No Arabic abstract
Ultrathin nanopore membranes based on 2D materials have demonstrated ultimate resolution toward DNA sequencing. Among them, molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) shows long-term stability as well as superior sensitivity enabling high throughput performance. The traditional method of fabricating nanopores with nanometer precision is based on the use of focused electron beams in transmission electron microscope (TEM). This nanopore fabrication process is time-consuming, expensive, not scalable and hard to control below 1 nm. Here, we exploited the electrochemical activity of MoS2 and developed a convenient and scalable method to controllably make nanopores in single-layer MoS2 with sub-nanometer precision using electrochemical reaction (ECR). The electrochemical reaction on the surface of single-layer MoS2 is initiated at the location of defects or single atom vacancy, followed by the successive removals of individual atoms or unit cells from single-layer MoS2 lattice and finally formation of a nanopore. Step-like features in the ionic current through the growing nanopore provide direct feedback on the nanopore size inferred from a widely used conductance vs. pore size model. Furthermore, DNA translocations can be detected in-situ when as-fabricated MoS2 nanopores are used. The atomic resolution and accessibility of this approach paves the way for mass production of nanopores in 2D membranes for potential solid-state nanopore sequencing.
Solid-state superconducting circuits are versatile systems in which quantum states can be engineered and controlled. Recent progress in this area has opened up exciting possibilities for exploring fundamental physics as well as applications in quantum information technology; in a series of experiments it was shown that such circuits can be exploited to generate quantum optical phenomena, by designing superconducting elements as artificial atoms that are coupled coherently to the photon field of a resonator. Here we demonstrate a lasing effect with a single artificial atom - a Josephson-junction charge qubit - embedded in a superconducting resonator. We make use of one of the properties of solid-state artificial atoms, namely that they are strongly and controllably coupled to the resonator modes. The device is essentially different from existing lasers and masers; one and the same artificial atom excited by current injection produces many photons.
An atom in open space can be detected by means of resonant absorption and reemission of electromagnetic waves, known as resonance fluorescence, which is a fundamental phenomenon of quantum optics. We report on the observation of scattering of propagating waves by a single artificial atom. The behavior of the artificial atom, a superconducting macroscopic two-level system, is in a quantitative agreement with the predictions of quantum optics for a pointlike scatterer interacting with the electromagnetic field in one-dimensional open space. The strong atom-field interaction as revealed in a high degree of extinction of propagating waves will allow applications of controllable artificial atoms in quantum optics and photonics.
We realized and experimentally tested a conceptually new kind of electrically thin absorbers of electromagnetic waves. The idea is to utilize a single layer of precisely designed meta-atoms. This allows one to design an absorber with unprecedentedly small thickness. The absorber implies absence of a ground plane. High efficiency of the realized structure in the S band is demonstrated. The conceptual idea of the proposed absorber can find many applications especially at optical frequencies.
Long coherence times and fast gate operations are desirable but often conflicting requirements for physical qubits. This conflict can be resolved by resorting to fast qubits for operations, and by storing their state in a `quantum memory while idle. The $^{31}$P donor in silicon comes naturally equipped with a fast qubit (the electron spin) and a long-lived qubit (the $^{31}$P nuclear spin), coexisting in a bound state at cryogenic temperatures. Here, we demonstrate storage and retrieval of quantum information from a single donor electron spin to its host phosphorus nucleus in isotopically-enriched $^{28}$Si. The fidelity of the memory process is characterised via both state and process tomography. We report an overall process fidelity of $F_p =$81${pm}$7%, a memory fidelity ($F_m$) of over 90%, and memory storage times up to 80 ms. These values are limited by a transient shift of the electron spin resonance frequency following high-power radiofrequency pulses.
We detect electroluminescence in single layer molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) field-effect transistors built on transparent glass substrates. By comparing absorption, photoluminescence, and electroluminescence of the same MoS2 layer, we find that they all involve the same excited state at 1.8eV. The electroluminescence has pronounced threshold behavior and is localized at the contacts. The results show that single layer MoS2, a direct band gap semiconductor, is promising for novel optoelectronic devices, such as 2-dimensional light detectors and emitters.