No Arabic abstract
Percolation, describing critical behaviors of phase transition in a geometrical context, prompts wide investigations in natural and social networks as a fundamental model. The introduction of quantum-intrinsic interference and tunneling brings percolation into quantum regime with more fascinating phenomena and unique features, which, however, hasnt been experimentally explored yet. Here we present an experimental demonstration of quantum transport in hexagonal percolation lattices by successfully mapping such large-scale porous structures into a photonic chip using femtosecond laser direct writing techniques. A quantum percolation threshold of 80% is observed in the prototyped laser-written lattices with up to 1,600 waveguides, which is significantly larger than the classical counterpart of 63%. We also investigate the spatial confinement by localization parameters and exhibit the transition from ballistic to diffusive propagation with the decrease of the occupation probability. Direct observation of quantum percolation may deepen the understanding of the relation among materials, quantum transport, geometric quenching, disorder and localization, and inspire applications for quantum technologies.
Topology manifesting in many branches of physics deepens our understanding on state of matters. Topological photonics has recently become a rapidly growing field since artificial photonic structures can be well designed and constructed to support topological states, especially a promising large-scale implementation of these states using photonic chips. Meanwhile, due to the inapplicability of Hall conductance to photons, it is still an elusive problem to directly measure the integer topological invariants and topological phase transitions for photons. Here, we present a direct observation of topological winding numbers by using bulk-state photon dynamics on a chip. Furthermore, we for the first time experimentally observe the topological phase transition points via single-photon dynamics. The integrated topological structures, direct measurement in the single-photon regime and strong robustness against disorder add the key elements into the toolbox of `quantum topological photonics and may enable topologically protected quantum information processing in large scale.
Singlet exciton fission (SEF) is a key process in the development of efficient opto-electronic devices. An aspect that is rarely probed directly, and yet has a tremendous impact on SEF properties, is the nuclear structure and dynamics involved in this process. Here we directly observe the nuclear dynamics accompanying the SEF process in single crystal pentacene using femtosecond electron diffraction. The data reveal coherent atomic motions at 1 THz, incoherent motions, and an anisotropic lattice distortion representing the polaronic character of the triplet excitons. Combining molecular dynamics simulations, time-dependent density functional theory and experimental structure factor analysis, the coherent motions are identified as collective sliding motions of the pentacene molecules along their long axis. Such motions modify the excitonic coupling between adjacent molecules. Our findings reveal that long-range motions play a decisive part in the disintegration of the electronically correlated triplet pairs, and shed light on why SEF occurs on ultrafast timescales.
We use NMR quantum simulators to study antiferromagnetic Ising spin chains undergoing quantum phase transitions. Taking advantage of the sensitivity of the systems near criticality, we detect the critical points of the transitions using a direct measurement of the Loschmidt echo. We test our simulators for spin chains of even and odd numbers of spins, and compare the experimental results to theoretical predictions.
We propose a general-purpose, self-adaptive approach to construct variational wavefunction ansatze for highly accurate quantum dynamics simulations based on McLachlans variational principle. The key idea is to dynamically expand the variational ansatz along the time-evolution path such that the ``McLachlan distance, which is a measure of the simulation accuracy, remains below a set threshold. We apply this adaptive variational quantum dynamics simulation (AVQDS) approach to the integrable Lieb-Schultz-Mattis spin chain and the nonintegrable mixed-field Ising model, where it captures both finite-rate and sudden post-quench dynamics with high fidelity. The AVQDS quantum circuits that prepare the time-evolved state are much shallower than those obtained from first-order Trotterization and contain up to two orders of magnitude fewer CNOT gate operations. We envision that a wide range of dynamical simulations of quantum many-body systems on near-term quantum computing devices will be made possible through the AVQDS framework.
We present methods for the direct characterization of quantum dynamics (DCQD) in which both the principal and ancilla systems undergo noisy processes. Using a concatenated error detection code, we discriminate between located and unlocated errors on the principal system in what amounts to filtering of ancilla noise. The example of composite noise involving amplitude damping and depolarizing channels is used to demonstrate the method, while we find the rate of noise filtering is more generally dependent on code distance. Our results indicate the accuracy of quantum process characterization can be greatly improved while remaining within reach of current experimental capabilities.