Riccardo Sapienza

Amaury Badon, A. Claude Boccara, Geoffroy Lerosey, Mathias Fink, Alexandre Aubry
Optical microscopy offers a unique insight of biological structures with a sub-micrometer resolution and a minimum invasiveness. However, the inhomogeneities of the specimen itself can induce multiple scattering of light and optical aberrations which limit the observation to depths close to the ... [Opt. Express 25, 28914-28934 (2017)]

Author(s): C. Godfrin, A. Ferhat, R. Ballou, S. Klyatskaya, M. Ruben, W. Wernsdorfer, and F. Balestro

Grover’s algorithm, which finds an element in an unsorted list, has been implemented using a nuclear spin in a single-molecule magnet.

[Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 187702] Published Thu Nov 02, 2017

The irradiation of gold nanorod colloids with a femtosecond laser can be tuned to induce controlled nanorod reshaping, yielding colloids with exceptionally narrow localized surface plasmon resonance bands. The process relies on a regime characterized by a gentle multishot reduction of the aspect ratio, whereas the rod shape and volume are barely affected. Successful reshaping can only occur within a narrow window of the heat dissipation rate: Low cooling rates lead to drastic morphological changes, and fast cooling has nearly no effect. Hence, a delicate balance must be achieved between irradiation fluence and surface density of the surfactant on the nanorods. This perfection process is appealing because it provides a simple, fast, reproducible, and scalable route toward gold nanorods with an optical response of exceptional quality, near the theoretical limit.

Title: Impact of Strong Scattering Resonances on Ballistic and Diffusive Wave Transport
Author(s): Tallon, Benoit; Brunet, Thomas; Page, John H.
Source: PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS, 119 (16): OCT 19 2017
Document Type: Article

Author(s): Changxu Liu, Wenlong Gao, Biao Yang, and Shuang Zhang

A topological hybrid state consisting of a robust surface state in the presence of moderate randomness is predicted in metamaterials, which may allow for the development of a random unidirectional laser.

[Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 183901] Published Wed Nov 01, 2017

R. Sáez-Blázquez, J. Feist, A. I. Fernández-Domínguez, F. J. García-Vidal
There is an increasing scientific and technological interest in the design and implementation of nanoscale sources of quantum light. Here, we investigate the quantum statistics of the light scattered from a plasmonic nanocavity coupled to a mesoscopic ensemble of emitters under low coherent ... [Optica 4, 1363-1367 (2017)]

Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham		www.phdcomics.com
title: "Stranger Theses" - originally published 11/1/2017 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE!

Author(s): George Zoriniants, Francesco Masia, Naya Giannakopoulou, Wolfgang Langbein, and Paola Borri

Despite many advances, rapid, precise 3D tracking of nanoscale particles in a complex environment remains challenging. A new technique based on four-wave mixing interferometry not only precisely tracks a gold nanoparticle but also is sensitive to particle asymmetry and orientation.

[Phys. Rev. X 7, 041022] Published Fri Oct 27, 2017

The controversial question of whether machines may ever be conscious must be based on a careful consideration of how consciousness arises in the only physical system that undoubtedly possesses it: the human brain. We suggest that the word "consciousness" conflates two different types of information-processing computations in the brain: the selection of information for global broadcasting, thus making it flexibly available for computation and report (C1, consciousness in the first sense), and the self-monitoring of those computations, leading to a subjective sense of certainty or error (C2, consciousness in the second sense). We argue that despite their recent successes, current machines are still mostly implementing computations that reflect unconscious processing (C0) in the human brain. We review the psychological and neural science of unconscious (C0) and conscious computations (C1 and C2) and outline how they may inspire novel machine architectures.

Author(s): Guram Gogia and Justin C. Burton

Bistable switching between a crystalline condensed state and a gaslike excited state is demonstrated in a system of charged microparticles.

[Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 178004] Published Thu Oct 26, 2017

Author(s): M. Lamperti and A. M. Perego

We report on the localization of excitability induced by disorder in an array of coupled semiconductor lasers with a saturable absorber. Through numerical simulations we show that the exponential localization of excitable waves occurs if a certain critical amount of randomness is present in the coup...

[Phys. Rev. A 96, 041803(R)] Published Mon Oct 23, 2017

Tengfei Wu, Jonathan Dong, Xiaopeng Shao, Sylvain Gigan
Recently introduced angular-memory-effect based techniques enable non-invasive imaging of objects hidden behind thin scattering layers. However, both the speckle-correlation and the bispectrum analysis are based on the statistical average of large amounts of speckle grains, which determines that ... [Opt. Express 25, 27182-27194 (2017)]

Jingyuan Linda Zhang, Konstantinos G. Lagoudakis, Yan-Kai Tzeng, Constantin Dory, Marina Radulaski, Yousif Kelaita, Kevin A. Fischer, Shuo Sun, Zhi-Xun Shen, Nicholas A. Melosh, Steven Chu, Jelena Vučković
Arrays of identical and individually addressable qubits lay the foundation for the creation of scalable quantum hardware such as quantum processors and repeaters. Silicon-vacancy (SiV) centers in diamond offer excellent physical properties such as low inhomogeneous broadening, fast photon emission, ... [Optica 4, 1317-1321 (2017)]

Author(s): Benoit Tallon, Thomas Brunet, and John H. Page

The strong impact of scattering resonances on all the key transport parameters of classical waves in disordered media is demonstrated through ultrasonic experiments on monodisperse emulsions. Through accurate measurements of both ballistic and diffusive transport over a wide range of frequencies, we...

[Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 164301] Published Thu Oct 19, 2017

Author(s): André L. Moura, Pablo I. R. Pincheira, Albert S. Reyna, Ernesto P. Raposo, Anderson S. L. Gomes, and Cid B. de Araújo

We demonstrate the replica symmetry breaking (RSB) phenomenon in the spontaneous mode-locking regime of a multimode Q-switched Nd:YAG laser. The underlying mechanism is quite distinct from that of the RSB recently observed in random lasers. Here, there is no random medium and the phase is not glassy...

[Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 163902] Published Fri Oct 20, 2017

Author(s): B. P. Abbott et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration)

For the first time, researchers have detected both light and gravitational waves from the same event in space.

[Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 161101] Published Mon Oct 16, 2017

Author(s): Matthew Bierbaum, Brian D. Leahy, Alexander A. Alemi, Itai Cohen, and James P. Sethna

A theoretical model of light spreading and scattering improves accuracy precision of position and size measurements made with an optical microscope by as much as 100 times.

[Phys. Rev. X 7, 041007] Published Fri Oct 13, 2017

Mickael Mounaix, Hilton B. de Aguiar, Sylvain Gigan
The transmission matrix is a unique tool to control light through a scattering medium. A monochromatic transmission matrix does not allow temporal control of broadband light. Conversely, measuring multiple transmission matrices with spectral resolution allows fine temporal control when a pulse is ... [Optica 4, 1289-1292 (2017)]

Bypassing the Kohn-Sham equations with machine learning

Nature Communications, Published online: 11 October 2017; doi:10.1038/s41467-017-00839-3

Machine learning allows electronic structure calculations to access larger system sizes and, in dynamical simulations, longer time scales. Here, the authors perform such a simulation using a machine-learned density functional that avoids direct solution of the Kohn-Sham equations.

Yiwen Su, Charles Lin, PoHan Chang, Amr S. Helmy
Hybrid integration of plasmonics and Si photonics is a promising architecture for global microprocessor interconnects. To this end, practical plasmonic devices should provide not only athermal, broadband operation over a wavelength-scale footprint, but also support non-intrusive integration with ... [Optica 4, 1259-1262 (2017)]