Excitons, composite electron-hole quasiparticles, are known to play an important role in optoelectronic phenomena in many semiconducting materials. Recent experiments and theory indicate that the band-gap optics of the newly discovered monolayer transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) is dominated by tightly bound valley excitons. The strong interaction of excitons with long-range electromagnetic fields in these 2D systems can significantly affect their intrinsic properties. Here, we develop a semi-classical framework for intrinsic exciton-polaritons in monolayer TMDs that treats their dispersion and radiative decay on the same footing and can incorporate effects of the dielectric environment. It is demonstrated how both inter- and intra-valley long-range interactions influence the dispersion and decay of the polaritonic eigenstates. We also show that exciton-polaritons can be efficiently excited via resonance energy transfer from quantum emitters such as quantum dots, which may be useful for various applications.
We report on the first dark-matter (DM) search results from PandaX-I, a low threshold dual-phase xenon experiment operating at the China Jinping Underground Laboratory. In the 37-kg liquid xenon target with 17.4 live-days of exposure, no DM particle candidate event was found. This result sets a stringent limit for low-mass DM particles and disfavors the interpretation of previously-reported positive experimental results. The minimum upper limit, $3.7times10^{-44}$,cm$^2$, for the spin-independent isoscalar DM-particle-nucleon scattering cross section is obtained at a DM-particle mass of 49,GeV/c$^2$ at 90% confidence level.
A topological insulator is a novel quantum state, characterized by symmetry-protected non-trivial edge/surface states. Our first-principle simulations show the significant effects of the chemical decoration on edge states of topological Bi(111) bilayer nanoribbon, which remove the trivial edge state and recover the Dirac linear dispersion of topological edge state. By comparing the edge states with and without chemical decoration, the Bi(111) bilayer nanoribbon offers a simple system for assessing conductance fluctuation of edge states. The chemical decoration can also modify the penetration depth and the spin texture of edge states. A low-energy effective model is proposed to explain the distinctive spin texture of Bi(111) bilayer nanoribbon, which breaks the spin-momentum orthogonality along the armchair edge.
The valley dependent optical selection rules in recently discovered monolayer group-VI transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) make possible optical control of valley polarization, a crucial step towards valleytronic applications. However, in presence of Landaul level(LL) quantization such selection rules are taken over by selection rules between the LLs, which are not necessarily valley contrasting. Using MoS$_{2}$ as an example we show that the spatial inversion-symmetry breaking results in unusual valley dependent inter-LL selection rules, which directly locks polarization to valley. We find a systematic valley splitting for all Landau levels (LLs) in the quantum Hall regime, whose magnitude is linearly proportional to the magnetic field and in comparable with the LL spacing. Consequently, unique plateau structures are found in the optical Hall conductivity, which can be measured by the magneto-optical Faraday rotations.
We investigate the valley related carrier dynamics in monolayer MoS2 using helicity resolved non-degenerate ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy at the vicinity of the high-symmetry K point under the temperature down to 78 K. Monolayer MoS2 shows remarkable transient reflection signals, in stark contrast to bilayer and bulk MoS2 due to the enhancement of many-body effect at reduced dimensionality. The helicity resolved ultrafast time-resolved result shows that the valley polarization is preserved for only several ps before scattering process makes it undistinguishable. We suggest that the dynamical degradation of valley polarization is attributable primarily to the exciton trapping by defect states in the exfoliated MoS2 samples. Our experiment and a tight-binding model analysis also show that the perfect valley CD selectivity is fairly robust against disorder at the K point, but quickly decays from the high-symmetry point in the momentum space in the presence of disorder.
We investigate the non-Markovian characteristics in continuous measurement of a charge qubit by a quantum point contact. The backflow of information from the reservoir to the system in the non-Markovian domain gives rise to strikingly different qubit relaxation and dephasing in comparison with the Markovian case. The intriguing non-Markovian dynamics is found to have a direct impact on the output noise feature of the detector. Unambiguously, we observe that the non-Markovian memory effect results in an enhancement of the signal-to-noise ratio, which can even exceed the upper limit of ``4, leading thus to the violation of the Korotkov-Averin bound in quantum measurement. Our study thus may open new possibilities to improve detectors measurement efficiency in a direct and transparent way.
In recent years, a variety of extensions and refinements have been developed for data augmentation based model fitting routines. These developments aim to extend the application, improve the speed and/or simplify the implementation of data augmentation methods, such as the deterministic EM algorithm for mode finding and stochastic Gibbs sampler and other auxiliary-variable based methods for posterior sampling. In this overview article we graphically illustrate and compare a number of these extensions, all of which aim to maintain the simplicity and computation stability of their predecessors. We particularly emphasize the usefulness of identifying similarities between the deterministic and stochastic counterparts as we seek more efficient computational strategies. We also demonstrate the applicability of data augmentation methods for handling complex models with highly hierarchical structure, using a high-energy high-resolution spectral imaging model for data from satellite telescopes, such as the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
We present an investigation of the fast decompression of a three-dimensional (3D) Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) at finite temperature using an engineered trajectory for the harmonic trapping potential. Taking advantage of the scaling invariance properties of the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation, we exhibit a solution yielding a final state identical to that obtained through a perfectly adiabatic transformation, in a much shorter time. Experimentally, we perform a large trap decompression and displacement within a time comparable to the final radial trapping period. By simultaneously monitoring the BEC and the non-condensed fraction, we demonstrate that our specific trap trajectory is valid both for a quantum interacting many-body system and a classical ensemble of non-interacting particles.
New iron-arsenide superconductors of REFeAsO1-delta (RE = Ho, Y, Dy and Tb) were successfully synthesized by a high pressure synthesizing method with a special rapid quenching process, with the onset superconducting critical temperatures at 50.3 K, 46.5 K, 52.2K and 48.5 K for RE = Ho, Y, Dy and Tb respectively.
Here we report a new class of superconductors prepared by high pressure synthesis in the quaternary family ReFeAsO1-delta (Re = Sm, Nd, Pr, Ce, La) without fluorine doping. The onset superconducting critical temperature (Tc) in these compounds increases with the reduction of Re atom size, and the highest Tc obtained so far is 55 K in SmFeAsO1-delta. For the NdFeAsO1-delta system with different oxygen concentration a dome-shaped phase diagram was found.
