs.
Wireless electrocatalytic closed-loop system for drug-free management of diabesity
Research Article | Metabolism | 2026-10-22 03:00 EDT
Debasis Maity, Preetam Guha Ray, Peter Buchmann, Ghislaine Charpin-El Hamri, Martin Fussenegger
Lifestyle-related type 2 diabetes and associated obesity (diabesity) affect >2.5 billion people worldwide and impose nearly $3 trillion in annual health care costs. We developed an implantable, wirelessly powered electrocatalytic closed-loop health optimization (ECHO) device containing platinum-decorated gold nanoclusters embedded in graphite felt that enabled selective, electrically tunable oxidation of blood glucose to renally cleared gluconate. In type 2 diabetic mice, wireless, low-power activation (0.75 volts, 10 milliamperes) restored glucose homeostasis within 1 hour, shifted metabolism from glucose to lipid utilization, reduced body weight and triglycerides, and increased circulating free fatty acids and ketone bodies without detectable hypoglycemia or adverse physiological, inflammatory, or behavioral effects during 6 weeks of treatment. Coupling this ECHO device to a commercial continuous glucose monitoring system enabled autonomous, smartphone-controlled, drug-free closed-loop management of experimental diabesity.
BAK and BAX form a multiprotein complex to drive mtDNA efflux and caspase-independent cell death
Research Article | Cell biology | 2026-10-22 03:00 EDT
Shaoyuan Yang, Hyungjin Kim, Guanghong Liao, Na Ta, Ho-Chou Tu, Shriram Ramani, Chih-Yu Chen, Zih-Yu Li, Nobuhiro Tanno, James J. Hsieh, Emily H. Cheng
The apoptotic regulators BAX and BAK, once activated, form homo-oligomers to trigger mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilization (MOMP), activating the apoptosome and caspases. Activation of BAX-BAK without apoptosome activation triggers sustained efflux of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and caspase-independent cell death. However, the molecular basis of mtDNA efflux remains unclear. We purified a macromolecular complex comprising BAK, BAX, activator BH3-only molecules, voltage-dependent anion channels 1 and 2 (VDAC1 and VDAC2), and prohibitins that released mtDNA from mitoplasts. BAX-BAK activation resulted in VDAC closure, mitochondrial calcium influx, and mtDNA efflux. Loss of VDAC1, VDAC2, or prohibitins prevented BAX-BAK activation-induced mtDNA efflux and caspase-independent cell death without affecting MOMP or mitochondrial inner membrane herniation. These findings support differential regulation of cytochrome c and mtDNA efflux by distinct BAX-BAK complexes.
Intron retention regulates STAT2 function and associates with immunotherapy response in lung cancer
Research Article | Cancer | 2026-10-22 03:00 EDT
Ryan P. Englander, Mattia Brugiolo, Maëva Devoucoux, Te-Chia Wu, Mitch Kostich, Nathan K. Leclair, Isha Walawalkar, Hyeon Gu Kang, SungHee Park, Florentina Marches, Mark E. Peeples, Phylip Chen, Jacques Banchereau, Peter Yu, Andrew Salner, Romain Banchereau, Karolina Palucka, Olga Anczuków
Immunotherapy with checkpoint inhibitors has revolutionized cancer therapy and enabled considerable therapeutic advances for treating various diseases, including lung cancer. However, the molecular determinants of variable patient outcomes remain unclear. Using long-read RNA sequencing, we mapped the landscape of alternative RNA splicing in human primary lung adenocarcinomas. We identified more than 149,000 full-length messenger RNA (mRNA) isoforms, more than half of which were unannotated and many that occurred in immune-related genes, particularly within the type I interferon response pathway. We functionally characterized retained introns in the STAT2 gene that produced altered protein isoforms that regulated immune signaling and interferon responses and correlated with patient survival after anti-programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) immunotherapy. These findings position alternative splicing as a regulator of tumor immune responses and reveal intron retention in STAT2 as an interferon regulatory axis that correlates with PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitor response.
Late Holocene reexpansion of the Laurentide Ice Sheet
Research Article | Glacial inception | 2026-10-22 03:00 EDT
Nicolás E. Young, Gifford H. Miller, Martha Raynolds, Helga Bueltmann, Scott J. Lehman, Jonathan H. Raberg, Kylie Seward, Simon L. Pendleton, John T. Andrews, Patrick J. Webber, Joerg M. Schaefer
During interglaciations, the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS), which is the largest of the Pleistocene ice sheets, retreats to Arctic Canada, where it achieves a minimum configuration. The reexpansion of the LIS following this minimum marks the start of the next glaciation. Here, we show that the last remaining remnant of the most recent LIS, Barnes Ice Cap (Baffin Island, Canada), achieved its minimum interglacial dimensions after ~3.6 thousand years ago, before reexpanding ~2000 years ago, marking the onset of the next glaciation. The new LIS reached maximum dimensions in ~1960 CE, after which anthropogenic summer warming resulted in a negative mass balance, ice margin recession, and the termination of the next glaciation. The demise of the next glaciation, despite the ongoing decline in summer insolation, illustrates the influence of anomalous greenhouse gas forcing on climate.
Ultrarapid decision-making in an avian brain
Research Article | Comparative cognition | 2026-10-22 03:00 EDT
Philipp Schmidbauer, Andreas Nieder
Perceptual decision-making is well studied in mammals, but its operation in other vertebrates remains unclear. We show that carrion crows (Corvus corone) make deliberate decisions in a classic visual motion discrimination task with unprecedented speed, reporting choices in approximately 235 milliseconds on average, which is roughly twice as fast as has been observed in monkeys or humans and without sacrificing accuracy. Recordings from the pallial endbrain reveal that direction-selective neurons encode the upcoming choice as early as about 70 milliseconds after stimulus onset and about 170 milliseconds before the response, with ramping activity scaling with sensory evidence and converging at response onset. These findings highlight the extraordinary efficiency of avian decision-making circuitry, possibly shaped by evolutionary pressures for rapid visuomotor control.
Dynamic functionality-enabled fast and selective transport in nanochannels
Research Article | Membranes | 2026-10-22 03:00 EDT
Hao Zhang, Yuan Kang, Fan Feng, Ting Hu, Rongming Xu, Hang Yu, Kaiqiang He, Zhe Yang, Zhuyuan Wang, Cher Hon Lau, Ze-Xian Low, Qinfen Gu, Jefferson Zhe Liu, Huanting Wang, Xiwang Zhang
Nanochannels capable of fast and selective mass transport are central to applications in energy, resources, biomedicine, and the environment. However, extreme nanoscale confinement, often coupled with rigid channel environments, imposes substantial frictional and adhesive barriers, causing sluggish transport and constrained selectivity. We identified nanochannel dynamics as a key to addressing these challenges by harnessing the intrinsic mobility (e.g., self-rotation) of confined functionalities to enhance molecular transport. Through a combination of experiments and simulations, we demonstrated that such dynamics reshape transport by promoting kinetic energy transfer and enabling more efficient molecular relays, thereby improving separation performance beyond current benchmarks. Our findings highlight the role of nanochannel dynamics in regulating mass transport under confinement and provide a framework for designing advanced nanochannel systems.
Imaging electron-hole asymmetry in the quantum melting of generalized Wigner crystals
Research Article | 2d materials | 2026-10-22 03:00 EDT
Emma Berger, Michael Arumainayagam, Zhihuan Dong, Lucas Schneider, Tianle Wang, Greyson Nichols, Salman Kahn, Rwik Dutta, Gaoqiang Wang, Takashi Taniguchi, Kenji Watanabe, Mit H. Naik, Michael P. Zaletel, Feng Wang, Michael F. Crommie
Two-dimensional moiré materials provide a versatile platform to explore phase transitions in strongly correlated systems. Using scanning tunneling microscopy, we imaged the density-driven melting of generalized Wigner crystals (GWCs) and Mott insulators (MIs) in electron-doped, near-60°-twisted molybdenum diselenide bilayers featuring a triangular moiré superlattice. We observed notable electron-hole asymmetry in GWC melting: Hole-doped GWCs yielded interaction-driven disordered states, whereas electron-doped GWCs melted into delocalized liquid-like states. This asymmetry arose from the broken particle-hole symmetry of the moiré superlattice, which produced electron and hole Fermi pockets with different momentum geometries upon GWC condensation. MI states melted without such asymmetry, consistent with the absence of a symmetry-breaking density modulation. This work provides direct visualization of the emergent phases that appear as GWCs undergo quantum melting transitions.
Visualizing symmetry-broken Chern insulators and their quantum melting
Research Article | 2d materials | 2026-10-22 03:00 EDT
Minhao He, Yen-Chen Tsui, Ran Peng, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Oskar Vafek, Ali Yazdani
In the presence of a magnetic field, electronic states of moiré quantum materials develop a Hofstadter spectrum that provides a distinctive setting for studying the interplay between band topology and strong electron-electron interaction. Using scanning tunneling microscopy, we studied Hofstadter’s states in bilayer graphene aligned with hexagonal boron nitride and directly visualized the formation of interaction-driven symmetry breaking Chern insulators. Our measurements revealed the formation of phases that double, triple, or quadruple the moiré unit cell at fractional filling of the Hofstadter bands as well as states with complex intra-unit cell wave functions. We visualized two distinct quantum phenomena in different Chern states, including quantum melting driven by the appearance and proliferation of topological defects and a quantum transition co-occurring with phase competition and separation.
Decoupled self-assembled monolayer and perovskite deposition for efficient flexible solar modules
Research Article | Solar cells | 2026-10-22 03:00 EDT
Yeyong Wu, Xikun Zhang, Tiankai Zhang, Guiying Xu, Yunxiu Shen, Chengxin Guo, Qing Miao, Junyuan Ding, Yue Yin, Qinrong Cheng, Wen Liu, Xiaoxiao Wu, Kaiqiang Chen, Wenwen Kou, Zhiyun Cao, Haiyang Chen, Weijie Chen, Yujin Chen, Feng Gao, Yaowen Li, Yongfang Li
The power conversion efficiency (PCE) and stability of flexible perovskite solar modules (PSMs) are less than those of their rigid devices because surface hydroxyls desorption on flexible substrates, which disrupts self-assembled monolayer (SAM) anchoring and perovskite crystallization. We developed a decoupled SAM-perovskite codeposition strategy that accelerates SAM anchoring by reducing the SAM-perovskite interaction and ameliorates perovskite crystallization. The certified PCE with phenethylammonium iodide as the passivation molecule was 20.2% on PSMs with device areas of 750 cm2. With 1,3-diaminopropane dihydroiodide as the passivator, the PCE of 22.0% for a device area of 14.55 cm2 decreased by 8% after 1044 hours under maximum power point tracking at 85°C and 65% relative humidity. The devices pass all sequences of an international commercialization assessment standard for flexible portable PSMs.
Natural product biosynthesis by guanidine prenyltransferases in plants and bacteria
Research Article | Natural products | 2026-10-22 03:00 EDT
Dominik Kolling, Katharina Konzok, Daghan Taser, Tom Jentsch, Svenja Schwoerer, Henry Struwe, Arne Bültemeier, Jonas Freiberg, Claus-Peter Witte, Jakob Franke, Andriy Luzhetskyy, Andreas Kirschning, Sophia Rudorf, Jesko Koehnke
Guanidine exists almost exclusively as a resonance-stabilized cation, making its direct enzymatic functionalization challenging. We identified the cyanobacterial enzyme NosH, which catalyzes direct prenyl transfer to free guanidine. Structural and mechanistic analyses revealed guanidine activation by a two-aspartate clamp coupled to prenyl-donor binding through a distinct catalytic architecture. Guided by these features, we identified a large family of guanidine prenyltransferases across bacteria and plants. Plant enzymes produced guanidine alkaloids such as galegine in vitro and heterologous expression of a plant ortholog in Nicotiana benthamiana produced galegine in planta, providing a direct enzymatic link to plant-specialized metabolism.
The Virtual Biotech: A multi-agent AI framework for therapeutic discovery and development
Research Article | Artificial intelligence | 2026-10-22 03:00 EDT
Harrison G. Zhang, Peter Eckmann, Jiacheng Miao, Andrew B. Mahon, James Zou
Drug development requires evidence integration across biological scales and modalities, but relevant tools are fragmented. We introduce the Virtual Biotech, an organization of artificial intelligence (AI) agents modeled on a drug-development company, with agentic divisions spanning target discovery, safety assessment, modality selection, and clinical development. We demonstrate its utility at three drug-development decision points. First, more than 37,000 agents annotated outcomes from 55,984 trials and found that drugs targeting cell type-specific genes were 48% more likely to reach market with 32% fewer adverse events. Second, it integrated multimodal evidence to propose a therapeutic strategy in lung cancer. Third, it analyzed a terminated ulcerative colitis trial and inferred potential mechanisms of failure. These results demonstrate that human-guided multi-agent systems can conduct transparent, multiscale analyses to inform therapeutic-development decisions.
Sequential diagnosis with language models
Research Article | Machine learning | 2026-10-22 03:00 EDT
Harsha Nori, Mayank Daswani, Christopher Kelly, Scott Lundberg, Marco Tulio Ribeiro, Marc Wilson, Xiaoxuan Liu, Viknesh Sounderajah, Jonathan M. Carlson, Matthew P. Lungren, Bay Gross, Peter Hames, Mustafa Suleyman, Dominic King, Eric Horvitz
We explored the capabilities of frontier language models in sequential diagnosis, a diagnostic paradigm that captures the iterative nature of clinical reasoning. Given a brief clinical presentation, clinicians selectively acquired information to reach a diagnosis, enabling assessment of diagnostic accuracy and workup cost. We developed an interactive benchmark and an artificial intelligence (AI) system that simulates a panel of physicians, continually revising the differential diagnosis and selecting cost-effective tests. Using this benchmark, the system achieved 83.2% accuracy on New England Journal of Medicine clinicopathological conference cases and 80.3% on MIMIC-IV-ED emergency department admissions, outperforming generalist physicians (36.1 and 46.8%, respectively). Although these findings were obtained in a controlled benchmark setting, they highlight the promise of language models for supporting more accurate, lower-cost diagnoses.
Physical Review Letters
Experimental Tomography of Quantum Many-Body Hamiltonians in Solids via Thermalization
Article | Quantum Information, Science, and Technology | 2026-10-21 06:00 EDT
Haochuan Yin, Yuchen Li, Ze Wu, Liqiang Zhao, Shengyu Zhang, Pai Peng, Riqiang Fu, Dieter Suter, and Xinhua Peng
Characterizing the unknown Hamiltonian of a quantum many-body system is essential for exploring fundamental physical phenomena and advancing frontier quantum technologies. However, the complexity of many-body interactions and limited control capabilities in realistic experimental systems render this…
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 170402 (2026)
Quantum Information, Science, and Technology
Quantum Sensing Using Geometrical Phase in Qubit-Oscillator Systems
Article | Quantum Information, Science, and Technology | 2026-10-21 06:00 EDT
Nishchay Suri, Zhihui Wang, Tanay Roy, Davide Venturelli, and Wibe Albert de Jong
We present a quantum sensing protocol for coupled qubit-oscillator systems that surpasses the standard quantum limit (SQL) by exploiting a geometrical phase. The signal is encoded in the geometrical phase that is proportional to the area enclosed in oscillator phase space. This area is amplified thr…
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 170802 (2026)
Quantum Information, Science, and Technology
Quasilinear Theory of Fast Flavor Instabilities
Article | Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Gravitation | 2026-10-21 06:00 EDT
Damiano F. G. Fiorillo and Georg G. Raffelt
Dense neutrino plasmas can develop instabilities that drive collisionless flavor exchange, equivalent to the emission of flavomons, the quanta of flavor waves. We treat these waves as independent linear degrees of freedom and develop a quasilinear theory, including backreaction on the neutrino distr…
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 171001 (2026)
Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Gravitation
Next-to-Next-to-Next-to-Leading-Order QCD Corrections to Photon-Pair Production
Article | Particles and Fields | 2026-10-21 06:00 EDT
Michał Czakon, Felix Eschment, Terry Generet, and Rene Poncelet
The production of two isolated photons at the Large Hadron Collider has applications in Higgs-boson phenomenology and in new-physics searches. In fact, measurements would provide more insight if a percent-level theoretical prediction were available. We account for next-to-next-to-next-to-leading-ord…
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 171901 (2026)
Particles and Fields
First Simultaneous Analysis of Transverse Momentum Dependent and Collinear Parton Distributions in the Proton
Article | Particles and Fields | 2026-10-21 06:00 EDT
P. C. Barry, A. Prokudin, T. Anderson, C. Cocuzza, L. Gamberg, W. Melnitchouk, E. Moffat, D. Pitonyak, J.-W. Qiu, N. Sato, A. Vladimirov, and R. M. Whitehill (JAM Collaboration (TMD Analysis Group)
We present the first simultaneous global QCD analysis of unpolarized transverse momentum dependent (TMD) and collinear parton distribution functions (PDFs) in the proton. Our Letter incorporates data from deep-inelastic scattering, Drell-Yan, inclusive weak boson, charm, and jet production involv…
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 171902 (2026)
Particles and Fields
One-Positron Quantum Cyclotron
Article | Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics | 2026-10-21 06:00 EDT
T. G. Myers, L. Soucy, B. A. D. Sukra, B. Sinha, and G. Gabrielse
A device that stores a single positron and controls its quantum states could measure its magnetic moment with unprecedented precision, testing a symmetry principle central to quantum field theory.
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 173001 (2026)
Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
Phase-Space Microscopes for Quantum Gases: Imaging Conjugate Variables and Momentum-Weighted Densities
Article | Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics | 2026-10-21 06:00 EDT
N. R. Cooper, Y. Yang, and C. Weitenberg
A new method lets quantum gas microscopes measure not only where atoms are but also how they move.
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 173402 (2026)
Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
Diagrammatic Route to Multireference $GW$ for Strongly Correlated Molecules
Article | Condensed Matter and Materials | 2026-10-21 06:00 EDT
Yuqi Wang, Wei-Hai Fang, and Zhendong Li
The approximation is a cornerstone of many-body perturbation theory for computing single-particle excitations, yet it can fail qualitatively in strongly correlated systems where the single-reference picture becomes inadequate. To overcome this limitation, we develop a diagrammatic route to multir…
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 176402 (2026)
Condensed Matter and Materials
Contamination-Free Resolution of Cantor Spectra and Magic-Angle Localization in Moiré Quasicrystals and Aperiodic Media
Article | Condensed Matter and Materials | 2026-10-21 06:00 EDT
James Chok, Matthew J. Colbrook, Mark Embree, and Jake Fillman
Quasicrystalline Hamiltonians host Cantor-like spectra, gaps, and critical states, yet conventional finite-patch diagonalization is often compromised by spectral pollution: spurious eigenvalues absent from the infinite system. We introduce a certified spectral-computation framework for aperiodic med…
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 176403 (2026)
Condensed Matter and Materials
Linear Ensemble-Constrained Quantum Monte Carlo: From Dilute Fermi Gas to Flat-Band Ferromagnetism
Article | Condensed Matter and Materials | 2026-10-21 06:00 EDT
Tu Hong, Kun Chen, and Xiao Yan Xu
We present a finite-temperature canonical-ensemble determinant quantum Monte Carlo algorithm that enforces an exact fermion number and enables numerically stable simulations of correlated lattice fermions. We propose a stabilized QR update that reduces the computational complexity from standard cubi…
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 176504 (2026)
Condensed Matter and Materials
Bulk-Mediated Reflection of Chirality-Protected Surface Spin Waves
Article | Condensed Matter and Materials | 2026-10-21 06:00 EDT
Vitaliy I. Vasyuchka, Florin Ciubotaru, Andrii V. Chumak, Burkard Hillebrands, and Alexander A. Serga
Surface spin waves of the Damon-Eshbach type exhibit intrinsically nonreciprocal transport properties with a chiral dynamical field structure that localizes counterpropagating waves at opposite film surfaces. Such chirality has been predicted to suppress direct backscattering in thin films within fr…
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 176701 (2026)
Condensed Matter and Materials
Selective Strain Tuning of Nonequilibrium Multiferroic Dynamics in ${\mathrm{BiFeO}}_{3}$
Article | Condensed Matter and Materials | 2026-10-21 06:00 EDT
Chenhang Xu, Patrick Liu, Bo Zhang, Minyong Han, Henry G. Bell, Cameron J. R. Duncan, Yusong Liu, Patrick L. Kramer, Randy Lemons, Jake D. Koralek, Alexander H. Reid, Dong Qian, Harold Y. Hwang, and Alfred Zong
Quantum materials are characterized by intertwined orders, and a fundamental goal in condensed matter physics is to achieve their selective control in such a way that one order parameter can be tuned while leaving others largely unaffected. Although significant progress has been made in thermal equi…
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 176901 (2026)
Condensed Matter and Materials
Nonlinear Phonon-Assisted Up-Conversion Photoluminescence Under Vibrational Pumping at Liquid-Helium Temperatures
Article | Condensed Matter and Materials | 2026-10-21 06:00 EDT
Haonan Chang, Jia-Min Lai, Feilong Song, Yanpei Lv, and Jun Zhang
Optical refrigeration in semiconductors is driven by anti-Stokes photoluminescence (PL) arising from phonon-assisted up-conversion. In the conventional picture, lattice vibrations remain in thermal equilibrium and the relevant phonon population is pump independent, so the up-conversion rate scales a…
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 176902 (2026)
Condensed Matter and Materials
Ultrafast Directed Transport via Energy Recuperation in Non-Markovian Systems
Article | Statistical Physics; Classical, Nonlinear, and Complex Systems | 2026-10-21 06:00 EDT
Mateusz Wiśniewski and Jakub Spiechowicz
A recent pioneering experiment [Ginot and Bechinger, Nat. Commun. 16, 10114 (2025)] demonstrated that a driven overdamped colloidal particle in a harmonic trap immersed in a viscoelastic fluid can recuperate energy dissipated into the surrounding bath and convert it into useful work. In this Letter …
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 177102 (2026)
Statistical Physics; Classical, Nonlinear, and Complex Systems
Physical Review X
Tensor-Network Framework for Lindbladian Spectra and Steady States
Article | | 2026-10-21 06:00 EDT
Philipp Westhoff, Mattia Moroder, Ulrich Schollwöck, and Sebastian Paeckel
Researchers develop a tensor-network framework using complex-time evolution to accurately compute low-lying excitation spectra of open quantum systems.
Phys. Rev. X 16, 041020 (2026)
Generalized Bogoliubov-Born-Green-Kirkwood-Yvon Hierarchy for Near-Integrable Dynamics
Article | | 2026-10-21 06:00 EDT
Leonardo Biagetti, Maciej Łebek, Miłosz Panfil, and Jacopo De Nardis
The BBGKY hierarchy is generalized to systems with strong integrable contact interactions and generic long-range two-body ones, enabling the computation of experimentally measurable expectation values and correlations for classical and quantum systems.
Phys. Rev. X 16, 041021 (2026)
arXiv
Dynamical Tunneling Blockade in Layer-Pseudospin Ferromagnets
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Lingxian Kong, Yuta Murakami, Ryuichi Shindou, Zhiyuan Sun
Double-layer systems with narrow or flat electronic bands may exhibit spontaneous interlayer coherence, described by a layer-pseudospin ferromagnetic order parameter. In modern realizations of layer-pseudospin ferromagnets, the electrons carry additional valley degeneracies, endowing each layer with a valley-pseudospin degree of freedom. We study their nonequilibrium steady states driven by a static interlayer voltage bias in the presence of interlayer tunneling. While in the low-bias regime, the system is in a static state with parallel valley pseudospins between the two layers, we show that in the high-bias regime, the dynamical precession of the layer-pseudospin stabilizes the valley pseudospins in the antiparallel configuration, strongly suppressing the interlayer tunneling. This dynamical tunneling blockade leads to an absence of ac current and a sharp drop of the dc tunneling current to a tiny value, in stark contrast to conventional quantum Hall double layers.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
Theory of the intrinsic optical anomalous Hall responses in time-reversal symmetry breaking superconductors
New Submission | Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Determining the symmetry of the Cooper pairing in superconductors is a central challenge in condensed matter physics. Time-reversal symmetry breaking (TRSB) is among the most distinctive symmetry-breaking pattern of a superconductor. An important subset of TRSB pairing states, including the topological $ p_x+ip_y$ pairing, is expected to exhibit the optical anomalous Hall effect. However, the microscopic ingredients that enable the Hall response and their underlying organizing principle in clean superconductors remain unelucidated. Here, we develop a unified theory for TRSB multiband superconductors possessing inversion symmetry, and establish their intrinsic optical Hall response as fundamentally a quantum-geometric phenomenon. We distinguish unitary and nonunitary TRSB states. Diagrammatically, we identify two classes of processes: single-electron tunneling and Cooper-pair tunneling. Both involve at least one interband tunneling event driven by the interband velocity-which is closely tied to the interband Berry connection. We rigorously prove that interband pairing is a prerequisite for unitary states to generate intrinsic Hall response, whereas it is not absolutely needed for nonunitary states. In nonunitary states with intraband pairing alone, the Hall effect can arise through single-electron tunneling, provided spin-orbit coupling is present. An effective theory obtained by integrating out the hole degrees of freedom reproduces these results and shows how pairing may endow electrons with effective Berry curvature. Finally, through symmetry analysis, we show that intrinsic resonances near the superconducting gap edge are allowed in nonunitary states but forbidden in unitary states. Our work thus establishes quantum geometry as a unifying principle for the intrinsic Hall response in superconductors and provides a guide for distinguishing different candidate TRSB pairings.
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con), Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas)
18 pages, 6 figures, 1 table
Polymer-Mediated Hotspot Evolution in Shock-Induced Pore Collapse in 1,3,5,7-Tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetrazocane (HMX)-based Explosives
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Jalen Macatangay, Brenden W. Hamilton, Alejandro Strachan
The initiation of detonation in high explosives (HEs) under shock loading is strongly influenced by the collapse of porosity and the subsequent formation of hotspots. As these materials are widely integrated with polymer binders to form polymer-bonded explosives, the collapse of pores at explosive-binder interfaces has received significant interest. Recent molecular dynamics (MD) simulations revealed that the shock-driven expansion of soft polymers (e.g. polystyrene) into a void produces greater pressure-volume (PV) work during recompression and higher local temperatures compared to pore collapse in neat HEs, ultimately expediting the onset of chemical reactions. Yet how pore collapse, interfacial phenomena, and binder chemistry jointly affect initiation remains insufficiently understood. We provide deeper insights into the role of polymer in hotspot evolution through reactive MD simulations, specifically characterizing its chemical behavior during the shock-induced collapse of voids at sizes approaching experimentally relevant length scales. We consider the HE 1,3,5,7-Tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetrazocane (HMX) in a crystal-gap-crystal stack with polystyrene along the upstream surface. In the hydrodynamic collapse regime, hotspots nucleate at the material interfaces, with void length-dependence in PV work, shock temperature, and the onset of self-sustaining chemistry. Driven by shock-induced deformation and HMX decomposition, the binder undergoes backbone chain scission followed by extensive aromatic-backbone cross-bonding, akin to a graphite to diamond transformation. These reactions act as heat sinks, suppressing deflagration and ultimately inhibiting hotspot growth and coalescence between crystals. The simulations further link the polymer’s chemical response to the shock-to-detonation transition in polymer-bonded explosives.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Paramagnetic phase of MnTe$_2$: complete one phonon Raman spectrum
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Taras Palasyuk, Dominik Kurzydłowski, Ashutosh S. Wadge, Rajmund Bacewicz, Madhavi H. Dalsaniya, Michał Wierzbicki, Daniel Jastrzebski, Andrzej Wiśniewski, Wojciech Szuszkiewicz, Igor Antoniazzi, Bruno Camargo, Maciej R. Molas, Adam Babiński, Krzysztof Zberecki, Cezariusz Jastrzebski
In this study we present a complete first-order Raman scattering spectrum of paramagnetic phase of MnTe$ _2$ - a material, where new type of spin texture induced by noncoplanar antiferromagnetic ordering below the Néel temperature ($ T_N \approx 90$ K) gives rise to unconventional scenario of magnetism. Basic properties of all five phonon modes ($ A_g$ , $ E_g$ and three $ T_g$ ) predicted by the group theory have been successfully approached through polarization, excitation and temperature dependent measurements. In particular, the ever-missing phonon mode of $ T_g$ symmetry has been unambiguously resolved in the room temperature Raman spectrum at approximately 107 cm$ ^{-1}$ , just 1.5 cm$ ^{-1}$ higher in frequency compared to the $ E_g$ mode. Density functional theory calculations reproduce the observed Raman-active phonon spectrum and support the assignment of all five first-order Raman modes, including the near-degeneracy of the $ E_g$ and one of the $ T_g$ vibrations. The calculations further reveal a dense manifold of low-energy antiferromagnetic spin configurations, separated from the ground state by only a few meV per formula unit. Furthermore, strong signals of inelastically scattered light from the paramagnetic (PM) phase of MnTe$ _2$ were acquired with long wavelength excitations, i.e. 633 nm and 785 nm, revealing the $ 2A_g$ overtone at approx. 360 cm$ ^{-1}$ . The enhanced absorption of the light in the near infrared range could be a putative reason behind the anomalous angular dependence of scattered intensity of the highest frequency $ T_g$ phonon mode (183 cm$ ^{-1}$ ) measured in PM MnTe$ _2$ with parallelly aligned polarizers. Finally, upon cooling just below the $ T_N$ , the measured properties of phonons remained basically unperturbed by the incipient long-range antiferromagnetic ordering.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other)
16 pages, 7 figures
Two quantum skyrmions form a magnon Josephson junction
New Submission | Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Two quantum skyrmions in a frustrated spin-$ 1/2$ magnet bind into a molecule, and the molecule acts as a magnon Josephson junction: the relative helicity $ \theta$ and the number $ n$ of magnons transferred between them obey $ H=E_Cn^2-W\cos\theta$ . DMRG on the $ J_1$ –$ J_2$ triangular lattice gives $ E_C$ as the curvature of the skyrmion energy at its natural size of seven flipped spins, and the measured helicity coherence fixes $ W\simeq0.02J_1$ , half the skyrmion–antiskyrmion tunnel splitting and independent of the anisotropy. Two helicity qubits side by side are thus strongly coupled by their own interaction.
Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other), Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
Resonant Inverse Photoelectron Spectroscopy of Ce and U Oxides
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
The soft x-ray Resonant Inverse Photoelectron Spectroscopy (RIPES) of the M5 transition in cerium oxide and the N5 transition in uranium dioxide and supporting instrumentation is discussed. Further experimental evidence and analysis is presented to support the hypothesis that the Ce 5d states are intrinsic to the resonance process in cerium oxide. The strong connection with cerium dioxide is emphasized.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
17 pages, 6 figures
Ultrafast and Anisotropic Exciton Transport in Layered NbOI$_2$
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Salman Ahsanullah, Neema Rafizadeh, Hui Zhao
Ferroelectric layered semiconductors provide a unique platform for exploring coupled excitonic and electronic phenomena in reduced dimensions. Here, exciton transport in layered NbOI$ _2$ is investigated using transient absorption microscopy. Ultrafast and strongly anisotropic exciton diffusion is observed. The diffusion coefficient of about 160 cm$ ^2$ s$ ^{-1}$ along the nonpolar crystal axis is among the highest reported for van der Waals semiconductors. The transport exhibits an approximately twofold in-plane anisotropy between the polar and nonpolar directions, reflecting the intrinsic low-symmetry crystal structure of NbOI$ _2$ . The environmental stability of NbOI$ _2$ is further investigated, and fabrication and encapsulation conditions required to achieve long-term sample stability are identified. These results establish NbOI$ _2$ as a promising platform for studying anisotropic exciton transport and highlight the critical role of interface protection in air-sensitive van der Waals materials.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
7 pages, 4 figures
Strain-Induced Interfacial Bond Evolution and Facet-dependent Strain Response of Electronic Properties in Oxidized Silicon Nanowires
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Yasir Mahmood, Daniel Wines, Viviana Dovale-Farelo, Kamal Choudhary, Lucas M Hale
Silicon nanowires (Si NWs) have emerged as promising candidates for next-generation nanoelectronic devices due to their tunable electronic properties, and compatibility with aggressive scaling requirements. The integration of strain further enhances their performance by modulating carrier mobility, band structure, and transport behavior without altering material chemistry. Within the NW, the silicon-silicon dioxide (Si-SiO$ _{2}$ ) interface serves as a critical region where strain redistribution and suboxide bonding collectively influence the mechanical and electronic response. Here, we combine reactive force field molecular dynamics and first-principles calculations to investigate how oxidation-induced interfacial structure and crystallographic facet orientation govern strain-dependent bond evolution and facet-dependent strain response of electronic properties in oxidized Si NWs. Simulated dry thermal oxidation generates chemically realistic Si-SiO$ _{2}$ interfaces, enabling direct characterization of bond order redistribution and stress gradient development across the interface under tensile strain. Interfacial Si-Si bonds exhibit elongation and reduced bond order associated with partial oxidation states, leading to localized stress concentration and preferential bond rupture. Complementary density functional theory calculations on facet-specific models reveal that orientation-dependent interfacial bonding modulates facet-dependent strain response of electronic properties. Together, these results establish a direct coupling between interfacial suboxide chemistry, mechanical deformation, and electronic structure, providing atomistic insight into strain-modulated behavior at oxidized silicon interfaces in faceted NWs.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Hereditary Effective Atom Theory for Large-Scale Atomic Structure Prediction
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Justin Tahmassebpur, Chia-Hao Lee, Cristobál Méndez, Shake Karapetyan, Schuyler Z. Shi, David A. Muller, Tomás Arias
Predicting the atomic structure of large systems requires simultaneous exploration of atomic positions, species, and, generally, the number of atoms. The combinatorial growth of possible arrangements can make this search difficult even for standard genetic algorithms. We introduce Hereditary Effective Atom Theory (HEAT), which integrates Effective Atom Theory into a genetic algorithm to enable efficient global search through a differentiable effective-atom representation. Central to the method is a crossover scheme that directly superimposes two parent structures and relaxes the combined structure. HEAT outperforms conventional genetic-algorithm baselines in recovering a missing 240-atom H sublattice, predicting a 364-atom edge-dislocation core, and reconstructing twisted-bilayer $ \mathrm{WSe_2}$ containing 1150 atoms from ptychographic constraints. These results demonstrate how continuous effective-atom relaxation improves the exploration of large combinatorial structure spaces.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
14 pages, 4 figures
Influence of embedding depth on the pullout of a plate from a confined granular medium
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Dominik Krengel, Jian Chen, Shun Nomura, Hidenori Takahashi
Understanding the behaviour of moving objects within confined granular media is important in many technical applications. In this work we study the vertical pullout of a plate-like intruder buried at different depths within a dense granular aggregate from the onset of motion to flow around the intruder in the steady state by means of a two-dimensional polygonal Discrete Element Method. We find that the peak and steady-state drag forces depend differently on their embedding depth for different friction coefficients. Depending on the strength of friction the plate may interact with the domain walls, which enhances the drag force until failure of the aggregate, but not in the steady-state as dilation around intruder directs the force chains emanating from the plate upwards and away from the walls. If the inter-particle friction is weak, it is possible for the overhead pressure to overcome frictional resistance beyond a certain embedding depth. This prevents the formation of dilated failure zones above the intruder and changes the failure mode of the aggregate, leading to a slower decay of the steady-state drag forces with pullout distance.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
15 pages, 15 figures
Josephson effect in symmetry-mismatched van der Waals hybrid junctions of NbSe2-Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x and NbSe2-Bi2Sr2-xLaxCuO6+y
New Submission | Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Yuying Zhu, Ziye Liu, Hongtao Yan, Lin Zhao, Xingjiang Zhou, Qi-Kun Xue, Ding Zhang
Coupling superconductors of different symmetries may lead to emergent quantum phenomena but experimental studies on heterojunctions made of lattice-mismatched crystals are scarce. Here, we fabricate Josephson junction by van der Waals stacking NbSe2 flakes on freshly cleaved surfaces of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x or Bi2Sr2-xLaxCuO6+y. We obtain pronounced Josephson currents across the heterojunctions at temperatures below 7 K. The Josephson coupling strength, characterized by the product of the critical Josephson current I_c and the normal state resistance R_n, can reach about 0.3 mV, much exceeding the values previously reported in Pb-Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x or Nb-Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x junctions. Microwave irradiation induces integer Shapiro steps. We also observe the Fraunhofer diffraction pattern by applying an in-plane magnetic field. We compare our results with the theoretical calculations that take into account the coherent tunneling and the order parameter mixing. Our work demonstrates the hybrid junctions as a distinctive platform for addressing pairing symmetry and emergent quantum phenomena.
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
17 pages, 4 figures
Characterizing universal topological phases beyond spatial embedding
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Sunkyu Yu, Xianji Piao, Namkyoo Park
Although Hamiltonians govern wave-matter interactions, conventional characterizations of topological phases of matter require more than the Hamiltonian alone, relying on global invariants defined on closed reciprocal-space manifolds or local commutation relations with position operators. This spatial dependence precludes a unique characterization of topological phases on an abstract platform, whose Hamiltonian can be defined independently of its spatial embedding. Here we establish a framework for characterizing universal topological phases, grounded in the invariance of topological features under arbitrary Hamiltonian-preserving deformations. We construct a Hamiltonian-based spatial embedding that groups a system’s constituents according to their connectivity. This embedding, which reproduces the results of conventional topological diagnostics in established systems, enables a coherent extension of topological phases to complex networks using the Hamiltonian alone, further highlighting exceptional robustness in small-world networks. Our results reshape the conceptual foundations of topological physics by decoupling topological characterization from prescribed physical platforms.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn), Optics (physics.optics)
Ubiquitous topological materials protected by hidden partial symmetries
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Lumen Eek, Xuelong Chen, Malte Röntgen, Wenlong Gao, Cristiane Morais Smith
Symmetries play a crucial role in protecting the topological phases of insulators, ensuring the robustness of their surface states against perturbations. Traditionally, these symmetries have to be obeyed by the system as a whole, which is a rather strong constraint. In this work, we demonstrate that topological effects can also be realized through a substantially weaker form of symmetry that we coin \emph{partial latent symmetries}. For these, invariance is required only at certain energy scales of an effective Hamiltonian, rather than for the object as a whole. Applying this idea, we construct weak-symmetry versions of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger and Benalcazar-Bernevig-Hughes models. These weak-symmetry models behave in many aspects just like their conventional brethren—in particular, they host robust edge states—, though the corresponding topological invariants are only \emph{approximately} quantized. We conclude this work by experimentally realizing Hermitian and non-Hermitian versions of such approximate topological insulators and probe their edge states. Overall, given the ubiquity of symmetry in all areas of physics and engineering, we foresee our work to serve as a cornerstone for exploring how conventional, strong symmetry requirements can be replaced by weak-symmetry ones.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
Exotic vortex states and enhancement of orbital upper critical fields in an $s$-wave quasicrystalline superconductor
New Submission | Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Takumi Fukushima, Yuki Yamamoto, Nayuta Takemori, Shiro Sakai, Masanori Ichioka, Anuradha Jagannathan
Quasicrystals possess long-range order without translational symmetry, giving rise to intrinsically inhomogeneous superconducting states. Using the Bogoliubov-de Gennes mean-field theory, we investigate vortex states in an $ s$ -wave quasicrystalline superconductor on the Ammann-Beenker tiling, with particular emphasis on the high-field regime. We find that the vortex configuration can differ qualitatively from the Abrikosov triangular lattice. In particular, at filling $ \nu=0.8$ , vortices preferentially penetrate weak-pairing regions centered on sites with coordination number $ 8$ , indicating that their spatial organization is strongly influenced by the local geometry. Furthermore, we observe an enhanced upper critical field. At $ \nu=0.8$ , where the enhancement is particularly pronounced, the spatially averaged order parameter exhibits a plateau-like field dependence accompanied by the formation of vortex clusters. These clusters accommodate additional flux in locally weak superconducting regions, providing a microscopic interpretation of the plateau-like behavior. Moreover, the upper critical field increases upon cooling toward zero temperature without a clear sign of saturation.
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
The Spectroscopic Atlas of Excitonic Complexes in hBN-Encapsulated S-TMD Monolayers: From Excitons to Oxcitons and Beyond
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) encapsulation has transformed the optical spectroscopy of semiconducting transition-metal dichalcogenide monolayers (MLs) by suppressing extrinsic disorder and enabling the resolution of an increasingly complex hierarchy of excitonic states. This Review provides a spectroscopy-oriented framework for understanding and identifying excitonic complexes in hBN-encapsulated Mo- and W-based MLs and their alloys. The discussion covers bright and dark excitons, Rydberg states, charged excitons, biexcitons, phonon-assisted replicas, and higher-order Fermi-sea many-body states, including hexcitons and oxcitons, with an emphasis on the experimental signatures that distinguish them. Particular attention is given to the combined use of photoluminescence and absorption-related spectroscopy, electrostatic gating, polarization analysis, excitation-power and temperature dependences, magnetic fields, and time-resolved measurements to establish microscopic assignments. The role of alloying as an additional degree of freedom for engineering the excitonic hierarchy, spin-valley configuration, and magneto-optical response is also highlighted. By organizing the rapidly expanding phenomenology around experimentally accessible fingerprints rather than individual material systems, this Review aims to provide a practical and broadly applicable guide for identifying, comparing, and engineering excitonic states in high-quality two-dimensional semiconductors.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
23 pages, 12 figures
Algebraic criteria for complete relaxation in autonomous and periodically driven open quantum systems
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
We derive sufficient criteria that guarantee convergence of open quantum system dynamics to a unique long-time state independent of the initial conditions. We refer to this behavior as complete relaxation. Focusing on systems described by Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad (GKSL) master equations on finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, our approach uses only elementary mathematical arguments. For autonomous systems, we recover three previously derived relaxation criteria, which can be expressed as algebraic conditions on the Lindblad operators and the Hamiltonian entering the GKSL equation. For periodically driven systems, we obtain a new criterion involving a similar algebraic condition and a local continuity requirement on the time-dependent GKSL generator. This result implies an earlier criterion for complete relaxation formulated in Ref. [J. Phys. A 52, 43LT01 (2019)]. We also discuss implications of our approach for periodically modulated classical master equations, as well as extensions to driven systems without a periodicity constraint.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
15 pages, 1 figure
Geometry and electronic properties of chiral phosphorene nanotubes
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Felipe Cervantes-Sodi, Carlos Delmote, José Ángel Reyes-Retana
Phosphorene nanotubes (PNTs) exhibit highly tunable electronic properties, yet research has largely focused on high-symmetry armchair and zigzag configurations. This work presents the first systematic study of the geometric and electronic properties of chiral PNTs. Using the Chiraltube software, a comprehensive set of 214 PNTs was generated and analyzed via a 2D zone-folding mapping approach. Subsequently, a representative subset of 48 chiral PNTs was selected for ab initio calculations covering the full chiral space. While the mapping method overestimates band gaps by directly inheriting monolayer features, it serves as a qualitative tool for specific chiral geometries-particularly armchair configurations and larger-radius tubes-by effectively capturing their subband density and dispersion profiles. Finally, this work details the evolution of structural stability and electronic properties as a function of radius and chirality, identifying clear direct-to-indirect band gap transitions driven by curvature effects, alongside metallic behavior in specific zigzag configurations.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
16 pages, 5 figures
Magnetization and Josephson current coupling drives the Josephson diode effect in FeTe0.55Se0.45 van der Waals junctions
New Submission | Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Seung-Hyun Shin, Cheong-Eung Ahn, Chang-Won Choi, Taekoo Oh, Si-Young Choi, Genda Gu, Gil Young Cho, Gil-Ho Lee
The Josephson diode effect (JDE) reflects symmetry breaking in the current-phase relation (CPR) of Josephson junctions, yet establishing its microscopic origin is often challenging. We investigate the mechanism of the JDE in van der Waals Josephson junctions based on FeTe0.55Se0.45, a platform where superconductivity, topology, and magnetism may coexist at the interface. Our devices exhibit a robust zero-field diode response with asymmetric switching currents. Magnetic-field measurements reveal a hysteretic Fraunhofer pattern and magnetic-resonance-induced voltage feature, evidencing interfacial magnetism coupled to the Josephson current. Microwave response further shows half-integer Shapiro steps with asymmetric evolution, demonstrating contributions from both a second harmonic and a magnetization-induced phase shift in CPR. Numerical simulations combining magnetization dynamics and Josephson phase dynamics reproduce these features, confirming that the JDE originates from interfacial coupling between magnetization and Josephson current. This work provides a transport-based route to pinpoint the microscopic mechanism of the JDE, establishing a platform for exploring magnetically active interfacial superconductivity, and enables the design of nonreciprocal superconducting devices in clean, interface-engineered van der Waals systems.
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
39 pages, including 20 pages of main text with 4 figures and 19 pages of Supplementary Information with 8 figures
Numerical Prediction of NaCl Solubility in Water Using the TIP4P/05 Water Model NaCl/Madrid
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
The solid-liquid equilibrium and solubility of NaCl in water were investigated using molecular dynamics simulations with the NaCl/Madrid force field and the TIP4P/05 water model. Particular attention was given to the influence of the intermolecular cut-off radius, rcut, used to identify ions belonging to the crystalline phase. Simulations were initiated from a NaCl crystal immersed in an aqueous NaCl solution, following the configuration proposed by Manzanilla-Granados et al. After equilibration, the system was analysed over an extended simulation trajectory. The radial distribution function, g(r), was used to establish a physically motivated criterion for distinguishing the crystalline and aqueous phases. Specifically, the first minimum following the principal Na-Cl correlation peak was used to characterise the ionic coordination environment and constrain the range of meaningful cut-off radii. The number of ions remaining in the crystalline phase was then evaluated as a function of rcut, allowing the corresponding solubility to be estimated. The resulting curve exhibits a well-defined inflection point, providing a criterion for identifying the transition between predominantly crystalline and dissolved ionic populations. This approach offers a structural basis for determining NaCl solubility directly from the evolution of the solid-liquid system, avoiding the arbitrary selection of the cut-off distance. The results demonstrate that combining radial distribution functions with cut-off-dependent analysis provides a useful framework for characterising solid-liquid behaviour and estimating the solubility of ionic crystals through molecular dynamics simulations.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
Valence-Driven Structural Transformation and Phase Coexistence in Chemically Substituted EuPd2Si2
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Masoud Mardani, Shivani Sharma, Saul H. Lapidus, Theo Siegrist
EuPd2Si2 serves as an ideal system to probe the interplay between lattice dynamics and electronic instabilities through its tunable valence transition, responsive to temperature, pressure, and magnetic field. Here, we focus on investigating the origin of the temperature-induced europium valence instability in pristine EuPd2Si2, alloyed EuPd2Si1.95Ge0.05, and EuPd2Si1.9Ge0.1 and its correlation with structural responses. Compared with the parent compound EuPd2Si2 which exhibits the europium valence transition at Tv = 143 K, magnetic susceptibility measurements reveal a systematic shift in Tv with Ge substitution, decreasing to 87 K for EuPd2Si1.95Ge0.05. Temperature-dependent synchrotron X-ray diffraction confirms phase coexistence between Eu2+Pd2Si2-xGex and Eu3+Pd2Si2-xGex phases across the valence transition for all samples measured (x = 0, 0.05, 0.10). The pronounced increase in the full width at half maximum (FWHM) well above Tv reflects the gradual nature of the transformation and highlights the role of structural strain in stabilizing the coexisting phases, supporting the presence of a phase-segregated ground state, in contrast to a homogeneous intermediate-valence or mixed-valence state. The variation in Tv across different compositions correlates with changes in lattice parameters, highlighting the robust coupling between the structural and electronic degrees of freedom. The phase diagram suggests an inverse linear relationship between the lattice parameter and Tv, suggesting a possible predictive framework for estimating transition temperatures in other chemically substituted variants of this family.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
20 pages, 10 figures
Geometry-controlled zeros of resonant Kelvin-wave conversion in four spatial dimensions
New Submission | Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Wei-can Yang, Xiang-dong Xu, Cheng Li
Kelvin waves carry energy along vortices, but their resonant interactions contain information that is absent from the linear spectrum. We identify a geometry that exposes this information on a vortex surface in four spatial dimensions. Perpendicular incoming waves cancel the complete local-area four-wave coupling, leaving the finite nonlocal interaction mediated by the surrounding fluid. This interaction restores conversion at generic wave-number ratios, yet changes sign and vanishes at a selected ratio while momentum and frequency remain exactly matched. Matching to Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) theory, including the microscopic core response, establishes a zero of the full coupling at every sufficiently small nonzero wave number, with ratio tending to $ \lambda_\ast\simeq1.469$ . Finite-grid GP coefficients exhibit a sign reversal for the same resonant quartets. Separate coherent-mixing calculations and weak-probe spectra connect the coupling sign to the generated-wave phase and the ordering of reflection-even and reflection-odd modes. The resulting suppression removes a leading channel for changing propagation directions without changing the paired wavelengths. These results isolate a nonlinear effect of the surrounding flow that local tension misses, providing a microscopic benchmark for vortex-wave theories and a starting point for studying angular redistribution beyond the Kelvin spectrum.
Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas), Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
47 pages, including Supplemental Material; 6 figures
Disorder-Mediated Magnetism in Transition-Metal Dichalcogenide Monolayers: XS$_2$ and XSe$_2$ (X = Ti, V, Co, Mo, and Ru)
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Chi-Cheng Lee, Yukiko Yamada-Takamura, Taisuke Ozaki
Magnetism in transition-metal dichalcogenide monolayers has attracted considerable attention, yet its nature remains elusive, particularly in monolayer 1T-VSe$ _2$ . Our first-principles calculations show that Stoner instability can drive ferromagnetism in XS$ _2$ and XSe$ _2$ monolayers (X = Ti, V, Co, Mo, and Ru), associated with a reduced density of states at the Fermi level. We demonstrate that mixing nonmagnetic Ti, Co, Mo, and Ru disulfides or diselenides can induce magnetism. Conversely, mixing magnetic VS$ _2$ or VSe$ _2$ with other compounds can completely suppress magnetism. Both scenarios can lower the total energy. Moreover, substituting a small number of V atoms with Co defects can also disrupt ferromagnetism in 1T-V(S,Se)$ _2$ . Even in pristine 1T-VSe$ _2$ , we find ferrimagnetic configurations with reversed local V moments that are nearly degenerate with the ferromagnetic state. Their competition may contribute to the suppression of long-range ferromagnetic order. This reduced energy penalty for magnetic and structural disorder arises from a suppressed density of states at the Fermi level, resembling the mechanism underlying the Peierls transition. Electronically driven energy lowering near the Fermi level may therefore be widespread among transition-metal dichalcogenide monolayers in various forms.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
5 pages, 4 figures, 1 table
Interplay of disorder and phonons in two-dimensional transport
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Aryaman Babbar, Sankar Das Sarma
We calculate the temperature- and density-dependent resistivity of bilayer MoSe$ _2$ in the presence of charged impurities, short-range defects, and longitudinal acoustic phonons, using the Boltzmann transport theory with screening treated in the random phase approximation, and compare the results with recent transport measurements. The disorder parameters are taken from the experiment itself and the phonon parameters are taken from literature estimates for MoSe$ _2$ . We find that screened acoustic phonons are a small correction to the disorder-limited resistivity over the entire experimental temperature range, so that the temperature dependence of the measured resistivity on the metallic side is controlled by the temperature-dependent screening of charged disorder and by neutral defects. We also show that a resistivity minimum as a function of temperature can arise on both sides of the metal-insulator crossover through two different mechanisms: on the insulating side from the interplay between activated carriers and resistive scattering, and on the metallic side from the interplay between disorder and phonon scattering. The existence of a resistivity minimum by itself therefore does not identify the phase.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
8 pages, 5 figures
Stochastic model of elongation-shortening-switching kinetics of a polymeric filament: Critical slowing down of first-passage and finite-size regularization
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Manvendra Singh, Ashok Garai, Debashish Chowdhury
Several filamentous biopolymers exhibit unusual polymerization-depolymerization kinetics where continued elongation (shortening) is possible only in an active' (inactive’) state while occasional random transition (switching) between the active and inactive states takes place. Here, we present a minimal stochastic model capturing only the key features of random elongation-shortening-switching kinetics of a generic filament. The structure and/or function of the filament ends when its length hits a critical value during its shortening; the time to reach this critical length can be formulated as a first-passage time (FPT) and for its calculation the critical length is treated as an absorbing boundary. Moreover, the lengths of the filaments that inspire our model are constrained to a finite maximum value $ \mathcal{N}$ ; therefore, in our model we impose a reflecting boundary beyond which the filament cannot grow. We determined the distribution of the FPT and derived its first two moments. We identify a critical point where the drift of the tip of the filament vanishes making its movement purely diffusive; at this critical point, in the limit $ \mathcal{N} \to \infty$ , the fluctuations in the FPT diverges and MFPT becomes infinite indicating `critical slowing down’. Our analytical results will serve as the testing ground for the accuracy of the approximate theoretical results of more realistic models for polymerization-depolymerization kinetics of specific bio-filaments.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph)
5 pages, 3 figures
Physical Review E 114, 045404 (2026)
Chirality, Klein duality, and the stability of Kitaev spin liquids on the star lattice
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
The star lattice hosts the Yao-Kivelson chiral spin liquid, an exactly solvable Kitaev spin liquid that breaks time reversal spontaneously and is non-Abelian or Abelian depending on the ratio of its two couplings. A density-matrix renormalization group study found that an added Heisenberg exchange leaves it a wide stability window for ferromagnetic but only a narrow one for antiferromagnetic Kitaev coupling. Using projective symmetry groups (PSGs) of fermionic partons, we show that the chirality is not a peculiarity of the solvable point: whenever the $ \pi$ spin rotations act on the partons as in the exact solution (spin-gauge locking), a time-reversal-symmetric mean-field state has no amplitude on the triangles, at any range, so a Kitaev-type spin liquid on this lattice must break time reversal. The Abelian and non-Abelian liquids of both signs share a single chiral PSG, within which their transition is a band inversion. The Klein duality, which reverses the Heisenberg coupling, permutes the PSGs and leaves exactly the locked ones unchanged; a $ Z_2$ spin-liquid phase mapped onto itself is therefore locked and, if it spans a connected range of couplings, contains a Kitaev point. Unprojected mean-field theory in Kitaev’s Majorana representation treats both signs alike. Exact second-order perturbation theory about the Kitaev points locates the asymmetry: the triangles respond identically for both signs, whereas on the bonds between triangles the two off-diagonal Heisenberg terms create the same four visons and interfere constructively for antiferromagnetic and almost destructively for ferromagnetic coupling, admixing a low-energy four-vison state $ 82$ times more strongly on the antiferromagnetic side. The PSG results rest on a classification of $ 352$ $ Z_2$ PSGs with spin-orbit-coupled amplitudes, which also identifies the fermionic partners of the known Schwinger-boson spin liquids.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
36 pages, 6 figures, 9 tables, and Supplemental Material
Ab Initio Approach for Quantum Magnets with Coupled Cluster and Transcorrelation
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Kristoffer Simula, Nikolay A. Bogdanov, Olle Gunnarsson, Daniel Kats, Ali Alavi
The nearest-neighbour exchange coupling $ J_1$ is the simplest ingredient of model Hamiltonians used to understand magnetism in real materials. Nevertheless, its ab initio determination requires a high-level correlation treatment and a large basis for wave function expansion. Here we compute $ J_1$ for five oxygen-bridged spin-1/2 quantum magnets — Sr$ _2$ CuO$ _3$ , La$ _2$ CuO$ _4$ , NdNiO$ _2$ , ZnCu$ _3$ (OH)$ _6$ Cl$ _2$ , and Li$ _2$ CuO$ _2$ — spanning bridging angles from 180$ ^\circ$ to 94$ ^\circ$ and the crossover from antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic coupling, using embedded-cluster methodology. To describe the open-shell singlets we use 2-determinant coupled cluster with single and double excitations, which recovers the orbital-breathing enhancement of superexchange from a minimal reference. Basis-set errors are found to be large: extrapolation to the complete basis-set (CBS) limit shifts $ J_1$ by up to 50 meV from bases of double-$ \zeta$ quality. Transcorrelated Hamiltonians reproduce the CBS estimates with modest basis set sizes, yielding an excellent accuracy against experiment at highly affordable cost. These results are the first application of transcorrelated methods in strongly correlated solid-state systems, and establish transcorrelation as a powerful theory in computational research of materials.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
Quantics tensor trains for multiloop functional renormalization group in multiorbital impurity models
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Hyun-Yong Lee, Naoki Kawashima
The full frequency dependence of electronic interactions is central to dynamical correlations, but its numerical cost restricts multiorbital calculations. We formulate the multiloop functional renormalization group directly in the quantics tensor train representation, retaining all three independent vertex frequencies over broad ranges without an explicit high-frequency parametrization. Analytical tensor operators perform frequency transformations and internal summations without dense vertex intermediates. Multiloop corrections improve agreement of vertices and responses with independent references and reproduce the low-energy numerical renormalization group self-energy. Lower-temperature calculations resolve a quadratic frequency contribution to the analytically continued scattering rate. A degenerate two-orbital impurity exhibits distinct spin, orbital, and charge responses at fixed Hund coupling. In a compensated altermagnetic environment, an orbital-level splitting induces a local spin response despite zero magnetization of the unperturbed impurity. Increasing Hund coupling suppresses the orbital response while increasing its spin polarization. Renormalized one-particle propagation alone does not reproduce this strong polarization dependence. These results extend compressed multiloop calculations to dynamical correlations in multiorbital environments.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
Hybridization-Induced Enhancement of the Thermoelectric Response in the Kagome Material CsCr$_6$Sb$_6$
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Hongye Zhang, Boqin Song, Aifeng Wang, Yisheng Chai, Xiaoyuan Zhou, Ying Zhu, Tianping Ying, Mingquan He
Flat bands in kagome lattices provide a prominent route to strongly correlated electronic states. Here we report charge and thermal transport measurements on single crystals of CsCr$ 6$ Sb$ 6$ , a kagome Kondo system arising from the hybridization between flat and dispersive bands. The Seebeck coefficient and Nernst signal increase rapidly below $ T\mathrm{F}\sim70$ K, concomitant with the emergence of short-range antiferromagnetic correlations and flat-band resonance. The Nernst coefficient in the intermediate-temperature range of $ \sim30-80$ K further follows the universal scaling reported for prototypical heavy-fermion compounds, consistent with the development of strongly renormalized quasiparticles associated with hybridization. Both the Seebeck and Nernst responses reach extrema at a lower temperature $ T\mathrm{p}\sim20-25$ K, where phonon drag and correlated quasiparticles may both contribute. These results reveal a hybridization-induced enhancement of the thermoelectric response and establish CsCr$ _6$ Sb$ _6$ as a kagome platform for probing flat-band-derived Kondo physics through thermoelectric transport.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
9 pages, 3 figures
First-principles modeling of ordering in Fe-rich Fe-Si alloys
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Daniil M. Khodachenko, Andrei V. Ruban, Franco Moitzi, Oleg E. Peil, Vsevolod I. Razumovskiy
The atomic ordering in Fe-rich Fe-Si alloys strongly influences their magnetic properties and mechanical behavior. While general features of long-range atomic ordering are known from the experimentally established phase diagram in this composition range, detailed atomic configurations and driving forces behind them remain speculative. Here, we address this gap by using effective cluster interactions (ECI) obtained from density functional theory (DFT) calculations and subsequent statistical thermodynamics modeling to unravel the interplay between magnetism, composition, and temperature in body-centered cubic (bcc) Fe-Si alloys up to 20 at% Si. Our analysis reveals that the ordering behavior is governed by a strong coupling between magnetic order, lattice expansion, and Si concentration, with specific ECI shells switching sign or magnitude as the magnetic state changes, which is reflected in the phase equilibria and ordering behavior of Fe-Si alloys. In particular, we demonstrate that D0$ _3$ ordering is, in fact, primary in the totally ordered ferromagnetic state, while the B2 type of ordering is promoted in the paramagnetic state at elevated temperatures. The temperature-dependent evolution of these ordering patterns, obtained from Monte Carlo simulations based on the magnetically resolved ECIs, reproduces the experimentally observed phase equilibria and short-range order characteristics. By explicitly linking the magnetic state with the effective interactions and macroscopic phase behavior, this work establishes a predictive framework for an ab initio-based description of ordering in Fe-rich Fe-Si alloys and highlights the decisive role of magnetism in ordering phenomena in this system.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Tuning Thermal Memory and Dissipation in Colloidal Glasses via Microgel Particle Stiffness
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Sonali Vasant Kawale, Ranjini Bandyopadhyay
The Kovacs effect, characterized by nonlinear, path-dependent structural recovery, is a hallmark of glassy systems. In soft colloidal microgel glasses, the stiffness of the constituent particles governs their deformation, swelling, rearrangement, and response to external stimuli, thereby dictating the path-dependent structural recovery of these jammed non-equilibrium systems. To investigate this influence, microgels of different stiffnesses were synthesized by adjusting the concentration of the polar crosslinker, N, N’-methylenebisacrylamide (MBA). The relaxation of the storage and loss moduli was measured using oscillatory rheology under diverse temperature ramp rates, and cryo-FESEM imaging provided direct visualization of the underlying particle packing. While the rapid adaptability of soft particles and the kinetic arrest of stiff ones suppresses Kovacs asymmetry, intermediate-stiffness particles exhibit moderate thermoresponsivity, traversing distinct energy landscapes on heating and cooling to maximize asymmetry and dissipation. Cryo-FESEM micrographs, displaying gel-like networks in soft particle suspensions, dense packing in stiff particle suspensions, and disordered, compact structures in intermediate-stiffness systems, corroborate these findings. Our results demonstrate that intermediate-stiffness PNIPAM microgels optimize structural recovery, rendering them promising candidates for forming colloidal glasses and establishing Kovacs asymmetry as a robust probe of non-equilibrium dynamics in glassy systems.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph)
36 pages, 17 figures
Super-tetragonal ferroelectric barium titanate through anionic overstoichiometry
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Jingtian Zhao, Johanna van Gent González, Iñigo Robredo-Magro, Ewout van der Veer, Daniel A. Chaney, Jorge Íñiguez-González, Beatriz Noheda, Martin F. Sarott
Ferroelectric oxides, characterized by an electrical polarization that is switchable with an electric field, are an appealing class of materials for energy-efficient computing, electronics, and photonics. In thin films, the properties of ferroelectrics are commonly tuned using substrate-imposed epitaxial strain, an approach limited to biaxial strain states and a finite number of available substrates. Here, we demonstrate that is is possible to move beyond conventional epitaxial growth by using pulsed laser deposition under highly non-equilibrium conditions. Specifically, we show that this unconventional processing route allows us to stabilize a super-tetragonal phase of ferroelectric $ \text{BaTiO}_3$ . The key to this stabilization lies in the insertion of surplus oxygen atoms into the unit cell, resulting in peroxide bond formation that give rise to an aspect ratio of as high as 1.08. Notably, this super-tetragonal phase exhibits an enhanced ferroelectric polarization, reduced coercivity, lower leakage currents, and increased cycling endurance compared to conventional bulk-like $ \text{BaTiO}_3$ films. These results, thus, showcase the potential of non-equilibrium growth for defect engineering to obtain emergent phases in complex oxides and tune their physical properties in thin films expanding the scope of traditional epitaxy.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Microscopic origin of field-induced multiferroicity in Ni3TeO6
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
J. Lass, R. Toft-Petersen, A. A. Turrini, Ø. S. Fjellvåg, B. Decrausaz, K. M. L. Krighaar, R. Sibille, H. Jacobsen, M. E. Kamminga, C. R. Y. Andersen, D. Sheptyakov, J. Ollivier, U. B. Hansen, M. Enderle, A. M. Läuchli, H. M. Rønnow, K. Lefmann, D. G. Mazzone
The continued demand for smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient technologies has driven condensed-matter research towards materials combining multiple responses within a single phase. Particularly interesting examples are multiferroic materials featuring cross-couplings between order parameters. Ni3TeO6 is a prominent member of this material class, exhibiting a hysteresis-free transition under magnetic field which simultaneously affects the magnetic structure, electric polarization, and phonon frequencies. Here, we uncover the microscopic origin of this multiferroic transition using a combination of neutron scattering techniques. We establish the presence of a finite Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya exchange term giving rise to non-reciprocal, chiral spin waves which soften in magnetic field. Their condensation alters the magnetic structure which controls the electric polarization and drives an ionic displacement, thereby coupling the magnetic, electric, and lattice degrees of freedom. Our study demonstrates that neutron scattering is a powerful technique to elucidate microscopic interactions in multiferroic materials, informing the design of next-generation electronic devices.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
13 pages, 9 figures
Two-dimensional structures formed by pair potentials: An analytical and numerical study
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Understanding the thickness dependence of the excess energy of thin films and identifying the deviation from the scaling law that holds for thicker films are crucial for predicting the formation of two-dimensional (2D) materials derived from nonlayered structures, commonly referred to as non-van der Waals (non-vdW) 2D materials. Here, we analytically study the excess energy of thin films as a function of the number of layers $ N$ , assuming pair potentials. We show that the $ 1/N$ scaling law of the excess energy breaks down in the monolayer limit when the interatomic interactions are long-ranged. The analytical results are confirmed by numerical simulations using the Lennard-Jones and Morse potentials. The present work suggests that non-vdW 2D structures can be formed by pair potentials alone.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
5 pages, 2 figures
From hard-core to soft-core bosons in a shell trap
New Submission | Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
G. Costa, S. Prestipino, F. Cinti, M. Ciardi
We study the low-temperature states of a system of spinless bosons trapped in a broad spherical shell. In our virtual (path-integral Monte Carlo) experiments, we specifically examine how the equilibrium structure and overall superfluidity of the system are affected by a change of the interparticle-potential core from hard to increasingly soft. In this manner we bridge the gap between the behaviors of two species of bosons: Helium-like atoms, which self-assemble into ordinary crystalline solids, and Rydberg-dressed atoms, which in simulation form cluster (super)solids. We also vary the particle mass, i.e., the quantumness of the system, so as to modify the relative stability of ``solid’’ and fluid states. We thus find a whole spectrum of (finite-size) phases with a curved structure, including multilayer and cluster phases, as well as superfluids and single layer supersolids. In particular, we confirm that supersolids only occur in the presence of clusters. By considering three system sizes (from 60 to 180 particles), but rescaling the trap radius so that the density stays fixed, we verify that supersolid states only exist in the same range of particle masses. Our model serves as a platform to test how emergent properties are modified, in spherical geometry, in the crossover from atoms to dressed atoms.
Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas)
12 pages, 17 figures
Suppressing Majorana Hybridization in Atomically Assembled Cr Chains on Bi2Pd
New Submission | Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Jinkyung Kim, Piotr Kot, Ryo Ogawa, Atustaka Maeda, Andreas J. Heinrich, Nicolas Lorente, Deung-Jang Choi
Magnetic-atom chains on superconductors can host Majorana zero modes, but in finite chains the two end modes generally hibridize and split away from zero energy. We show that Cr chains assembled atom-by-atom on the Bi-terminated surface of Bi2Pd enter a short-localization-length Shiba chain regime wthat strongly suppreesses this finite-size hybridization. Scanning tunneling spectroscopy reveals a chaing-leght-driven closing and reopening of the in-gap spectrum, followed by zero-bias modes localized at the chains ends. Green-function calculations reproduce the evolution and show an exchange of electorn-holec haracter across the transition. From the residual splitting we extract a localization length of about three atomic sites, explaining the stability of the zero-energy modes in experimentally accessible chains.
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
Room-temperature near-infrared optical readout of triplet spin states integrated in carbon nanotubes towards quantum sensing
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
J. Alejandro de Sousa, Ilias Vandevenne, Jana Nikolić, Tuur Boonen, Etienne Goovaerts, Sofie Cambré
Optically addressable electron spin qubits that function at room temperature and under ambient conditions are essential for advancing quantum sensing. Solid state defect platforms offer robust spin-photon interfaces but lack precise defect positioning and electronic tunability. Molecular spin qubits enable bottom up chemical design yet suffer from limited photostability. Here, we introduce para-halophenyl (-Cl, -Br and -I) quantum defects in (6,5) single wall carbon nanotubes that trap triplet excitons with a spin-photon interface that is operable under ambient, room temperature conditions. These defects were shown to emit in the near infrared within the biological transparency window, and their placement on the nanotube surface provides nanoscale proximity to target environments. The deep optical traps formed by the defects yield exceptional photostability. Here, we demonstrate optical initialization and readout of these triplet states at room temperature, provide proof of principle sensing of paramagnetic molecules, and highlight potential for on chip detection. Together, these results establish SWCNT defects as a promising new platform for future quantum sensing.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
52 pages and 27 figures, including supplementary information
Chiral-Nematic Lattice Instability in Charge Density Wave of 1T-TiSe2
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Abdurrafi Ahsan Alghifari, Euihwan Do, Jae Whan Park, Han Woong Yeom
Chiral charge-density waves (CDWs) are a rare form of electronic order with handedness, enabling novel couplings among light, lattice, and topology in quantum materials. Yet the microscopic origin of chirality has remained elusive, even in the prototypical chiral CDW system 1T-TiSe2. Using ab initio calculations, we investigate the structural stability and electronic structure of competing CDW models in 1T-TiSe2. We show that a chiral monoclinic (C2) structure is stabilized by the cooperative condensation of multiple phonon modes and reproduces the chiral topography and energy gap observed experimentally. We further find an exceptionally soft potential landscape around this energy-minimized structure, along the direction that removes the remaining rotational symmetry, allowing the lattice to fluctuate through fully asymmetric configurations while its average structure remains chiral. This dynamical chiral CDWnaturally reconciles the chiral domains seen by time-averaged topographic probes with the complete loss of symmetry detected by bulk spectroscopy, and clarifies how chiral CDWs emerge from the interplay of lattice instability and fluctuation.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
9 pages, 4 figures in the main manuscript and 4 figures in the supplements. To be published
Higher-order Angular Momentum Transport of Alteraxial Phonons in 2D Magnets
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Linxin Liu, Fuyi Wang, Huaiqiang Wang
The coupling between lattice vibrations and magnetic order in two-dimensional (2D) magnets gives rise to a variety of physical phenomena, among which magnetic effects of axial phonons carrying phonon angular momentum (PAM) have attracted considerable interest. However, a systematic classification of axial phonons in 2D magnets that covers their multipolar patterns and the resulting transport manifestations remains largely unexplored. Here, based on symmetry analysis, we classify all 2D magnetic point groups by their long-wavelength PAM wave patterns. Beyond the s-wave axial phonon, we identify alteraxial phonons with p-, d-, f-, g-, and i-wave multipolar textures, characterized by 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 zero-PAM nodal lines, respectively. We then develop a theory of nonlinear PAM transport driven by a temperature gradient and derive two selection rules: a parity selection rule that determines whether the response occurs at even or odd orders, and an angular-harmonic selection rule that fixes the lowest allowed order for each wave pattern. The multipolar PAM patterns and selection rules are exemplified by two effective lattice models realizing f-wave and d-wave PAM patterns, respectivley. The angular dependence of the nonlinear PAM current reflects the underlying multipolar PAM texture, offering a signature for experiments. Our results establish a symmetry-guided framework for detecting and utilizing higher-order PAM textures in 2D magnets.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
7 pages, 3 figures, 1 table; Comments are welcome
Large anisotropic magnetoresistance in paramagnetic Fe-doped Ta4SiTe4
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Keita Nagasawa, Ryutaro Okuma, Jun-ichi Yamaura, Yoshihiko Okamoto
Large anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) usually relies on magnetic ordering, which fixes a preferred moment orientation and couples it to charge transport. Here, we demonstrate that pronounced AMR can instead arise from the anisotropic magnetic-field-induced polarization of dilute local moments in paramagnetic Fe-doped Ta4SiTe4, a quasi-one-dimensional van der Waals narrow-gap semiconductor. Magnetization measurements reveal Curie-like paramagnetism down to 2 K, with the c axis as the magnetic easy axis. The magnetization is described by an effective S = 1/2 model with an anisotropic g-factor ratio of g_c/g_ab = 1.43(1). With the electrical current applied along the c axis, the Fe-doped sample exhibits a large negative magnetoresistance for B//c and only a weak positive response for B//ab, whereas the undoped sample shows little magnetoresistance for either field orientation. The resulting AMR ratio reaches -33% at 8 K and 10 T and exhibits a nonmonotonic temperature dependence qualitatively captured by a minimal spin-disorder model. These results show that engineering the local environment of dilute magnetic ions provides a route to large paramagnetic AMR without long-range magnetic order, extending the materials design space for AMR beyond magnetically ordered systems.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
16 pages, 4 figures
On thermal Hall effect in boson systems
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Yu. V. Baramygina, D. N. Aristov
We theoretically discuss the thermal Hall effect (THE) in boson systems keeping in mind possible applications to magnetically ordered insulators with skyrmion lattice ground state. The magnon spectrum of such systems may undergo a topological transition upon the variation of magnetic field, and THE could be a tool to confirm this phenomenon. We rederive formulas, suitable for our purposes, and find expressions which have a different temperature dependence of THE as compared to previously reported results. Particularly, in presence of anomalous terms in magnon Hamiltonian the thermal Hall conductivity has a small but finite residual 1/T contribution. Such contribution may become sizable at very low temperatures and resembles Meissner effect in superconducting metals.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
7 pages, no figures
JETP Letters 124, 366 (2026)
Quantum Interference Enhanced Rectification in Mesoscopic Nanowires
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
T. J. Osborne, B. Braunecker, H. F. Legg
Nanoscale nonreciprocal elements are needed to control signal flow in scalable quantum technologies, but existing nonreciprocal components are often bulky. Here, we show that a strongly nonreciprocal current-voltage relation can arise entirely from coherent elastic scattering in a mesoscopic Rashba nanowire with gate-defined scatterers. We first identify the symmetry constraints that enforce reciprocal transmission in a phase coherent conductor even when inversion and time-reversal symmetry are broken. We then show how gates that are capacitively coupled to the leads, together with a magnetic scatterer or transverse subband mixing, can remove these constraints. In the weak-scattering regime, nonreciprocal conductance originates from interference between distinct backscattering paths. In the strong-scattering regime, nonreciprocity can be resonantly enhanced by the hybridization of the transmitting channel with bound states that arise from a higher transverse subband or spin-split band. In this regime, we find that a bias-induced change in the gate potentials of about one percent can produce an order-unity diode response, i.e., electrons are transmitted almost as in a clean wire for one bias polarity, whereas for the other polarity the current is strongly suppressed.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
7 pages, 3 figures + 9 pages, 2 figures of Supplemental Material
Interaction-Induced Bloch Geometry and Transverse Thermoelectric Transport
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Heng-Yu Di, YuanDong Wang, Zhen-Gang Zhu, Gang Su
Electron–electron interactions can reconstruct Bloch wave functions, changing their geometry and the associated thermoelectric response. We derive the linear thermoelectric response within the Hartree–Fock (HF) approximation using the thermal length-gauge density-matrix approach, resolving Drude, symmetric quantum-metric, and antisymmetric Berry-curvature contributions. In a noninteracting Bloch eigenbasis, we separate the reconstructed Berry connection into the noninteracting connection and an interaction connection. This gives bare, coherence, and interaction-connection contributions to the anomalous thermoelectric response. We determine the constraints imposed by spatial inversion, rotational, time-reversal, and combined symmetries on the three transport channels. In the relaxation-time approximation, the leading weak-broadening behavior is $ \Gamma^{-1}$ for the Drude contribution, $ \Gamma$ for the quantum-metric contribution, and $ \Gamma^0$ for the Berry-curvature contribution. The interband scalings apply away from band degeneracies. Self-consistent calculations for the triangular-lattice extended Hubbard model illustrate how interactions generate Berry curvature and a quantum metric, change the symmetry of the system, and thereby contribute to transverse thermoelectric transport.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
18 pages, 4 figures
Splitting Probability in Monitored Quantum Dynamics
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Prashant Singh, Sabine Tornow, David A Kessler, Eli Barkai
We consider a continuous-time quantum walk stroboscopically subjected to projective measurements on two distinct targets with sampling time period $ \tau$ . We construct a general renewal framework for the first-detection amplitude at each target, from which we obtain the associated splitting probabilities. For Hamiltonians with reflection symmetry, we further show that each dual-target first-detection amplitude can be viewed as an interference effect between a pair of single-target first-detection amplitudes. This formulation yields exact expressions for the splitting probabilities and gives special sampling times at which they undergo pointwise discontinuous jumps due to a form of ergodicity breaking associated with dark states. As an illustrative example, we apply the framework to a one-dimensional tight-binding lattice chain with nearest-neighbor hopping, and study the splitting probabilities as functions of the initial position and sampling time. Below a critical sampling time, $ 0<\tau < \tau_c$ where $ \tau_c = 2 \pi / \Delta E$ with $ \Delta E$ being the energy bandwidth, the splitting probabilities for large system sizes become equal to $ 1/2$ , independent of the initial position, as long as this position does not coincide with target sites. Above the critical sampling time, $ \tau \geq \tau_c$ , the splitting probabilities deviate from $ 1/2$ and develop oscillations as a function of initial position. The wavenumber associated with these oscillations is $ Q=2\sin^{-1}(r\tau_c/\tau)$ , where $ r$ is a positive integer. We also explore the effects of relative phase and spatial separation between different components of a coherent initial state on the splitting probabilities. Finally, we study how a finite number of measurements modifies the splitting probabilities and broadens the resonances at special sampling times.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
Superconductivity via repulsive interaction in the model with electrons and holes
New Submission | Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
We study a toy model of the 2D electron gas including electron-like and hole-like charge carriers hybridized between each other. Electrons and holes can move either in different layers or in the same layer. Undoped system is an insulator. Slight doping brings extra charge carriers having large density of states. We show that the screened Coulomb interaction is enough to stabilize the superconductivity in the slightly doped system. The symmetry of the order parameter corresponds to the spin-triplet $ p$ -wave order. For realistic values of the model parameters the superconducting transition temperature can reach the value of $ 150$ kelvin.
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
6 pages, 6 figures
Microstructural evolution during isothermal tempering of a highly supersaturated metastable austenitic state of a PM high-speed steel
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Stefan Müller, Santiago Benito, Hendric Schaefer, Yujiao Li, Leonhard Gertlowski, Oliver Schenk, Ulrich Hagemann, Christoph Broeckmann, Sebastian Weber
This study investigates the microstructural evolution of the powder metallurgical high-speed steel PM HS 3-3-4 during isothermal holding within the transformation gap between pearlite and bainite formation. The focus is on the mechanism of carbide spheroidization and the proposed formation of a chemically graded carbide rim. The heat treatments were carried out in a quenching dilatometer, enabling precise control of the thermal cycles and isothermal holding conditions. Spatially resolved analytic microscopy techniques, including scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) and atom probe tomography (APT), image analysis and complementary thermodynamic simulations (MatCalc) were used to characterize the carbide evolution. Isothermal holding increased carbide circularity, carbide volume fraction, and hardness, while MatCalc calculations predict a strong thermodynamic driving force for additional carbide precipitation. The analytic techniques revealed a compositional gradient of approximately 15 nm at the carbide-matrix interface in the isothermally treated condition, compared with a sharp transition of only 2-3 nm in the directly quenched state. This nanometer-scale gradient provides strong evidence for epitaxial, interface-controlled carbide growth and the formation of a chemically graded carbide rim. The associated solute depletion of the surrounding austenite provides a plausible explanation for its reduced stability, reflected by an increase in the martensite start temperature. The combined results demonstrate that isothermal holding promotes interfacial chemical reorganization, offering new insights into carbide spheroidization and providing a basis for tailoring carbide morphology and the resulting mechanical properties through heat treatment.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Stochastic resonance in time-delayed bistable active particles
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Antonio A. Valido, Mattia Coccolo, Miguel A.F. Sanjuán
We investigate analytically and numerically stochastic resonance in an underdamped active (Ornstein–Uhlenbeck) particle confined in a bistable potential with time-delayed feedback and subjected to an additional (non-thermal) white-noise source. Restricting the analysis to the active-noise-dominated bistable regime, with sufficiently short delay and active-noise correlation times, we develop a perturbative theory that yields analytical expressions for both the escape rate and the spectral power amplification within the framework of linear-response theory, without invoking detailed balance. The analytical predictions are in qualitative agreement with direct numerical simulations throughout the perturbative regime. We show that a moderate increase in the active-noise correlation time can enhance the stochastic-resonance response, in marked contrast to previous results for overdamped passive systems driven by colored noise. Conversely, the addition of white noise weakens the resonant response and shifts its optimum toward lower active-noise intensities. Time-delayed feedback further alters the matching condition between the escape rate and the driving frequency while preserving the resonant mechanism. Beyond the perturbative regime, we find that finite-memory effects progressively broaden the resonance profile and substantially decrease its amplitude. Overall, these results provide new insight into the combined role of inertia, activity, environmental fluctuations, and time delayed feedback in stochastic resonance in nonequilibrium systems.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Mathematical Physics (math-ph), Chaotic Dynamics (nlin.CD)
14+16 pages, 6 figures. Comments are welcome
Perpendicular Magnetization from Crystallite Boundaries in Polycrystalline Antiferromagnetic $γ$-FeMn
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Rachel E. Maizel, Sachli Abdizadeh, Ali Almahmoud, Omolara A. Bakare, Galen T. Street, Hanu Arava, Sauviz P. Alaei, Sanyum Channa, Daisy A. O’Mahoney, Rishav Khatiwada, Jing Zhao, Charis Horn, Evan Stocker, Benjamin Kostroun, Emilio Corrales, Christoph Klewe, Alpha T. N’Diaye, Yuri Suzuki, Jean J. Heremans, Frederick M. Michel, Mitsuhiro Murayama, Vsevolod M. Ivanov, Satoru Emori
Single-crystalline noncollinear antiferromagnets, such as Mn$ _3$ Sn, are actively explored as memory media, but they generally require high-temperature growth that is incompatible with industrial-scale device fabrication. Here, we show that polycrystalline films of antiferromagnetic $ \gamma$ -FeMn, grown at room temperature, develop a perpendicular magnetization and an anomalous Hall effect, opening an industrially compatible route to antiferromagnetic memory. While conventional noncollinear antiferromagnets demand near-perfect crystal order, $ \gamma$ -FeMn films derive their memory-enabling properties from crystal defects, particularly boundaries separating nanoscale crystallites. When the crystallite size $ D$ falls below $ \approx$ 30 nm, a field-switchable magnetization emerges and increases with the boundary density $ \propto 1/D$ . This magnetization is accompanied by a room-temperature anomalous Hall conductivity exceeding 10 S/cm, comparable to that of single-crystalline Mn$ _3$ Sn. Our systematic experimental results, including scanning magnetometry, indicate uncompensated spin moments in the boundaries coupled to the compensated antiferromagnetism within the crystallites. We further find that the perpendicular easy axis of the magnetization is stabilized by residual strain within the $ \gamma$ -FeMn film. Our findings in manufacturing-friendly polycrystalline $ \gamma$ -FeMn redefine crystal defects as enablers, rather than impediments, for scalable antiferromagnetic memory.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Mechanism of delayed elastic state absorption versus fatigue failure in cyclic shear of amorphous materials
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Samuel B. Walker, Suzanne M. Fielding
We study cyclic shear in a lattice elastoplastic model of amorphous materials. The model displays a threshold shear amplitude $ \gamma_{\rm c}$ , which increases with sample annealing. For imposed amplitudes $ \gamma_0\lesssim\gamma_{\rm c}$ , it shows slow progression to an absorbing elastic state. For $ \gamma_0\gtrsim \gamma_{\rm c}$ , it shows slow fatigue and delayed material failure. Our key contribution is to elucidate a mechanistic understanding of this behaviour. We show that progression to an absorbing state maps to single element diffusion on a finite interval with two absorbing boundaries. We derive expressions for the decay rate of the fraction of active elements, and the survival distribution. The diffusing variable is the local elemental strain, which takes two jumps stroboscopically per cycle. Once the value at any site diffuses below its yielding threshold, the element behaves elastically. This leads to a gradual accumulation of strains just below threshold. For $ \gamma_0\lesssim \gamma_{\rm c}$ this diffusive behaviour is preceded by many cycles in which cooperativity between elements via stress propagation is also important. For $ \gamma_0 > \gamma_{\rm c}$ , stress propagation dominates and precipitates failure. For $ \gamma_0\gtrsim \gamma_{\rm c}$ , the same accumulation of elements just below local threshold that led to an elastic state for $ \gamma_0\lesssim\gamma_{\rm c}$ accounts for the fatigue that brings the system to the brink of failure. We evidence this via simulations in which the strain amplitude artificially exceeds $ \gamma_0 $ in each half cycle, before reverting to the system’s actual state at $ \pm\gamma_0$ and resuming the next half cycle. During fatigue, the stress-strain slope $ d\sigma/d\gamma$ evolves towards unity at $ |\gamma|=\gamma_0^-$ , signifying perfect elasticity within cycle, yet towards zero at $ |\gamma|=\gamma_0^+$ , precipitating failure.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
13 pages, 10 figures
Symmetry-Based Parameter Efficient Low-Rank Fine-Tuning for High-Throughput Calculation of Lattice Thermal Conductivity
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Rustam Arabov, Konstantin Sozykin, Nikita Rybin, Alexander Shapeev
Accurate and efficient prediction of lattice thermal conductivity (LTC) is essential for developing materials for thermoelectric, microelectronic, and photovoltaic applications. Here, we present a methodology for high-throughput calculation of LTC across large datasets of compounds sharing a common crystal symmetry. Our approach combines fine-tuning of the MatterSim 1M universal machine-learned interatomic potential with LTC calculations based on the solution of the Boltzmann transport equation. We introduce a symmetry-based few-shot fine-tuning strategy (SBFS-FT) based on low-rank adaptation. In this approach, MatterSim 1M is fine-tuned on a small, carefully selected set of compounds that share a common crystal symmetry. The resulting potential is then applicable for accurate LTC calculations for compounds with this crystal symmetry, even if they were not included in the fine-tuning set. We tested our methodology on datasets of half-Heusler compounds (space group 216), materials with space group 225, and spinels (space group 227). We demonstrated that LTC calculations with MatterSim 1M fine-tuned using SBFS-FT exhibited a mean absolute relative difference from the reference results (obtained using moment tensor potentials and polyMLPs) 2-3 times smaller than that achieved with the non-fine-tuned MatterSim 1M potential. Moreover, the accuracy of LTC calculations with MatterSim 1M after SBFS-FT was comparable to that achieved using the MatterSim 1M potentials individually fine-tuned for each compound. Importantly, SBFS-FT enabled generation of the potential suitable for accurate LTC calculations across large compound datasets substantially faster than fine-tuning of MatterSim 1M for each compound individually, reducing the computational time by approximately a factor of 5-7 for a dataset of 100 compounds.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Confirmation of complex non-collinear Fe(II) spin ordering in the iron oxychalcogenide La$_2$O$_2$Fe$_2$OSe$_2$ by broad range $^{139}$La-NQR
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Tillmann Weinhold, Jerin Abraham George, Cornelius Herrmann, Domenic Nowak, Rajib Sarkar, Felix Seewald, Rowena Wachtel, Sabine Wurmehl, Bernd Büchner, Hans-Henning Klauss
The transition metal oxychalcogenide La$ _2$ O$ _2$ Fe$ _2$ OSe$ _2$ exhibits a non-collinear spin-ice like antiferromagnetic ordering below $ T_N \approx $ 90 K due to complex magnetic exchange interactions and axial single-ion anisotropy of Fe$ ^{2+}$ spins. The magnetic structure was deduced/determined from combined $ ^{57}$ Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy and $ ^{139}$ La-NMR on polycrystalline specimen. In this work, we present zero-field $ ^{139}$ La-NQR investigations on polycrystalline La$ _2$ O$ _2$ Fe$ _2$ OSe$ _2$ in a broad frequency and temperature range between 2.8 - 20 MHz and 4.2 - 100 K. The measured resonances at $ {\nu}_Q$ , $ 2 , {\nu}_Q$ , and $ 3 , {\nu}_Q$ are fully consistent with the previous NMR studies and also with the magnetic structure. A substantial modification of the electric field gradient at the La-position below $ T_N$ is inconsistent with the current investigations.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Construction of highly coarse-grained molecular models for aqueous electrolytes
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Michael A. Seaton, Benjamin T. Speake, Tristan Rimmer, Ilian T. Todorov
Molecular modelling of electrochemical systems at larger than atomic scales poses particular challenges, not least the ability to represent correct thermodynamic, hydrodynamic and dielectric properties while still being computationally viable for large scale applications. In the case of aqueous electrolytes such as those used in vanadium-based batteries with oxidation-reduction (redox) reactions, both a background medium that can respond to localised electric fields due to high-valence ions and control over ion transport properties are crucial to embed consistently in the model. To this end, we propose the use of Dissipative Particle Dynamics (DPD) combined with a newly-devised highly coarse-grained polarisable water model with pairwise interactions designed to produce realistic thermodynamic behaviour as the basis for the aqueous electrolytes found in vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB). We consider how the core water model can be modified to incorporate the ionic species found in VRFB catholytes and anolytes, as well as how the DPD pairwise thermostat forces can be parameterised to attain realistic diffusivities for those species.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
Energy-fed commitment: a minimal model of random selection followed by reinforcement
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
When a symmetric instability is crossed, fluctuations choose one of several equivalent branches. We study a minimal stochastic model of what can then make that choice progressively harder to undo. After selection, the stiffness of the selected state grows in proportion to the energy released each time the structure recovers from a perturbation; in this conservative model that energy equals, up to small and explicitly computed terms, the work absorbed from the perturbing agent. The model is a phenomenological closure with one coupling constant. That energy reinforces a branch already chosen, rather than choosing it, is an assumption of the model, which we state and do not derive. Its consequences are quantitative. The growth of commitment depends on how the structure is driven: geometric under displacement control, linear under energy control and sublinear under force control, so that committed states absorb more work per cycle under displacement control and less under force control. Reinforcement suppresses reversal exponentially; beyond a finite commitment the alternative minimum disappears and reversals become rare crossings of an irreversibility threshold. With unbounded reinforcement a choice is retained forever with positive probability under stated conditions; with saturating reinforcement retention is finite, with a lifetime that grows exponentially with the saturation level. Exact first-passage calculations agree with stochastic simulations; these verify the closure and its analysis but cannot test the physical postulate. We identify the experiments that could: protocols that separate absorbed energy from the number of perturbations, and driven steady states with nonzero housekeeping heat, in which heat and absorbed work differ.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech), Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems (nlin.AO)
Short paper, 3 figures. Code, data and per-pulse event counts provided as ancillary files
Zero-group-velocity modes in textured steel plates: experiments and elastic modeling
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
C. Grünsteidl, C. Kerschbaummayr, G. Yan, G. Watzl, F. Rudinger, E. Scherleitner, M. Sonnleitner, C. Hoflehner
Zero-group-velocity (ZGV) resonances are investigated as a non-contact ultrasonic probe of elastic anisotropy in textured steel plates. Directional laser-ultrasonic measurements were performed on 70% cold-rolled Ti-stabilized interstitial-free steel plates in the full-hard and recrystallized condition. Experimental results were compared with predictions based on effective elastic stiffness tensors derived from X-ray diffraction measurements. Classical Voigt-Reuss-Hill estimates and microstructure-resolved finite-element homogenization reproduce the measured angular dependence of the ZGV frequencies well for both states, with the finite-element KUBC/SUBC bounds considerably narrower than the classical Voigt-Reuss bounds. For the full-hard state, agreement with the texture-based model is obtained only after a recovery treatment. This indicates that dislocations present in the full-hard material contribute to its elastic response, an interpretation that is further supported by theoretical estimations. An identifiability analysis shows that the directional ZGV measurements provide access to at least three independently observable combinations of the stiffness tensor components, and concluding suggestions for application in recrystallization monitoring are provided.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Applied Physics (physics.app-ph), Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability (physics.data-an), Optics (physics.optics)
Effect of Annealing on Maze Domains in Topological Insulator - Magnetic Multilayer Heterostructures
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Benjamin A. Brereton, Soumyarup Hait, Christy J. Kinane, Francesco Maccherozzi, Ahmet Yagmur, Satoshi Sasaki, Thomas A. Moore, Sean Langridge, Christopher H. Marrows
Combining topological insulators with chiral magnetic multilayers offers the opportunity to greatly enhance the spin-orbit torque (SOT) driven manipulation of hosted spin textures, however this also exposes devices to the often poor temperature stability of the commonly used, Bi$ _2$ X$ _3$ -based (X is a chalcogenic element), topological insulator films. In this work we demonstrate through in-situ-annealing and polarised neutron reflectometry that the multilayer at a Bi$ _2$ Se$ _3$ interface remains magnetically robust up to a temperature of 350 $ ^{\circ}$ C: even as the Bi$ _2$ Se$ _3$ epilayer structurally deteriorates. Through x-ray photoemission electron microscopy, an intermediate annealing temperature of $ \sim$ 200 $ ^{\circ}$ C was found to improve the domain ordering of the multilayer, allowing for field-induced skyrmion nucleation, all whilst sustaining minimal damage to the topological insulator
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
Spin order and excitations in the collinear kagome antiferromagnet Y$_{0.5}$Fe$_3$Sn$_3$
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Jin Ding, Yang Liu, Feihao Pan, Yinghao Zhu, Yixi Su, Stanislav E. Nikitin, Ursula B. Hansen, Mechthild Enderle, Zhilun Lu, Linxuan Song, Yong-Chang Lau, Xiaoyan Ma, Enke Liu, Huiqian Luo
Kagome lattices host rich magnetic, topological, and transport phenomena owing to their geometric frustration and strong spin correlations. Here we present a systematic neutron scattering study of the kagome metal Y$ _{0.5}$ Fe$ 3$ Sn$ 3$ , which orders into a collinear $ c$ -axis antiferromagnetic (AF) state below $ T_N =$ 551 K. An additional anomalous Hall effect (AHE) contribution beyond the conventional magnetization-scaling response is observed well below $ T_N$ under an in-plane magnetic field $ \mathbf{B} \parallel ab$ . Elastic neutron scattering demonstrates that the Fe moments preserve their collinear $ c$ -axis AF alignment down to 1.5 K at zero field. Inelastic neutron scattering reveals a distinctive Y-shape spin excitation dispersion exhibiting a two-gap structure below 10 meV, likely arising from two nondegenerate spin-wave branches. Polarized neutron measurements further show that the low-temperature spin excitations are strongly anisotropic: the in-plane component $ M{ab}$ dominates while the $ c$ -axis component $ M_c$ is nearly absent. Upon warming, $ M_c$ gradually grows markedly but remains much weaker than $ M{ab}$ even at 300 K. We propose that the unconventional AHE originates from a nonzero scalar spin chirality induced by field-driven spin canting either in the static or dynamic configurations due to gapless excitations. These findings establish the collinear AF kagome metal Y$ _{0.5}$ Fe$ _3$ Sn$ _3$ as a platform for chirality-driven AHE without spontaneous spin reorientation.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
21 pages, 15 figures, Published on Physical Review B
Physical Review B 114, 204418 (2026)
Hydrodynamics of microalgae in sea spray
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Elettra Figà Talamanca, Juliette Pierre, Eva Ternon, Paula Cohen, Maarten De Rijcke, Hélène de Maleprade
Airborne transmission of biological matter is likely to cause numerous respiratory distress in coastal populations during certain harmful algal blooms. While we know that dissolved algal toxins aerosolize, the contribution of particle-associated toxins is still unknown. The observation of microalgae in the atmosphere suggests that cells or cell debris could be a carrier. Exchange of particulate matter between ocean and atmosphere is driven by sea spray: microplastics and bacteria aerosolize in jet droplets, following the bursting of air bubbles. However, current models for particle capture only consider surface effects, which fail to explain how large microalgal cells (5-50 um) can be entrapped in jet drops (100-800 um). Here, we demonstrate with a variety of species that microalgae are consistently captured in jet drops, and derive a new particle capture model based on the hydrodynamics of the jet. Using the enrichment factor, which measures the increase in concentration in the first jet drop relative to the bulk, we uncover two regimes. The transition between regimes strongly depends on cell size. In addition, we highlight the dynamics of particles within the jet and derive an enrichment model based on hydrodynamics rather than surface considerations. This work widens and generalizes established results on bacterial and microplastic entrapment in jet drops, resolving discrepancies found in the literature. Finally, we demonstrate that sea spray can aerosolize toxic Ostreopsis cf. ovata cells. This reveals a potential particulate pathway for airborne toxicity during harmful algal blooms and raises the question of the relative contribution of particles to that of dissolved toxins.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics (physics.ao-ph), Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph), Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn)
20 pages, 9 figures
Intertwined complex orbital order and ferrimagnetism in honeycomb molybdate Fe$_2$Mo$_3$O$_8$
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Motivated by the recent experimental interest in honeycomb molybdates A$ _2$ Mo$ _3$ O$ _8$ , we return and develop the minimal models to capture the essential physics for Fe$ _2$ Mo$ _3$ O$ _8$ . It is pointed out that, the magnetism in these materials arises from the mutual induction between the spin-orbit coupling of the tetrahedral sublattice with active orbitals and the superexchange with the spins from the octahedral sublattice. Essentially, the superexchange between the tetrahedral and octahedral sublattices directly drives the ferrimagnetism, and the residual spin-orbit coupling on the tetrahedral sublattice induces the complex orbital order. The hybrid magnon-phonon excitations are further explored together with their resulting Berry curvatures and thermal Hall effect. We discuss the experimental relevance with Fe$ _2$ Mo$ _3$ O$ _8$ , and the framework can be extended to FeNiMo$ _3$ O$ _8$ , Ni$ _2$ Mo$ _3$ O$ _8$ and other isostructural magnets.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
5+10 pages, 3+2 figures
Electric-field tunable spin texture in dual-gated HfS$_2$/graphene van der Waals heterostructures
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Haozhe Yang, Zhendong Chi, Eoin Dolan, Josep Ingla-Aynés, Beatriz Martín-García, Witold Skowroński, Marco Gobbi, Andrey Chuvilin, Luis E. Hueso, Fèlix Casanova
Spin-charge interconversion provides the essential link between spin information and electrical signals in spintronic devices. In spin-orbit coupled systems, spin-charge interconversion can contain multiple components associated with different spin-polarization directions, reflecting the underlying spin texture. Tuning this spin texture therefore provides a way to control not only the magnitude of spin-charge interconversion, but also the balance among its different components. Graphene-based van der Waals heterostructures provide an attractive platform for this purpose because interfacial spin-orbit coupling can host multiple spin-charge interconversion channels that couple to different spin-polarization directions. Here, we demonstrate electric-field control of spin texture in a dual-gated HfS$ _2$ /graphene van der Waals heterostructure, where independent control of carrier density and vertical electric field allows us to disentangle electrostatic doping from electric field-induced spin-orbit effects. Nonlocal spin precession measurements show that near zero vertical electric field, spin-charge interconversion is dominated by a spin Hall component with out-of-plane spins. Increasing the vertical electric field enhances additional in-plane spin components with Rashba-Edelstein-like character, including both parallel and perpendicular to the charge current contributions. These results provide experimental evidence that a vertical electric field can reconfigure the effective spin texture and control the corresponding spin-charge interconversion components, demonstrating electrical tunability of spin-orbit functionalities.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
16 pages, 4 figures, and Supporting Information
Quantum criticality in a two-component two-dimensional nematic metal
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Nematic fluctuations alter the low-energy electronic behavior and reshape the mean-field phase diagram. We study a two-dimensional nematic metal with a two-component internal degree of freedom. Near the quantum critical point (QCP), longitudinal nematic fluctuations generate the non-Fermi-liquid self-energy $ \propto|\omega|^{2/3}$ , whereas transverse fluctuations give a subleading logarithmic, marginal-Fermi-liquid correction. Nevertheless, the transverse sector dominates the correction to the phase diagram through a quantum order-by-disorder mechanism: the emergent nematic background reshapes the electronic spectrum, alters the decay of nematic bosons, and produces a negative singular free-energy correction. This correction reconstructs the phase diagram, drives the transition first order, and is described by a scaling function whose two asymptotic limits define two critical regimes with free-energy corrections scaling as $ R^{8/3}$ and $ R^3$ , respectively, where $ R$ is the order-parameter magnitude; their powers follow from the competition between the characteristic momentum of normal-state nematic fluctuations and that of the ordered-state background. These two regimes are experimentally distinguishable through nematic-susceptibility hysteresis measurements. The corrected phase diagram shows that the enlarged nodal $ \alpha$ phase masks the otherwise bare QCP, making it inaccessible; consequently, the logarithmic self-energy correction is by no means negligible at low energies.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
10 pages, 5 figures
Closing of density wake in concentrated colloidal suspensions: two regimes governed by compressibility, friction, and self-propulsion
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Guillaume Duprez, Gianmarco Spera, Benjamin Buhl, François Graner, Vincent Démery, Cécile Cottin-Bizonne, Hélène Delanoë-Ayari, Mathieu Leocmach
When an obstacle moves through a compressible medium, it creates a density perturbation. Theoretical arguments regarding the shape of this density wake in Brownian suspensions either suppose infinite dilution or describe only the far field. Here, we study via experiments and numerical simulations the closing of the density perturbation just behind a circular obstacle in dense 2D suspensions of particles that are thermal or self-propelled. In the thermal case, we show that the characteristic length of the wake is a non-monotonic function of density, decreasing then increasing. We rationalise the scalings of both regimes by analytical arguments that highlight the role of the compressibility factor of the suspension. Based on this new understanding of the passive case, we show that the influence of self-propulsion observed in experiments and simulations can be understood as if the obstacle is effectively larger in an active bath, with non-trivial and distinct roles of the self-propulsion velocity and of the persistence time.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
9 pages, 7 figures
Framework to identify defect-insensitive electron transport in topological semimetals
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Lily Jade Joyce, Michelle M. Kelley, Timothy Philicelli, Ching-tzu Chen, Ravishankar Sundararaman
Topological semimetals are of increasing interest to replace conventional metals for interconnects in future semiconductor chips, due to their potential to exhibit decreasing resistivity with reducing wire dimensions and a lower sensitivity to electron scattering at defects. First-principles evaluation of promising topological semimetals for interconnects typically employ non-equilibrium Green’s functions (NEGF) techniques to estimate defect scattering, but such calculations for specific defect geometries are difficult to systematize and compare between disparate materials. Here, we develop an NEGF-based approach to systematically and rapidly evaluate the defect sensitivity of electron transport in materials without depending on material-specific defect geometries. Specifically, we analyze the eigen-spectrum of the transmission matrix for an incoherent ensemble of all-possible single-atom vacancy defects, which clearly reveals eigenvalues close to 1 for defect-insensitive transport modes. Applied to the leading candidates, we show that this robustness to defect scattering is extremely sensitive to surface orientation and Fermi level for each material. We find nearly-perfect insensitivity to defects only for wavevectors with single transport modes within specific Fermi level ranges in CoSi(001) and PtAl(001). Importantly, we also find high insensitivity for certain non-isolated modes in NbAs that emerge specifically due to spin-orbit coupling; these modes could not be identified previously as they were buried in the total transmission. These non-isolated modes have been buried in previous studies of total transmission, and can now be directly compared to other materials due to our standardization of defect-creation. This technique improves the state-of-the-art NEGF method and enables unbiased evaluation of future topological semimetal candidates for nanoscale interconnects.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
7 pages, 4 figures, SI within source archive
Robust Anomalous Hall Effect in Epitaxial Cubic D0$_3$-Fe$_3$Ge Nanoplates Grown by Chemical Vapor Deposition
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Mingxuan Chen, Chao Chen, Siqi Jiang, Shuxiang Qiao, Hongyan Lu, Di Zhang, Jiabei Huang, Fuzhuo Lian, Zhaochen Qu, Siqin Wang, Ziyi Wang, Shuai Zhang, Yulu Liu, Ronghua Liu, Xiaoxiang Xi, Renjun Du, Lei Wang, Geliang Yu
The iron-based ferromagnetic materials have emerged as a promising system for spintronics due to their high Curie temperatures and significant anomalous Hall effect (AHE) driven by Berry curvature. While there have been investigations into the epitaxial growth of non-layered iron-based ferromagnetic materials, the realization of high-quality single crystal thin films continues to be a formidable obstacle. Meanwhile, the issues such as grain boundary scattering further hinder their characterization and application. Here, we report the first chemical vapor deposition (CVD) synthesis of single-crystalline cubic D0$ _3$ -Fe$ _3$ Ge nanoplates. This compound represents a substantial departure from the conventional hexagonal phases typically observed in the Fe-Ge system. Structural characterizations confirm the cubic lattice and stoichiometric purity of the crystals. Structural analysis identifies a strong epitaxial effect, resulting in a giant compressive strain of ~4.16% at the interface that relaxes gradually toward the surface. The second-harmonic generation (SHG) signals might further reveal that such interfacial strain disrupted the inherent centro-symmetry of the cubic phase. SQUID magnetometry shows robust room-temperature ferromagnetism and clear magnetic anisotropy. Magneto-transport measurements reveal a robust AHE that remains stable at temperatures far exceeding room temperature. The scaling observed between the anomalous Hall resistance and longitudinal resistance strongly suggests that this effect is dominated by the intrinsic Berry curvature mechanism. Furthermore, density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that the huge epitaxial strain induces band reconstructions and creates dense spin-orbit coupling gaps near the Fermi level, effectively doubling the anomalous Hall conductivity to match our experimental observations.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
Charge Density Wave transient states induced by ultrashort hard X-ray pulses
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
D. Ghoneim, E. Bellec, L. Ortega, V.L.R. Jacques, A.A Sinchenko, P. Wzietek, U. Boesenberg, K. Kazarian, J. Moeller, J.D. Moore, A. Rodriguez-Fernandez, R. Shayduk, A. Zozulya, A. Madsen, D. Le Bolloc’h
The interaction of quantum systems with ultrashort laser pulses may lead to transient states far from equilibrium. Among these, Charge Density Wave (CDW) systems offer very rich non-equilibrium physics when submitted to ultrashort optical excitations in the infrared regime. In this Letter, we show that CDW systems pumped by ultrashort x-ray pulses excite the system in very different way. The x-ray pump, 6000 times more energetic than a laser pulse, pumping and probing the whole bulk system simultaneously, drives CDW systems in a novel reversible out of equilibrium state. The successive CDW states observed in the NbSe$ _3$ system with respect to the arrival of x-ray pulses follow a non-thermal kinetic path. It is characterized by a change in 2k$ _F$ wavevector, correlation lengths and electronic gap, as well as a change of dimensionality, all of this takes place within a very long recovery time ranging from 450$ ns$ to 0.01$ s$ . Several scenarios are proposed, including transient nucleation and recombination of charged topological objects.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
5 pages, 3 figures
Quenched disorder in polymerized membranes: from anomalous elasticity to a glassy phase
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Polymerized membranes are paradigmatic fluctuating systems in which geometry, elasticity, and statistical fluctuations combine to produce anomalous long-distance behavior. In the disorder-free flat phase, bending rigidity increases at long wavelengths while in-plane elastic moduli soften. Quenched random metric and curvature introduce competing thermal and disorder-induced fluctuations. We review perturbative and nonperturbative field-theoretical approaches to these systems, from pure membranes to their disordered counterparts. Early one-loop studies identified a disorder-free fixed point, $ P_4$ , and a zero-temperature disorder-dominated fixed point, $ P_5$ . A subsequent nonperturbative renormalization-group analysis revealed a third fixed point, $ P_c$ , at finite temperature and disorder, governing a continuous wrinkling transition between the thermally dominated flat phase and a disorder-dominated glassy phase. Higher-order perturbative calculations also recover a $ P_c$ -like fixed point, with anomalous dimensions remarkably close to the reexpanded nonperturbative predictions. This scenario connects naturally with the wrinkling transition observed in partially polymerized lipid membranes. The three experimental scaling regimes of height fluctuations can be associated with $ P_4$ , $ P_c$ , and $ P_5$ , with theoretical exponents showing good quantitative agreement with measurements, particularly at criticality. Finally, we discuss the status of the glassy scenario, the unresolved discrepancy between perturbative and nonperturbative fixed-point stability predictions, and possible extensions to defective graphene and related two-dimensional crystalline materials.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn)
20 pages, 1 figure, Proceedings of the IRS (Inhomogeneous Random Systems) workshop, Institut Henri Poincaré (Paris), Janvier 27-28, 2026
From Traveling Waves to Synthetic Gauge Fields: A Field-Free Route to Superconducting Diode Effect
New Submission | Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Latu Kalita, Koustav Roy, Bilal Tanatar, Saurabh Basu
The superconducting diode effect requires the forward and reverse bias currents to differ, a scenario achieved via inversion and time-reversal symmetries broken together. The latter, and the more crucial one, is inevitably achieved by a magnetic field. Here, we show that a spatio-temporally driven chemical potential of the form, $ \mu_j(t)=\mu+V\cos(\omega t+\kd j)$ , achieves both at once. Applied to a helical Shiba chain, the drive transmutes a traveling Peierls phase via generating an odd-in-momentum term, equivalent to an imaginary next-nearest-neighbour Haldane-like hopping in real space. Remarkably, the protocol is spin-blind, which renders the time-reversal breaking via a synthetic gauge flux rather than an effective Zeeman field. The rectification is odd in the drive wavevector, with exact zeros at $ \kd=n\pi$ and an analytical optimum at $ \kd=2\pi/3$ . It is however, even in the exchange coupling, $ J$ and persists even at $ J=0$ . Furthermore, the rectification scales inversely with the pair-breaking gap, yielding approximately $ 50%$ rectification in the topological phase and $ 10%$ in the trivial phase. Symmetry breaking is thus drive-controlled, allowing it to be switched on, tuned, and reversed without an external magnetic field.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other), Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
Comments are welcome
Unambiguous determination of the THz conductivity in driven YBa$_2$Cu$3$O${6+x}$
New Submission | Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
K. Kaj, K. H. Martens, D. Choi, M. Buzzi, D. Nicoletti, Y. Liu, B. Keimer, A. Cavalleri
Mid-infrared pump, THz probe experiments in YBa$ _2$ Cu$ _3$ O$ _{6+x}$ yield evidence of a high-temperature transient state of the material with the optical properties of a superconductor. However, there are ambiguities in the extracted transient c-axis THz optical properties, primarily resulting from the sublinear growth of the THz response with increasing mid-infrared pump fluence. It was proposed that this effect may be related to saturation of the material’s response, which would then perturb its spatial profile and lead one to overestimate the induced change in the transient optical properties. Yet, sublinear growth of the signal could also arise from other effects unrelated to saturation, for example from a change in reflectivity or deposition depth for the pump pulses. Here, we remove this ambiguity by experimentally measuring the fluence-dependent complex optical constants at the 15-20 THz frequencies of the pump. We show that the observed sublinear growth is to be attributed in large part to the enhanced reflection and reduced penetration depth of the pump field at high fluences. When taking into account these findings, we confirm the original interpretation of a light-induced superconducting state both qualitatively and quantitatively.
Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con), Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Optics (physics.optics)
12 pages, 7 figures with supplemental materials
Automated Materials Data and Knowledge Extraction using Machine Learning and Large Language Models
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Aravindan Kamatchi Sundaram, B. Pabitramohan Prusty, Rohit Batra
Over the past decade, substantial efforts have been devoted to developing machine learning (ML) methods for extracting materials data and, where possible, materials knowledge directly from the scientific literature. This review traces the evolution of these methods from heuristic, rule-based pipelines through natural language processing (NLP) models and transformer-based encoders to, lastly, large language models (LLMs) and agentic systems capable of extracting materials information across multiple modalities, including text, tables, and figures. Beside construction of large, queryable materials databases and knowledge graphs that support downstream materials discovery, we discuss how these advances have enabled new capabilities, such as, generic question answering across materials science, AI co-scientists and chatbots for research assistance, and closed-loop optimization and discovery when integrated with autonomous laboratories. We critically assess the datasets generated using these approaches, their extraction accuracy and computational costs, and the respective strengths and limitations of different methodologies, and even provide practical guidelines for developing more reliable and scalable materials data extraction pipelines. Finally, we identify key open challenges, including the extraction of full materials structure-property-processing-performance tetrahedron at the sample level, the scarcity of reliable benchmark datasets for systematic evaluation, and the resolution of non-standard materials terminology across different document modalities.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)
25 pages, 5 figures
Morphological instability and negative geometric friction from contact with active and driven particles
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Overdamped particles on a deformable substrate induce a geometric friction through their response to metric perturbations. Nonequilibrium dynamics couples such a perturbation to kinetic effects, which can flip that friction negative, softening the substrate’s rigidity and favoring invaginations and evaginations. A breathing circle, with local curvature radius as dynamical variable, is the main example. At equilibrium the friction reduces to an ordinary potential response and stays positive. Geometric response emerges as a new route by which active and driven matter reshape their environment.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
Stabilizing and detecting electron fractionalization in the Hofstadter-Hubbard model
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Jiahao Yang, Zeyu Han, Gang v. Chen
Motivated by the recent progress in correlated Chern insulator physics in moiré systems, we investigate the half-filled triangular-lattice Hofstadter–Hubbard model and its electron fractionalization. Among various competing non-magnetic states, increasing the orbital flux stabilizes and broadens the $ \mathrm{U}(1)_2$ chiral spin liquid phase in the Mott regime. In this exotic regime, the electron is fractionalized into gapped spinons and gapped chargons, whose effective bands are linked to the orbital flux. The convolution of the narrow spinon bands with the gapped chargon excitations produces rich and discernible structures in the electron spectral function and the density of states. These results not only identify the orbital flux as a control parameter for the detailed patterns of electron fractionalization and the nature of the Mott transition, but also provide the key spectral characteristics for the angle-resolved photoemission and scanning tunneling studies of the relevant systems, linking the free-particle band topology to intrinsic topological order in the correlated regime.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el), Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall), Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
14 pages, 7 figures
Two-stage Slowdown of Vacancy-mediated Diffusion in a Lattice Gas Model with Quenched Disorder and Spins
New Submission | Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
We present a lattice gas model with random interactions quenched in space and spins quenched to the particles. The vacancy-mediated diffusion is studied in equilibrium. A two-stage slowdown is witnessed in both the mean squared displacement and the spatial overlaps. We demonstrate that the plateaus are due to anti-correlation at the corresponding length scale. The anti-correlation diminishes quickly with increasing lag time. A broad and yet finite distribution of the survival function of vacancies suggests their normal diffusion at large time limit. Our model can serve as a new playground for understanding hierarchical dynamics in glassy-like dynamical systems.
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn), Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
Chiral near-fields at achiral plasmonic tips enable nanoscale valley polarimetry
New Submission | Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Jonggeun Hwang, Kijeong Park, Hyeongwoo Lee, Yeonjeong Koo, SeokJae Yoo, Long Ju, Kyoung-Duck Park
Optical helicity is central to chiral light-matter interactions, yet plasmonic confinement typically distorts it at the nanoscale. Here, we demonstrate nanoscale valley polarimetry using an achiral Au tip, where incidence-angle control of circularly polarized light creates a strongly localized, helicity-preserving near-field. Chiral tip-enhanced photoluminescence (c-TEPL) directly resolves and reverses local valley polarization in monolayer WSe2 and reveals nanoscale polarization variations in strained MoS2 hidden by diffraction-limited measurements.
Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other)
4 figures
Clutter Noise Induced Phase Segregation in Binary Active Polar Flocks
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Pradeep Kumar Yadav, Ignacio Pagonabarraga
Macroscopic phase segregation in binary active mixtures can emerge solely from clutter noise: local, composition-dependent stochasticity, without repulsion or anti-alignment torques. Using an agent-based Vicsek model, we show that clutter noise alone destabilizes the mixed state, producing multi-stripe, co-moving band, and metastable counter-propagating morphologies, as well as a stable phase-segregated polar fluid. Our hydrodynamic theory shows that clutter noise suppresses local polar order and transport efficiency, consistent with the demixing observed in the agent-based model.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
Electronic, structural and magnetic properties of goldene nanoribbons
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Fabrício M. de Vasconcelos, Kleuton A. L. Lima, Paloma V. Silva, Eduardo C. Girão, Alexandre C. Dias, Douglas S. Galvão, Luiz A. R. Junior
Recently, two-dimensional goldene, a single-atomic-layer gold sheet, has been experimentally realized and is expected to be a promising material for next-generation devices, offering new possibilities beyond three-dimensional bulk gold. Because quasi-one-dimensional derivatives can exhibit properties markedly different from their two-dimensional counterparts, we investigate the stability, electronic, and magnetic properties of goldene-based nanoribbons (GOLDNRs) using first-principles computational methods. Our findings demonstrate that the electronic structure of these nanoribbons depends strongly on both edge chirality and ribbon width. Depending on the boundary configuration, the systems can exhibit semiconducting behavior with electronic band gaps of approximately 0.77 eV and 0.04 eV, or retain metallic characteristics. Additionally, the edge regions act as electronically active sites that may significantly enhance chemical reactivity relative to the central regions. As the ribbon width increases, the metallic characteristics of the infinite goldene sheet are progressively recovered, while the influence of quantum confinement and edge effects on the central region diminishes. These results provide important insights into tailoring the physical properties of goldene through lateral confinement, highlighting its potential for applications in nanoscale field-effect transistors, spintronic devices, and catalysis.
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
15 pages , 12 figures
Methane and ethane adsorption on calcite surfaces: effects of surface morphology from molecular dynamics and 3D-RISM
New Submission | Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Felipe Silva Carvalho, Tyler Luchko, Zhen-Gang Wang
Understanding the adsorption of alkanes on mineral surfaces is important for industrial processes such as oil and gas recovery from shale reservoirs. Previous studies have examined the adsorption of functionalized and non-functionalized alkanes on calcite, as well as adsorption under confinement. However, real surfaces commonly exhibit defects that can influence adsorption behavior. In this work, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and the three-dimensional reference interaction site model (3D-RISM) are used to investigate the adsorption of methane and ethane on calcite surfaces with step defects. MD simulations were carried out with and without positional restraints to investigate the effects of carbonate reorientation. 3D-RISM calculations were performed on these structures and on energy-minimized configurations of the relaxed crystal. Both methods show adsorption enhanced at step defects relative to flat regions, with methane exhibiting higher excess adsorption than ethane. Carbonate reorientation at the relaxed step edges reduces the local density peaks at specific step sites in both methods, while the integrated excess adsorption from MD remains comparable to that of the restrained surface. 3D-RISM predicts lower maxima for the highest density peaks and larger excess adsorption than MD, but reproduces the spatial organization and overall adsorption trends at a fraction of the computational cost. These results highlight the importance of surface heterogeneity in fluid-mineral interactions and demonstrate that 3D-RISM is an efficient tool for semi-quantitative screening of adsorption across complex surface geometries
Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci), Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph)
27 pages, 7 figures
Projective symmetry groups beyond spin-$1/2$: Classifying integer-spin quantum spin liquids
New Submission | Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Atanu Maity, Chunxiao Liu, Rhine Samajdar, Yasir Iqbal
Wen’s projective symmetry group (PSG), introduced a quarter of a century ago, reduced the classification of symmetric quantum spin liquids to an algebraic problem and has guided the study of spin-$ 1/2$ models and materials ever since. Many current candidate materials and quantum simulators, however, have spin-$ 1$ or larger moments, and no comparable classification exists for them. We formulate the PSG for fermionic partons of arbitrary spin $ S$ . Integer and half-odd-integer spins already differ in their gauge structure. Half-odd-integer spins give the familiar $ \mathrm{SU}(2)$ , $ \mathrm{U}(1)$ , and $ \mathbb{Z}_2$ invariant gauge groups, while integer spins give a different hierarchy that includes $ \mathrm{U}(1)\rtimes\mathbb{Z}_2$ and $ \mathbb{Z}_2\times\mathbb{Z}_2$ ; the latter has no spin-$ 1/2$ counterpart. Three lattice-independent results follow for integer spin. Singlet pairing of the partons is odd under site exchange. A lattice symmetry can exchange the particle and hole representations of the local constraint, which forces symmetry-related sites into opposite constraint sectors. And a time-reversal-symmetric $ \mathrm{U}(1)$ state with the same constraint on every site can be gapped only if the number of sites per unit cell is a multiple of $ 2S+1$ . We apply the formalism to the spin-$ 1$ diamond lattice, realized in frustrated A-site spinels, and find ten fully symmetric Ansätze up to second neighbors. In the $ J_1$ -$ J_2$ Heisenberg model at the mean-field level, the ground state depends on how the constraint is imposed. With the particle and hole representations, the lowest states are fully gapped $ \mathrm{U}(1)$ states whose two sublattices sit in opposite constraint sectors, and one of them is gauge equivalent to a paired Ansatz. The classification provides a starting point for integer-spin quantum spin liquids on other lattices and in other materials.
Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
26 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables
Spatial Control of Compressible Active Fluids
New Submission | Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Yu-Chuan Cheng, Dimitris Krommydas, Seungwoo Shin, Paarth Gulati, Michael F. Hagan, Aparna Baskaran, Cristina M. Marchetti, Zvonimir Dogic
We study the response of compressible microtubule-based active fluids to sinusoidally varying activity patterns, using experiments and theory. Microtubules accumulate in low-activity regions and are depleted from high activity ones, with the density difference controlled by the wavelength of the activity pattern. To explain these observations the continuum model needs to account for both active stresses that are proportional to nematic order tensor and the isotropic active pressure. At short wavelengths, active vortices spanning adjacent high and low activity regions suppress density modulation. At larger wavelengths, vortical flows confined to the low or high activity region allow for the emergence of the density contrast. Our work shows that a minimal theoretical model of active compressible fluids accurately reproduces experiments, while elucidating the fundamental constraints on control protocols that seek to tame their chaotic dynamics.
Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
Stockmayer Fluid with a Shifted Dipole. III. Ion Solvation
New Submission | Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) | 2026-10-22 20:00 EDT
Ananya Venkatachalam, Pierre J. Walker, Samuel Varner, Bilin Zhuang, Zhen-Gang Wang
Though ion solvation is well understood for the standard Stockmayer fluid, the effect of displacing the point dipole of a Stockmayer particle, a simple geometric modification, on ion-solvent structuring and solvation thermodynamics remains less understood. We use molecular dynamics simulations to describe how a dipole shift affects radial and orientational solvent structure around centered ions, how strongly the solvent distinguishes cations and anions, and how the solvent mediates ion-ion pairing. We show that, with a centered dipole, cations and anions have equal preferences for the local solvent environment. Shifting the dipole breaks the fore-aft symmetry of the local electrostatic field, leading to a stronger preference for a Stockmayer particle’s dipole to orient towards an anion and a weaker preference to orient away from a cation. These structural asymmetries propagate to the solvation free energies: increasing dipole displacement makes anion solvation more favorable, while cation solvation becomes less favorable overall across dipole strengths. The same asymmetry also manifests in the effective ion-ion interaction-increasing the dipole shift reorganizes the local solvation environment, enhancing solvent shielding of short-range cation-anion contact while weakening screening at longer range. As a result, solvent-separated configurations become comparatively more favorable, whereas increasing dipole strength produces the opposite trend. Such effects cannot be explained by bulk dielectric screening alone, indicating that molecular charge geometry plays an important role in both single-ion solvation and solvent-mediated ion-ion interactions. This work demonstrates that dipole location, not only magnitude, provides a geometric control on ion-specific solvation and ion pairing in general polar fluids.
Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
Research Square
Symmetry breaking in Prussian Blue Analogues via growth-guided local ordering of hexacyanometallate
vacancies
Article | Materials chemistry | 2026-10-21 20:00 EDT
Arkadiy Simonov, Yevheniia Kholina, Joohee Bang, Arthur Baroni, Marianne Liebi, Semën Gorfman, Ido Biran, Tatiana Akhmetshina, Mark Warren, Dmitry Chernyshov, Thomas Weber
We report Growth–Guided Local Ordering, a novel mechanism of symmetry reduction in disordered crystals. This mechanism operates through the directional ordering of point defects during crystal growth, where defect correlations develop preferentially along the growth direction, resulting in reduced symmetry that persists in the final structure through the spatial distribution of defects. We demonstrate this phenomenon in Mn[Co]-Prussian Blue Analogues, disordered cyanide crystals containing numerous Co(CN)6 vacancies. Single-crystal diffuse scattering reveals pronounced anisotropy in vacancy distribution: strong correlations along the [001] growth direction contrast with weak correlations perpendicular to it. This local ordering reduces the Laue symmetry to tetragonal 4/mmm, evident in properties such as birefringence, while the average structure retains cubic m-3m symmetry. When growth proceeds along [111] direction, the same mechanism produces domains with trigonal symmetry. Because this mechanism relies on fundamental aspects of crystal growth rather than specific material properties, it offers a general strategy for symmetry control in disordered crystals. Crucially, it transforms the complex task of altering crystal symmetry into the more manageable challenge of controlling growth direction, which can be achieved through various established techniques, such as using surfactants during crystallization.
Research Square:rs-6976146 (2026)
Posted on Research Square and Under Review at Nature Portfolio
Physical sciences/Chemistry/Materials chemistry, Physical sciences/Materials science/Techniques and instrumentation/Characterization and analytical techniques, Physical sciences/Materials science/Condensed-matter physics/Structure of solids and liquids
Overcoming conventional trade-offs in strain sensing with physics-guided inverse design of aperiodic architected nanocomposites
Article | Polymers | 2026-10-21 20:00 EDT
Francisco Molina-Lopez, Viktor Naenen, Stijn De Smedt, Altynay Kaidarova, Ruth Cardinaels
Large-strain piezoresistive sensors are critical for wearables and soft robotics. Still, conventional hyperelastic materials suffer from a trade-off between sensitivity, linearity, and strain range due to their intrinsic nonlinear electromechanical response. Here, we introduce a new class of aperiodic electromechanical metamaterials, where spatially graded carbon nanotube (CNT)-polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) composites are architected into hierarchical networks via direct ink writing (DIW) of adjacent cells with varying filler concentrations. The resulting interdependence among cells gives rise to emergent electromechanical responses that are governed by architectural organization rather than intrinsic material properties, unlocking combinations of sensitivity, linearity, and strain range inaccessible to homogeneous composites and thereby expanding the accessible performance space. A physics-guided framework maps how local cell behavior propagates through the hierarchy, enabling rational inverse design through systematic exploration of this expanded performance space toward targeted electromechanical functionality. This transforms sensor development from costly trial-and-error optimization and data-intensive black-box AI models into an interpretable, physics-guided design process. Experimental validation confirmed metamaterials-based piezoresistors exhibiting a fourfold enhanced sensitivity (gauge factor 1.55) compared to their most linear homogeneous constituent material, while preserving an extreme linearity (R² > 0.98) over a 30% strain range, and tenfold enhanced sensitivity (gauge factor 37.5) compared to the most sensitive constituent material. As proof of concept, these metamaterials served as strain gauges for accurate respiratory monitoring. Most importantly, this physics-guided universal framework introduces a rational inverse-design paradigm for hierarchical nanocomposites, in which tailored electromechanical responses arise from architectural organization r
Research Square:rs-10804825 (2026)
Posted on Research Square and Under Review at Nature Portfolio
Physical sciences/Materials science/Soft materials/Polymers, Physical sciences/Materials science/Nanoscale materials/Metamaterials
Monolithic Photoelectric-Photovoltaic (PEV) Hybrid Architecture Utilizing Oxygen-Activated GaAs NEA Photocathodes for Ultra-High Spectrum Utilization
Article | Solar cells | 2026-10-21 20:00 EDT
rahim lotfi orimi
Traditional single-junction photovoltaic (PV) technologies are fundamentally constrained by the Shockley-Queisser limit (33.7%), leaving a significant fraction of high-energy solar radiation unharvested due to severe thermalization losses. In this study, we propose and theoretically validate an advanced monolithic Photoelectric-Photovoltaic (PEV) hybrid heterostructure (ZnO / ITO / Micro-Gap / GaAs-O2 / GaAs / Mo) designed to bypass conventional thermalization barriers. By replacing reactive metal cathodes with an oxygen-activated Gallium Arsenide negative electron affinity (GaAs-O2 NEA) photocathode, the photoelectric emission threshold is effectively extended down to the semiconductor bandgap (1.42 eV). Through a rigorous coupled electro-optical framework integrating Transfer Matrix Method (TMM) optics with a self-consistent series-coupled diode model, we demonstrate that the synergistic combination of the extended photoelectric current (J_pe=34.50mA/cm^2) and the photovoltaic base current (J_pv=29.48mA/cm^2) yields a total short-circuit current density (J_sc) of 63.98mA/cm^2. Furthermore, the series-stacked potential configuration elevates the open-circuit voltage (V_oc) to 1.454V. Combined with an exceptional fill factor (FF) of 85.96%, the hybrid architecture achieves an extraordinary power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 79.96% under standard AM1.5G illumination. These findings establish a robust thermodynamic and structural paradigm for next-generation, ultra-high-efficiency solar energy converters.
Research Square:rs-11423582 (2026)
Posted on Research Square
Physical sciences/Energy science and technology/Renewable energy/Solar energy/Photovoltaics/Solar cells, Physical sciences/Optics and photonics/Optical materials and structures/Nanoparticles
Spontaneous Excitonic Mass Generation in Graphene Monolayers
Physical Sciences - Article | Phase transitions and critical phenomena | 2026-10-21 20:00 EDT
Bent Weber, Yande Que, Amit Kumar, Harley Scammell, Zheng Tong, Zihao Huang, Gagandeep Singh, Michael Fuhrer, Oleg Sushkov
Coulomb interactions among graphene’s massless Dirac fermions are unusually strong, making graphene a unique testbed for correlated quantum phases and interacting field theories. Among the predicted phases is an excitonic insulator, in which strong interactions drive spontaneous electron-hole pairing and condensation into a superfluid ground state. This transition has evaded experimental observation because unscreened long-range Coulomb interactions renormalize and enhance the Dirac velocity, keeping graphene in a weakly coupled semimetallic regime. Here, we overcome this constraint by decorating graphene with nanoscale metals that screen long-range interactions and suppress velocity renormalization. Scanning tunnelling spectroscopy down to 150 mK reveals a hard spectral gap (2Δ ≈ 14 meV) that emerges strictly at the Dirac point and is strongly susceptible to doping, temperature, and magnetic field — signatures of a many-body rather than single-particle gap. The gap closes at an anomalously low critical temperature (Δ/kBTc ≥ 100), consistent with a Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless transition, and coincides with a charge-density wave at q = K’ - K that reflects intervalley excitonic pairing. Together, these results provide strong evidence for spontaneous excitonic mass generation in graphene, a correlated insulating phase long predicted but never before observed.
Research Square:rs-11022308 (2026)
Posted on Research Square and Under Review at Nature Portfolio
Physical sciences/Physics/Condensed-matter physics/Phase transitions and critical phenomena, Physical sciences/Physics/Condensed-matter physics/Electronic properties and materials
Realization of decoherence-induced average symmetry-protected topological phases on quantum processors
Article | Topological matter | 2026-10-21 20:00 EDT
Ruizhe Shen, Xuejia Yu, Ching Hua Lee
Symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases are conventionally formulated for pure states protected by exact symmetries. In open quantum systems, however, decoherence generates mixed-state ensembles in which average symmetry can instead emerge only after averaging over microscopic trajectories. In this work, we realize decoherence-induced average SPT (ASPT) order on programmable quantum processors. Starting from a one-dimensional cluster SPT, we engineer sublattice-selective Pauli-$Z$ dephasing through ancilla-assisted quantum circuits. We diagnose the loss of strong symmetry through the decay of the symmetry charge, while the engineered channel preserves the corresponding symmetry at the ensemble level. Moreover, a two-replica R’enyi-2 string correlator measured through destructive SWAP readout remains nontrivial, revealing the ASPT structure encoded at the density-matrix level. We further show that the engineered dephasing redistributes spectral weight among reduced-stabilizer sectors while preserving the characteristic twofold pairing of the half-chain entanglement spectrum. These results establish a gate-based route to engineering and probing ASPT order and demonstrate structured decoherence as a programmable resource for realizing mixed-state topological quantum matter.
Research Square:rs-11344157 (2026)
Posted on Research Square and Under Review at Nature Portfolio
Physical sciences/Physics/Condensed-matter physics/Topological matter, Physical sciences/Physics/Quantum physics/Quantum simulation