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The obtention of quantum-grade rare-earth doped oxide thin films that can be integrated with optical cavities and microwave resonators is of great interest for the development of scalable quantum devices. Among the different growth methods, Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) offers high flexibility and has demonstrated the ability to produce oxide films hosting rare-earth ions with narrow linewidths. However, growing epitaxial films directly on silicon is challenging by CVD due to a native amorphous oxide layer formation at the interface. In this manuscript, we investigate the CVD growth of erbium-doped yttrium oxide (Er:Y2O3) thin films on different substrates, including silicon, sapphire, quartz or yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ). Alternatively, growth was also attempted on an epitaxial Y2O3 template layer on Si (111) prepared by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) in order to circumvent the issue of the amorphous interlayer. We found that the substrate impacts the film morphology and the crystalline orientations, with different textures observed for the CVD film on the MBE-oxide/Si template (111) and epitaxial growth on YSZ (001). In terms of optical properties, Er3+ ions exhibit visible and IR emission features that are comparable for all samples, indicating a high-quality local crystalline environment regardless of the substrate. Our approach opens interesting prospects to integrate such films into scalable devices for optical quantum technologies., Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables

Let $T_{4p}=\langle a,b\mid a^{2p}=1,a^p=b^2, b^{-1}ab=a^{-1}\rangle$ be the dicyclic group of order $4p$. A Cayley digraph over $T_{4p}$ is called a dicirculant digraph. In this paper, we calculate the number of (connected) dicirculant digraphs of order $4p$ ($p$ prime) up to isomorphism by using the P\'olya Enumeration Theorem. Moreover, we get the number of (connected) dicirculant digraphs of order $4p$ ($p$ prime) and out-degree $k$ for every $k$.

Circularly polarized light (CPL) sources are essential for chiroptics, spintronics, quantum optics, and asymmetric photochemistry. However, conventional approaches fail to simultaneously realize a large luminescence dissymmetry factor (glum) and wide-range tuning of glum in a compact device. Chiral luminophores usually suffer from low glum due to their small molecular sizes. Although chiral metasurfaces can enable a large glum, they lack post-fabrication tunability. Here, we demonstrate that it is possible to achieve high-purity circularly polarized luminescence using achiral metasurfaces. These metasurfaces enable optical tuning and even reversal of luminescence chirality by uncovering and utilizing giant near-field chirality. We validate our concept with upconversion nanoparticles and downshifting dye molecules, experimentally achieving a large glum of up to 1.65, which can be actively and continuously tuned between 1.65 and -1.58. Our approach promises important applications in next-generation CPL sources and detectors, and tunable quantum devices.

It is well established that the entanglement entropy of a critical system generally scales logarithmically with system size. Yet, in this work, we report a new class of non-Hermitian critical transitions that exhibit dramatic divergent dips in their entanglement entropy scaling, strongly violating conventional logarithmic behavior. Dubbed scaling-induced exceptional criticality (SIEC), it transcends existing non-Hermitian mechanisms such as exceptional bound states and non-Hermitian skin effect (NHSE)-induced gap closures, which are nevertheless still governed by logarithmic entanglement scaling. Key to SIEC is its strongly scale-dependent spectrum, where eigenbands exhibit an exceptional crossing only at a particular system size. As such, the critical behavior is dominated by how the generalized Brillouin zone (GBZ) sweeps through the exceptional crossing with increasing system size, and not just by the gap closure per se. We provide a general approach for constructing SIEC systems based on the non-local competition between heterogeneous NHSE pumping directions, and show how a scale-dependent GBZ can be analytically derived to excellent accuracy. Beyond 1D free fermions, SIEC is expected to occur more prevalently in higher-dimensional or even interacting systems, where antagonistic NHSE channels generically proliferate. SIEC-induced entanglement dips generalize straightforwardly to kinks in other entanglement measures such as Renyi entropy, and serve as spectacular demonstrations of how algebraic and geometric singularities in complex band structures manifest in quantum information.

In 2018, Chen and Godsil proposed the concept of Laplacian perfect pair state transfer which is a brilliant generalization of Laplacian perfect state transfer. In this paper, we study the existence of Laplacian perfect pair state transfer in the Q-graph of an $r$-regular graph for $r\ge2$. We prove that the Q-graph of an $r$-regular graph does not have Laplacian perfect pair state transfer when $r+1$ is prime or a power of $2$. We also give a sufficient condition for Q-graph to have Laplacian pretty good pair state transfer.

In [Discrete Mathematics 306 (2005) 153-158], So proposed a conjecture saying that integral circulant graphs with different connection sets have different spectra. This conjecture is still open. We prove that this conjecture holds for integral circulant graphs whose orders have prime factorization of $4$ types.

In this paper, we investigate the existence of pretty good fractional revival on Cayley graphs over dicyclic groups. We first give a necessary and sufficient description for Cayley graphs over dicyclic groups admitting pretty good fractional revival. By this description, we give some sufficient conditions for Cayley graphs over dicyclic groups admitting or not admitting pretty good fractional revival.

In this paper, we investigate the existence of fractional revival on semi-Cayley graphs over finite abelian groups. We give some necessary and sufficient conditions for semi-Cayley graphs over finite abelian groups admitting fractional revival. We also show that integrality is necessary for some semi-Cayley graphs admitting fractional revival. Moreover, we characterize the minimum time when semi-Cayley graphs admit fractional revival. As applications, we give examples of certain Cayley graphs over the generalized dihedral groups and generalized dicyclic groups admitting fractional revival.

Nuclear spin polarization plays a crucial role in quantum information processing and quantum sensing. In this work, we demonstrate a robust and efficient method for nuclear spin polarization with boron vacancy ($\mathrm{V_B^-}$) defects in hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) using ground-state level anti-crossing (GSLAC). We show that GSLAC-assisted nuclear polarization can be achieved with significantly lower laser power than excited-state level anti-crossing, making the process experimentally more viable. Furthermore, we have demonstrated direct optical readout of nuclear spins for $\mathrm{V_B^-}$ in h-BN. Our findings suggest that GSLAC is a promising technique for the precise control and manipulation of nuclear spins in $\mathrm{V_B^-}$ defects in h-BN., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures for main text, 13 pages, 17 figures for Supplementary Material. Accepted in Physical Review Letters

Localized interlayer excitons (LIXs) in two-dimensional moir\'e superlattices exhibit sharp and dense emission peaks, making them promising as highly tunable single-photon sources. However, the fundamental nature of these LIXs is still elusive. Here, we show the donor-acceptor pair (DAP) mechanism as one of the origins of these excitonic peaks. Numerical simulation results of the DAP model agree with the experimental photoluminescence spectra of LIX in the moir\'e MoSe2/WSe2 heterobilayer. In particular, we find that the emission energy-lifetime correlation and the nonmonotonic power dependence of the lifetime agree well with the DAP IX model. Our results provide insight into the physical mechanism of LIX formation in moir\'e heterostructures and pave new directions for engineering interlayer exciton properties in moir\'e superlattices.

In this paper, we first give a necessary and sufficient condition for a graph to have Laplacian pretty good pair state transfer. As an application of such result, we give a complete characterization of Laplacian pretty good edge state transfer in paths.

In this paper, we investigate the existence of fractional revival on Cayley graphs over finite abelian groups. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for Cayley graphs over finite abelian groups to have fractional revival. As applications, the existence of fractional revival on circulant graphs and cubelike graphs are characterized.

In optical anti-counterfeiting, several distinct optically variable devices (OVDs) are often concurrently employed to compensate for the insufficient security level of constituent OVDs. Alternatively, metasurfaces that exhibit multiple optical responses effectively combine multiple OVDs into one, thus significantly enhancing their security and hindering fraudulent replication. This work demonstrates the simultaneous control of three separate optical responses, i.e., phase, amplitude, and luminescence, using anisotropic gap-plasmon metasurfaces. Due to the incorporated geometric anisotropy, the designed structure exhibits distinct responses under x- and y-polarized light, revealing either a color image, or a holographic projection in the far field. Furthermore, inserting upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) into the dielectric gaps of the structures, the designed metasurface is able to generate a third luminescent image upon illumination with the near-infrared light. The stochastic distribution of the UCNPs constitutes a unique fingerprint, achieving a physically unclonable function (PUF) layer. Crucially, our triple-mode metasurface requires only readily attainable equipment such as a macro-lens/camera and a laser pointer to read most of the channels, thus paving the way towards highly secure and easy-to-authenticate metasurface-driven OVDs (mOVDs).