Resonant Metalenses for Breaking the Diffraction Barrier

We introduce the resonant metalens, a cluster of coupled subwavelength resonators. Dispersion allows the conversion of subwavelength wavefields into temporal signatures while the Purcell effect permits an efficient radiation of this information in the far-field. The study of an array of resonant wires using microwaves provides a physical understanding of the underlying mechanism. We experimentally demonstrate imaging and focusing from the far-field with resolutions far below the diffraction limit. This concept is realizable at any frequency where subwavelength resonators can be designed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Zero Temperature Phase Transition in Spin-ladders: Phase Diagram and Dynamical studies of Cu(Hp)Cl

In a magnetic field, spin-ladders undergo two zero-temperature phase transitions at the critical fields Hc1 and Hc2. An experimental review of static and dynamical properties of spin-ladders close to these critical points is presented. The scaling functions, universal to all quantum critical points in one-dimension, are extracted from (a) the thermodynamic quantities (magnetization) and (b) the dynamical functions (NMR relaxation). A simple mapping of strongly coupled spin ladders in a magnetic field on the exactly solvable XXZ model enables to make detailed fits and gives an overall understanding of a broad class of quantum magnets in their gapless phase (between Hc1 and Hc2). In this phase, the low temperature divergence of the NMR relaxation demonstrates its Luttinger liquid nature as well as the novel quantum critical regime at higher temperature. The general behaviour close these quantum critical points can be tied to known models of quantum magnetism.Comment: few corrections made, 15 pages, to be published in European Journal of Physics

Comment on "Localized behavior near the Zn impurity in YBa2Cu4O8 as measured by nuclear quadrupole resonance"

Williams and Kramer [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 64}, 104506 (2001)] have recently argued against the existence of staggered magnetic moments residing on several lattice sites around Zn impurities in YBCO superconductors. This claim, which is in line with an earlier publication by Williams, Tallon and Dupree [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 61}, 4319 (2000)], is however in contradiction with a large body of experimental data from different NMR groups. On the contrary, the authors argue in favor of a very localized spin and charge density on Cu sites first neighbors to Zn. We show that the conclusions of Williams and Kramer arise from erroneous interpretations of NMR and NQR data.Comment: 4 page

Field-induced local moments around nonmagnetic impurities in metallic cuprates

We consider a defect in a strongly correlated host metal and discuss, within a slave boson mean field formalism for the $t-t'-J$ model, the formation of an induced paramagnetic moment which is extended over nearby sites. We study in particular an impurity in a metallic band, suitable for modelling the optimally doped cuprates, in a regime where the impurity moment is paramagnetic. The form of the local susceptibility as a function of temperature and doping is found to agree well with recent NMR experiments, without including screening processes leading to the Kondo effect.Comment: 7 pages, submitted to Phys Rev

An apodizing phase plate coronagraph for VLT/NACO

We describe a coronagraphic optic for use with CONICA at the VLT that provides suppression of diffraction from 1.8 to 7 lambda/D at 4.05 microns, an optimal wavelength for direct imaging of cool extrasolar planets. The optic is designed to provide 10 magnitudes of contrast at 0.2 arcseconds, over a D-shaped region in the image plane, without the need for any focal plane occulting mask.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Proc. SPIE Vol. 773

Neuromorphic computing for attitude estimation onboard quadrotors

Compelling evidence has been given for the high energy efficiency and update rates of neuromorphic processors, with performance beyond what standard Von Neumann architectures can achieve. Such promising features could be advantageous in critical embedded systems, especially in robotics. To date, the constraints inherent in robots (e.g., size and weight, battery autonomy, available sensors, computing resources, processing time, etc.), and particularly in aerial vehicles, severely hamper the performance of fully-autonomous on-board control, including sensor processing and state estimation. In this work, we propose a spiking neural network (SNN) capable of estimating the pitch and roll angles of a quadrotor in highly dynamic movements from 6-degree of freedom Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) data. With only 150 neurons and a limited training dataset obtained using a quadrotor in a real world setup, the network shows competitive results as compared to state-of-the-art, non-neuromorphic attitude estimators. The proposed architecture was successfully tested on the Loihi neuromorphic processor on-board a quadrotor to estimate the attitude when flying. Our results show the robustness of neuromorphic attitude estimation and pave the way towards energy-efficient, fully autonomous control of quadrotors with dedicated neuromorphic computing systems

High resolution coherent population trapping on a single hole spin in a semiconductor

We report high resolution coherent population trapping on a single hole spin in a semiconductor quantum dot. The absorption dip signifying the formation of a dark state exhibits an atomic physics-like dip width of just 10 MHz. We observe fluctuations in the absolute frequency of the absorption dip, evidence of very slow spin dephasing. We identify this process as charge noise by, first, demonstrating that the hole spin g-factor in this configuration (in-plane magnetic field) is strongly dependent on the vertical electric field, and second, by characterizing the charge noise through its effects on the optical transition frequency. An important conclusion is that charge noise is an important hole spin dephasing process

Rotational modes in molecular magnets with antiferromagnetic Heisenberg exchange

In an effort to understand the low temperature behavior of recently synthesized molecular magnets we present numerical evidence for the existence of a rotational band in systems of quantum spins interacting with nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic Heisenberg exchange. While this result has previously been noted for ring arrays with an even number of spin sites, we find that it also applies for rings with an odd number of sites as well as for all of the polytope configurations we have investigated (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, icosahedron, triangular prism, and axially truncated icosahedron). It is demonstrated how the rotational band levels can in many cases be accurately predicted using the underlying sublattice structure of the spin array. We illustrate how the characteristics of the rotational band can provide valuable estimates for the low temperature magnetic susceptibility.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Long-range/short-range separation of the electron-electron interaction in density functional theory

By splitting the Coulomb interaction into long-range and short-range components, we decompose the energy of a quantum electronic system into long-range and short-range contributions. We show that the long-range part of the energy can be efficiently calculated by traditional wave function methods, while the short-range part can be handled by a density functional. The analysis of this functional with respect to the range of the associated interaction reveals that, in the limit of a very short-range interaction, the short-range exchange-correlation energy can be expressed as a simple local functional of the on-top pair density and its first derivatives. This provides an explanation for the accuracy of the local density approximation (LDA) for the short-range functional. Moreover, this analysis leads also to new simple approximations for the short-range exchange and correlation energies improving the LDA.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.

A high-affinity antibody against the CSP N-terminal domain lacks Plasmodium falciparum inhibitory activity

Malaria is a global health concern and research efforts are ongoing to develop a superior vaccine to RTS,S/AS01. To guide immunogen design, we seek a comprehensive understanding of the protective humoral response against Plasmodium falciparum circumsporozoite protein (PfCSP). In contrast to the well-studied responses to the repeat region and the C-terminus, the antibody response against the N-terminal domain of PfCSP (N-CSP) remains obscure. Here, we characterized the molecular recognition and functional efficacy of the N-CSP-specific monoclonal antibody 5D5. The crystal structure at 1.85 Åresolution revealed that 5D5 binds an α-helical epitope in N-CSP with high affinity through extensive shape and charge complementarity, and the unusual utilization of an N-linked glycan. Nevertheless, functional studies indicated low 5D5 binding to live Pf sporozoites, and lack of sporozoite inhibition in vitro and in mosquitoes. Overall, our data on low recognition and inhibition of sporozoites do not support the inclusion of the 5D5 epitope into the next generation of CSP-based vaccines.Summary Statement The Plasmodium falciparum sporozoite surface protein, PfCSP, is an attractive vaccine target, but the antibody response against the CSP N-terminal domain has remained understudied. Here, to guide immunogen design, Thai et al. provide insights into the binding motif and functional efficacy of the N-terminal domain-specific monoclonal antibody, 5D5