News: Research

The Littlewood group introduced a general classical linear field theory for non-reciprocal interactions. Their article in Physical Review E demonstrates how non-reciprocity can, surprisingly, enhance stability, while instabilities occur at Critical Exceptional Points.

The Guyot-Sionnest group designed highly sensitive quantum dot photoconductors with optical enhancement. Their publication in ACS Nano discusses how they used a HgTe quantum dot film to create photoconductors with a ~20-fold improvement in long-wave infrared detectivity.

The Tian group introduced a hydrogel derived from the malva nut with multiple biomedical applications, from wound care to ECG readings. Their publication in Matter discusses the sustainable extraction process used isolate the nut’s polysaccharides and demonstrates its enhanced performance in biosignal recording and tissue regeneration.

The Vitelli Group designed a compound robot which use principles of odd elasticity and active materials to enable decentralized locomotion across challenging terrains. Their paper in Nature explains how each part exerts nonsymmetric and nonreciprocal forces to create a robust collective machine that senses and responds to its environment.
 

The Delacrétaz group asks, is there a quantum limit to how fast many-body systems can equilibrate? Their publication in Nature Physics shows that large hydrodynamic fluctuations prevent a wide class of systems from regaining thermal equilibrium faster than the "Planckian time scale", set by Planck's constant and the equilibrium temperature.

The Talapin group designed a method of directly synthesizing various III-V quantum dots using a molten inorganic salt environment. Their paper in JACS demonstrates how this thermally-stable, oxygen-free environment enables the formation of highly crystalline InGaP and GaP nanocrystals.

The Murugan group discovered that physical systems can efficiently perform complex computations with contrastive learning. Their paper in Nature Communications shows how simple systems can use integral feedback to solve problems without digital hardware.

The Park group introduced a way to control the spectral response and light polarization of organic crystals just one atom thick. In their Nano Letters article, they synthesize spectrally similar molecular crystals in different 2D lattices in order to tune their optical properties.

An Engel group article in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters describes unexpected behavior observed in electrons passing through a conical intersection. They found the final electronic population had drastically different vibrational coherences from those it started with, a first-of-its-kind observation that is  unexplained by the semiclassical theory on conical intersections.

The Scherer group introduced a method of calculating the entropy production rate of overdamped, non-conservative, N-body systems. Their article in Physical Review E uses a novel collective mode decomposition and force field decomposition to show that the rates of entropy production and power dissipation are equal in these systems, in agreement with a theorem by Seifert.

Sarah King and collaborators at UChicago, Chicago State University, and University of Illinois Chicago were awarded $4.8 million from the NIH BRAIN Initiative toward developing a novel PEEM microscope designed for brain connectomics.

The King group introduced a strategy for functionalizing a sulfur-containing transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) with multimolecular architectures.
Their article in ACS Applied Optical Materials describes how molecular adsorption in the growth and characterization of ion-linked bilayers offers a new pathway to introduce complex molecules onto sulfur-containing TMDs.

The Young group performed the first ever all-attosecond pump-probe x-ray spectroscopy of condensed matter. Their Science publication describes how the team struck liquid water with powerful, attoseconds-long x-ray pulses that took a snapshot of the electron behavior with the nuclei kept motionlessly in place

The Irvine group created a novel active matter system that can self propel, flock, and form a chiral active phase. Their publication in Nature Physics explains how a suspension of magnetic particles driven to spin at intermediate Reynolds numbers with a rotating magnetic field was able to behave as a synthetic active system.

The Vitelli group introduced a method of controlling the behavior of turbulence in a fluid. Their Nature article shows that odd viscosity, a type of viscosity which does not dissipate energy, causes turbulence in odd fluids to congregate into multiple vortices of roughly equal size.