Papers

The quality of high-power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) deposited films can often improve through the effective use of metal-ion acceleration, requiring precise measurements of time-of-flight (ToF). These measurements are commonly done using time- and energy-resolved mass spectrometry but require careful consideration of the transit time of ions inside. The transit time is typically calculated by considering the travel length in various parts of the spectrometer (e.g. from orifice to detector), but errors associated with these estimations can lead to nonphysical values in a HiPIMS process (e.g. negative ToFs). Here we report a practical approach to determine ion ToF experimentally, using a bipolar HiPIMS power supply to synchronize a gating pulse to the front-end of a HIDEN Analytical EQP-300 mass spectrometer, placed at the working distance. The ToF is measured by applying a +70 V bias to repel ions, and a 5 us gating pulse of 0 V to accept them. To prevent interference with the HiPIMS plasma, a grounded shield is placed in front of the mass-spec head with a variable slit-opening (0.5-3 mm). The effectiveness of the shielding is verified by Langmuir probe measurements, noting negligible shifts in plasma potential for a DC sputter discharge. The gate is then synchronized to a HiPIMS pulse and data collected at 5 us intervals by adjusting the pulse delay. Measurements of the time-of-flights of Ar+, Al+, Sc+, Y+, and W+ ions are presented; Al+ and Ar+ ions were also compared to ToF calculated using mass spectrometry flight tube equations.

For spin and fermionic systems in any spatial dimension, we establish that the superpolynomial decay behavior of mutual information and conditional mutual information is a universal property of gapped pure- and mixed-state phases; i.e., all systems in such a phase possess this property if one system in this phase possesses this property. We further demonstrate that the (conditional) mutual information indeed decays superpolynomially in a large class of phases, including chiral phases. As a by-product, we sharpen the notion of mixed-state phases.

We address the problem of the vapor-liquid phase transition in the restricted primitive model (RPM) using Wertheim's statistical associating fluid theory to capture the effects of ion pairing which dominate the low-temperature vapor phase. For this we employ a reference system in which ion-pairing is suppressed by a judicious modification of the interaction between unlike charges from 1/r to erf(kappa r)/r, where kappa is a state-dependent parameter chosen so that the Helmholtz free energy A is at a null point (dA/d(kappa) = 0). Unlike the original RPM, this reference fluid admits real solutions to the hypernetted-chain (HNC) closure of the Ornstein-Zernike equations over a wide range of densities and temperatures. In the present study, we go beyond previous work [M. Li, Ph.D. thesis, University of Manchester (2011)] to allow for isodesmic assembly of ion pairs into neutral clusters. We find this has the potential to improve significantly the agreement with the Monte-Carlo results for the RPM vapor phase boundary. We can also match recent results on anomalous underscreening in the RPM [Härtel et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 108202 (2023)] assuming that only the free ions contribute to the screening length.

Enhancing the many-body gap of a fractional state is crucial for realizing robust fractional excitations. For fractional Chern insulators, existing studies suggest that making flat Chern bands closely resemble the lowest Landau level (LLL) seems to maximize the excitation gap, providing an apparently optimal platform. In this work, we demonstrate that deforming away from the LLL limit can, in fact, produce substantially larger FQH gaps. Using moiré flat bands with strongly non-Landau-level wavefunctions, we show that the gap can exceed that of the LLL by more than two orders of magnitude for short-range interactions and by factors of two to three for long-range interactions. This enhancement is generic across Abelian FCI states and follows a universal enhancement factor within each hierarchy. Using the Landau level framework, we identify the amplification of pseudopotentials as the microscopic origin of the observed enhancement. This finding demonstrates that pseudopotential engineering can substantially strengthen fractional topological phases. We further examined non-Abelian states and found that, within finite-size resolution, this wavefunction construction method can also be used to manipulate and enhance the gap for certain interaction parameters.

Scalable solid-state single-photon sources with triggered single-photon emission rates exceeding a few GHz would aid in the wide technological adoption of photonic quantum technologies. We demonstrate triggering of a quantum dot (QD) single photon emission using dynamic Purcell effect induced at a frequency of several GHz by acoustic strain. To this end, InAs QDs are integrated in a hybrid photon-phonon patterned microcavity with engineered optical and acoustic phonon degrees of freedom. The density of optical states is tailored by the lateral confinement of photons in um-sized traps defined lithographically in the microcavity spacer. The single-photon character of the emission from a QD in a trap is confirmed by measuring single-photon statistics. We demonstrate modulation of the QD transition energy in a trap with a frequency up to 14 GHz by monochromatic longitudinal bulk acoustic phonons generated by piezoelectric transducers. For the modulation frequency of 5.6 GHz, corresponding to the acoustic mode of the microcavity, the QD energy is periodically shifted through a spectrally narrow confined photonic mode leading to an appreciable enhancement of the QD emission due to the dynamic Purcell effect. We numerically explored time-evolution of the QD-cavity system under modulation and identified conditions that could enable single-photon rates exceeding 5 GHz. The platform thus enables the implementation of scalable III-V-based single-photon sources with on-chip tunable acoustic clocks with frequencies that can exceed several GHz under continuous wave optical excitation.

A theoretical study of a number of properties of A2CrH6 (where A = Ba, Sr, and Ca) hydride perovskites with the Cambridge Serial Total Energy Package (CASTEP). These include structural, hydrogen storage, mechanical, phonon, thermodynamic, electronic, and optical properties. The lattice constants of the compounds studied are in the range from 7.220 Å to 8.082 Å, and they exhibit stable cubic crystal structures. Negative formation energies, elastic constants, phonon dispersion and AIMD simulations testify to their thermodynamic, mechanical, dynamic and thermal stability, respectively. For the perovskite hydrides Ba2CrH6, Sr2CrH6 and Ca2CrH6, the corresponding specific hydrogen storage capacities are 1.82 wt.%, 2.69 wt.%, and 4.37 wt.%, respectively. Among these compounds, Sr2CrH6 exhibits the lowest applicable hydrogen desorption temperature, at 463.7 K. The electronic bands show remarkable spin activity, demonstrating that the change of A2+ cation (where A = Ca, Sr, and Ba) immediately influences the spin polarization and electronic behavior of hydride perovskites. On the basis of the elastic moduli studied, the mechanical behavior determines that Ca2CrH6 is the strongest material. The present results highlight the potential of A2CrH6 (A = Ca, Sr, and Ba) perovskite hydrides, in particular Ca2CrH6, for applications in advanced energy systems and hydrogen storage, as well as for electrical and optoelectronic devices.

Chiral magnetic textures have attracted considerable attention owing to their topological properties and potential applications in spintronic devices. Here, we employ first-principles calculations together with atomic spin dynamics simulations to explore the switching between skyrmions and Yoshimori-type spin spirals induced by Li adsorption in Janus two-dimensional (2D) CrTeSe. We show that selective Li adsorption on either the Se- or Te-terminated surface stabilizes distinct magnetic phases: Li adsorption on the Se side favors a Yoshimori-type spin spiral, whereas adsorption on the Te side stabilizes the skyrmionic state. This contrast originates from site-dependent modifications of exchange interactions, magnetic anisotropy (MA), and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). In addition, the response of magnetic textures to out-of-plane magnetic fields differs strongly between the two systems. These results demonstrate that surface adsorption provides an effective strategy for reversible control of chiral magnetic states in 2D magnets, while also offering fundamental insights into the competing interactions that govern the stability of skyrmions and Yoshimori spin spirals. Our findings highlight the potential of Janus 2D materials as a versatile platform for engineering tunable spintronic devices.

Although the analysis of loops is not so much because of the complications, it has already been found that heuristically enhancing loops decreases the variance of degree distributions for improving the robustness of connectivity. While many real scale-free networks are known to contain shorter loops such as triangles, it remains to investigate the distributions of longer loops in more wide class of networks. We find a relation between narrower degree distributions and longer loops in investigating the lengths of the shortest loops in various networks with continuously changing degree distributions, including three typical types of realistic scale-free networks, classical Erdös-Rényi random graphs, and regular networks. In particular, we show that narrower degree distributions contain longer shortest loops, as a universal property in a wide class of random networks. We suggest that the robustness of connectivity is enhanced by constructing long loops of O(log N).

Applying the previously developed systematic thermal (imaginary time) perturbative expansion to the relevant effective field theory we compute the free energy $F$ of the diluted gas of (nonrelativistic) spin $1/2$ fermions interacting through a spin-independent repulsive two-body potential as a function of the numbers $N_+$ and $N_-$ of spin up and spin down fermions (i.e. as a function of the system's polarization) and the temperature $T$. We give the complete order $(k_{\rm F}a_0)^3$ ($k_{\rm F}$ is the Fermi wave vector and $a_0$ is the $s$-wave scattering length characterizing the interaction potential) contribution to $F$. We also extend the computation beyond a fixed order by resumming to all orders in the parameter $k_{\rm F}a_0$ the contributions to $F$ of two infinite sets of Feynman diagrams: the so-called particle-particle rings and the particle-hole rings. We find that including the second one of these two contributions has a dramatic consequence for the transition of the system from the paramagnetic to the ferromagnetic phase (the so called Stoner phase transition): in this approximation the phase transition simply disappears. This result does not contradict the expectation that a transition to the magnetically ordered state should occur in truly repulsive systems. The $p$-wave and higher scattering lengths, as well as other parameters chacterizing the interaction potential, are in such systems generally of the same order of magnitude as $a_0$ and contributions depending on them should be, therefore, also included in $F$. Our results may, however, have implications for the search of the itinerant ferromagnetism of cold atomic gases in which large $a_0$, much larger than all other parameters, is artificially created by exploiting the physics of the Feshbach resonance.

We compute the electronic and emission properties of Coulomb-correlated multi-particle states (X$^0$, X$^\pm$, XX) in weakly confining GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dots using an 8-band $\mathbf{k}\!\cdot\!\mathbf{p}$ model coupled to continuum elasticity and configuration interaction (CI). We evaluate polarization-resolved oscillator strengths and radiative rates both in the dipole approximation (DA) and in a quasi-electrostatic beyond-dipole (BDA) longitudinal formulation implemented via a Poisson reformulation exactly equivalent to the dyadic Green-tensor kernel. For the dots studied, BDA yields lifetimes in quantitative agreement with experiment, e.g., $\tau^X=0.279\,\mathrm{ns}$ vs $0.267\,\mathrm{ns}$ (exp.) and $\tau^{XX}=0.101\,\mathrm{ns}$ vs $0.115\,\mathrm{ns}$ (exp.). The framework also reproduces electric-field tuning of the multi-particle electronic structure and emission-including the indistinguishability inferred from $P=\tau^X/(\tau^X+\tau^{XX})$-and we assess sensitivity to CI-basis size and to electron-electron and hole-hole exchange.

Entropy of the cell fluid model with Curie-Weiss interaction is obtained in analytical form as a function of temperature and chemical potential. A parametric equation is derived representing the entropy as a function of density. Features of both the entropy per particle and the entropy per cell are investigated at the entropy-density and entropy-chemical potential planes. The considered cell model is a multiple-occupancy model and possesses an infinite sequence of first-order phase transitions at sufficiently low temperatures. We find that the entropy exhibits pronounced minima at around integer-valued particle densities, which may be a generic feature of multiple-occupancy models.

We study the Hilbert space fragmentation (HSF) in hardcore Bose and Fermi Hubbard models in the framework of the restricted spectrum generating algebra (RSGA). We present a family of hardcore Bose-Hubbard models with repulsive density-density interactions on a generalized Lieb lattice. We show that this system possesses the RSGA structure in the large interaction strength limit, exhibiting quantum HSF. It allows us to construct a set of exact condensate eigenstates, possessing off diagonal long-range order. Based on numerical simulations conducted on several representative lattices, we demonstrate the existence of weak fragmentations when the constraints are not exact. As applications, we also studied the connection between HSF and RSGA in modified fermionic Hubbard models, where the {\eta}-pairing states are shown to be energy towers, acting as quantum scars.

We show that when a Brownian bridge is physically constrained to satisfy a canonical condition, its time evolution exactly coincides with an m-geodesic on the statistical manifold of Gaussian distributions. This identification provides a direct physical realization of a geometric concept in information geometry. It implies that purely random processes evolve along informationally straight trajectories, analogous to geodesics in general relativity. Our findings suggest that the asymmetry of informational “distance" (divergence) plays a fundamental physical role, offering a concrete step toward an equivalence principle for information.

Pt-Sr binary intermetallics encompass a broad range of stoichiometries and crystal structures, stabilized by complex bonding and multivalent chemistry. The Sr-rich end member, PtSr5, is recently identified via artificial-intelligence-guided materials design as a body-centered tetragonal compound (I4/m). Using first-principles calculations, we show that PtSr5 hosts a Dirac semimetal phase with trivial Z2 topology, classified as a normal Dirac semimetal. A symmetry-indicator analysis based on parity eigenvalues at the eight time-reversal-invariant momenta confirms that all Z2 invariants-evaluated on time-reversal-invariant two-dimensional subspaces of momentum space with a direct band gap-are trivial, thereby establishing the topologically trivial nature of the Dirac semimetal phase. Nonetheless, our calculations reveal that applying an external Zeeman magnetic field along the z-axis drives the system into a Weyl semimetal phase, as corroborated by characteristic changes in the computed surface states. This work demonstrates the tunability of topological phases in PtSr5 via external perturbations and highlights the effectiveness of AI-based materials exploration in discovering new quantum materials.

We report a light-driven non-equilibrium vortex Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition in a superconductor. We use a time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau model to demonstrate vortex-antivortex deconfinement via light induced fields. The transformation occurs independently of thermal fluctuations and is viewed as a quantum phase transition. The resulting phase map mirrors QCD phase diagram, delineating confined, premelted, and fully deconfined vortex phases. The nature of these phases is discussed. Transitions between phases are governed by light induced depairing and phase fluctuations, establishing a new class of light-induced topological transitions.

Quasi-two-dimensional (quasi-2D) metal halide perovskites exhibit rich phase heterogeneity that profoundly influences light-matter interactions and charge transport. However, the fundamental mechanisms governing carrier transfer across distinct phases remain poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate effective electron-hole separation in fluorinated multilayered quasi-2D perovskite films nominally prepared for three layers, using femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy. The films are revealed to comprise a heterogeneous phase distribution (with 1, 2, 3 layers and bulk) naturally stacked along the growth direction. Our ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) measurements, show the type-two band alignment between the small-n (layer number) phases and the bulk. This alignment drives charge separation via both direct and sequential carrier transfer mechanisms, whereby electrons preferentially migrate into the bulk domains while holes accumulate in the small-n layers, extending even to single layer phase-a process only rarely observed in previous studies. The nearly symmetric transfer times of electrons and holes yield an efficient and balanced spatial separation of carriers. Global target analysis employing a carrier transfer model quantitatively reproduces the spectral evolution, providing a rigorous validation of the mechanism. Nonetheless, we found photocurrent enhancement in the diode devices of this quasi-2D perovskite as a consequence of the efficient transfer of photocarriers in the opposite directions. This work delivers a comprehensive picture of interphase charge transfer in fluorinated quasi-2D perovskites and highlights strategies to engineer directional separation pathways for high-performance photovoltaic, optoelectronic, and quantum devices.

Much is known about the magnetoelectric effect of multiferroic insulators, yet little is understood about multiferroic metals. In this work, we propose a stacking engineering strategy based on monolayer magnets to construct multiferroic metals, with validation through first-principles calculations on six experimentally synthesized materials. Such multiferroic metals exhibit predominantly linear magnetoelectric response, originating from direct spin-charge interactions as a result of external field-modulated Fermi energy. This fundamentally differs from spin-charge-lattice or spin-orbit coupling mechanisms in multiferroic insulators, offering application advantages in the field of high-speed response. We derive a universal formula for understanding the magnetoelectric coupling in these multiferroic metals. Our work provides insights for exploring magnetoelectric coupling mechanisms and designing functional materials with strong magnetoelectric coupling.

We study diffusion on multiplex networks with directed interlayer couplings. We demonstrate both numerically and analytically that even with undirected layers, interlayer directionality alone reproduces superdiffusion and the prime regime. We further reveal a new phenomenon, the directionality-induced jamming, whereby directed interlayer links hinder diffusion, fragmenting the system into dynamically disconnected components and preventing convergence to the steady state of the diffusion process. Via an optimization process, we show that this new regime is attainable in both toy models and real-world topologies. These findings underscore the crucial role of interlayer link directionality in shaping the emergent behavior of multiplex systems, with potential implications for the design and control of such systems.

Carbon nanotube (CNT) films are widely considered as prospective building blocks for advanced electronic and nanostructured materials. In particular, electrical transport in high-density CNT films results from a complex interplay between network morphology and CNT connectivity, which remains challenging to characterize quantitatively. To identify the structural parameters that govern the electrical current in CNT films, we employed coarse-grained molecular dynamics to construct dense mesoscale CNT film models that include CNTs with different chiralities and lengths. The effects of CNT geometrical features on the film morphologies were quantified by devising a set of structural descriptors and analyzing their mutual correlations. The impact of varying the concentration of amorphous carbon (aC) inclusions on the film structure was assessed. Finally, we employed a nodal analysis framework to compute the electrical current across the networks and correlate the charge transport characteristics to the underlying structural descriptors. The current is found to be enhanced in films that exhibit high curvature and buckling, low bundling, and strong connectivity. We discuss how the presence of aC inclusions modifies these morphological and current characteristics. This work provides a mesoscale modeling framework for modeling structure-transport relationships in dense CNT films and highlights the role of morphological descriptors in guiding the interpretation of electrical transport in complex nanostructured networks.

Radio-frequency reflectometry, which probes small changes in the electrical impedance of a device, provides a useful method for sensitive and fast detection of dynamic processes in quantum systems. We use this method to detect excitation of the quantized motional (Rydberg) states of trapped electrons on liquid helium. The Rydberg transition in an ensemble of electrons is detected by a change in the impedance of an rf circuit coupled to the microwave-excited electrons. To elucidate the origin of the observed response, the result is compared with an independent impedance measurement on the same electron system modulated by an electrostatic potential and with a numerical simulation using the Green's function method. Additionally, it is found that the rf response to the Rydberg resonance can be strongly enhanced by a resonant mode of the electron collective motion. Our results suggest that the observed response to the Rydberg resonance must be attributed to the lateral motion of the many-electron system rather than the vertical displacement of the individually excited electrons, as was explicate earlier. A theoretical analysis of the expected response due to the vertical displacement is given.

Using a linear hydrodynamic model, we theoretically investigate the interaction between penetrating electron beams and sub-5-nm metallic spherical nanoparticles. We derive an analytical expression of the electron energy loss probability that includes nonlocal effects in the response of the confined electron gas. Our study focuses on the confined bulk plasmons (CBPs) which are inaccessible within local dielectric frameworks, and it shows that their excitation is highly sensitive to the impact parameter, the kinetic energy of the incident electron, and the nanoparticle size. In contrast to local approaches, our model predicts the emergence of several peaks associated with CBPs above the plasma frequency and a blueshift of their spectral envelope as the nanoparticle size decreases and the impact parameter of the electron beam increases. Moreover, it predicts a threshold impact parameter, corresponding to the minimum length of the electron's trajectory inside the nanoparticle required for efficient excitation of specific CBP modes. By exploiting a multipolar description of the CBPs, we identify the underlying selection rules governing their excitation by electron beams and correlate the observed blueshift at larger impact parameters with the preferential excitation of higher-order CBPs. The size-dependent dispersion of the CBPs further enhances this impact-parameter-dependent blueshift and also explains the decrease in the impact parameter threshold for smaller nanoparticles. The hydrodynamic model captures these trends without ad hoc momentum cutoffs and with rapid multipolar convergence. Applied to sodium nanoparticles as a canonical free-electron system, the theory reproduces qualitative behaviors observed in experiments and ab initio calculations, providing practical guidance for the design and interpretation of CBP-sensitive electron energy loss spectroscopy measurements.

Two-dimensional chiral magnets are known to host a variety of skyrmions, characterized by an integer topological charge. However, these systems typically favor uniform lattices as a thermodynamically stable phase composed of either skyrmions (Q = -1) or antiskyrmions (Q = 1). In isotropic chiral magnets, skyrmion-antiskyrmion coexistence is typically transient due to mutual annihilation, making the observation of a stable, long-range ordered lattice a significant challenge. Here, we address this challenge by demonstrating a skyrmion-antiskyrmion lattice as a magnetic field-induced topological ground state in chiral magnets with competing anisotropic interactions, specifically Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya and frustrated exchange interactions. This unique lattice exhibits a net-zero global topological charge due to the balanced populations of skyrmions and antiskyrmions. Furthermore, density functional theory and spin-lattice simulations identify 2Fe/InSb(110) as an ideal candidate material for realizing this phase. This finding reveals new possibilities for manipulating magnetic solitons and establishes anisotropic frustrated chiral magnets as a promising material class for future spintronic applications.

The Gravity from Entropy (GfE) action posits that gravity that is fundamentally given by the information encoded in the interplay between matter and geometry. The GfE Lagrangian is given by the Geometric Quantum Relative Entropy (GQRE) between the physical metric and the metric induced by matter and curvature, leading to modified gravitational field equations with an emergent dynamical effective dark energy term, which reduce to Einstein's equations in the low energy, small curvature limit. Adopting a thermodynamic viewpoint, we identify the GfE energy density with this emergent effective dark energy term. For homogeneous and isotropic FRW spacetimes, we show that GfE universes admit a thermal description: locally, they are characterized by $k$-temperatures and $k$-pressures satisfying a first law of GfE thermodynamics. In the low energy, small curvature regime with perfect-fluid matter and radiation, GfE solutions are well approximated by Friedmann cosmologies. We show that, while the total GQRE per unit volume does not increase, consistent with its nature as a relative entropy, the total entropy of GfE universes is non-decreasing in time. These results provide a thermodynamic interpretation of GfE cosmologies and of general relativity (GR) itself, recovered in the low energy, small curvature limit of the theory, offering a framework to reconcile local order and complexity with the global increase of entropy in the universe.

We establish a unified framework connecting decoherence and quantum complexity. By vectorizing the density matrix into a pure state in a double Hilbert space, a decoherence process is mapped to an imaginary-time evolution. Expanding this evolution in the Krylov space, we find that the $n$-th Krylov basis corresponds to an $n$-error state generated by the decoherence, providing a natural bridge between error proliferation and complexity growth. Using two dephasing quantum channels as concrete examples, we show that the Krylov complexity remains nonsingular for strong-to-weak spontaneous symmetry-breaking (SWSSB) crossovers, while it exhibits a singular area-to-volume-law transition for genuine SWSSB phase transitions, intrinsic to mixed states.

Materials discovery requires navigating vast chemical and structural spaces while satisfying multiple, often conflicting, objectives. We present LLM-guided Evolution for MAterials discovery (LLEMA), a unified framework that couples the scientific knowledge embedded in large language models with chemistry-informed evolutionary rules and memory-based refinement. At each iteration, an LLM proposes crystallographically specified candidates under explicit property constraints; a surrogate-augmented oracle estimates physicochemical properties; and a multi-objective scorer updates success/failure memories to guide subsequent generations. Evaluated on 14 realistic tasks that span electronics, energy, coatings, optics, and aerospace, LLEMA discovers candidates that are chemically plausible, thermodynamically stable, and property-aligned, achieving higher hit rates and improved Pareto front quality relative to generative and LLM-only baselines. Ablation studies confirm the importance of rule-guided generation, memory-based refinement, and surrogate prediction. By enforcing synthesizability and multi-objective trade-offs, LLEMA provides a principled approach to accelerating practical materials discovery. Project website: https://scientific-discovery.github.io/llema-project/

We use a combination of density functional theory calculations and optical modeling to establish that the electric field-induced Kerr rotation in metallic thin films has contributions from both non-equilibrium orbital moment accumulation (arising from the orbital Edelstein effect) and a heretofore overlooked surface Pockels effect. The Kerr rotation associated with orbital accumulation has been studied in previous works and is largely due to the dc electric field-induced change of the electron distribution function. In contrast, the surface Pockels effect is largely due to the dc field-induced change to the wave functions. Both of these contributions arise from the dual mirror symmetry breaking from the surface and from the dc applied field. Our calculations show that the resulting Kerr rotation is due to the dc electric field modification of the optical conductivity within a couple of nanometers from the surface, consistent with the dependence on the local mirror symmetry breaking at the surface. For thin films of Pt, our calculations show that the relative contributions of the orbital Edelstein and surface Pockels effects are comparable, and that they have different effects on Kerr rotation of $s$ and $p$ polarized light, $\theta_K^s$ and $\theta_K^p$. The orbital Edelstein effect yields similar values of $\theta_K^s$ and $\theta_K^p$, while the surface Pockels effect leads to opposing values of $\theta_K^s$ and $\theta_K^p$.

Structurally nanoengineered antimicrobial peptide polymers (SNAPPs) are emerging as promising selective agents against bacterial membranes. In this study, we used all atom molecular dynamics simulation techniques to investigate the interaction of a promising cationic SNAPP architecture (Alt-SNAPP with 8 arms made of alternating lysine and valine residues) with modelled Gram-negative, Gram-positive, mammalian, and red blood cell membranes. Alt-SNAPP exhibited rapid and stable binding to bacterial membranes, driven by electrostatic interactions with anionic lipids such as phosphatidylglycerol (PG) and cardiolipin (CL), and supported by membrane fluidity. In contrast, mammalian and red blood cell membranes, enriched in zwitterionic lipids and cholesterol, resisted peptide association entirely. Analyses of center of mass distance, partial density, hydrogen bonding, and interaction energy confirmed that SNAPP remains fully excluded from host like membranes while forming stable, multivalent interactions with bacterial bilayers. These findings provide mechanistic insight into membrane selectivity of SNAPP and offer a molecular framework for designing next generation antimicrobial polymers with minimal off target toxicity.

We develop a unified perturbative framework for energy transport along a chiral quantum Hall edge coupled to a disordered, compressible strip. Treating the strip as a generic linear response environment characterized by its retarded susceptibility, we obtain leading corrections to both the heat flux carried by the edge plasmon and to its spectrum. Two generic regimes emerge: (i) a gapped, local dielectric response with finite-range coupling, producing a negative correction to the quantized heat flux that scales as T^4 at low temperatures together with a convex cubic shift of the plasmon dispersion; and (ii) a hydrodynamic (diffusive) response with relaxation, yielding a crossover from T^4 to T^{3/2} scaling and a change of sign in the correction. We further introduce a microscopic dipolar model in which the edge couples electrostatically to localized dipole moments inside a wide compressible strip. This long-range interaction amplifies the nonlocal dielectric back-action and generates new suppression laws, T^3 or even T^2 for smooth disorder profiles, together with a universal ratio connecting spectral curvature to thermal response. Across all regimes, the total heat flux remains quantized: the apparent deficit of the plasmon contribution reflects reversible heat drag into the compressible strip rather than a breakdown of quantization. The framework thus provides a coherent and quantitatively plausible explanation of the "missing heat flux" anomaly and unifies the thermal and spectral signatures of quantum Hall edge dynamics.

Non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) simulations were used to study pool boiling of water films on an ultra-thin planar aluminum substrate as well as the effect of surface wettability. The simulation geometry is a 10 nm-thick water film on an FCC aluminum substrate heated from 300 K to 900 K. The first peak acceleration onset time of the film, as the measure of the nucleation start, has been observed. The average heating rates of the near-wall water were 0.064, 0.048, and 0.035 K/ps for hydrophilic, neutral, and hydrophobic surfaces, respectively. Boiling curves shows that the critical heat flux (CHF) equals 5216, 3979, and 2525 MW/m^2 at wall temperatures of 466, 502, and 561 K, respectively. The minimum heat flux (MHF, Leidenfrost point) is equal to 2157, 2463, and 2366 MW/m^2 at wall temperatures of 767, 784, and 746 K, respectively. Interfacial HTC remains higher for longer times under the hydrophilic condition, whereas Kapitza resistance is low initially but then increases sharply after transition to film boiling with the highest values for the hydrophobic surface. In general, the results demonstrate that engineering aluminum wettability towards intense hydrophilicity diminishes the explosive boiling point, increases CHF, and enhances nanoscale thermal management performance.

Marcus theory is fundamental to describing electron transfer reactions and quantifying their rates, effectively representing the energy surface associated with an electron transfer from the reactant to the product ionic state via parabolas within a reaction coordinate diagram. Here, we present an intuitive and computationally efficient generalised reaction coordinate amenable to molecular dynamics simulations. By utilising the nuclear charge of the ion, we are able to quantify in a targeted approach changes in the ion's solvation shell, thereby efficiently obtaining the free energy profile associated with the electron transfer, the transition state geometry and the evolution of the water network.