Valley photonic topological insulators have recently attracted much attention, in which the valley degree of freedom provides a promising solution to manipulate light waves. Currently, most studies of valley photonic topological insulators focus on designing valley-dependent transport behavior, but few studies on its radiation properties. In developing functional communication devices for practical applications, studying traveling-wave radiation and its reconfigurable properties in valley photonic topological insulators deserve more attention. In this paper, by adding nematic liquid crystals with tunable refractive index into waveguide channels of valley topological photonic crystals, we propose a reconfigurable traveling-wave radiation system that can dynamically manipulate radiation beams and their coverage regions. Via tuning dispersion of valley-locked waveguide modes controlled by the phase states of liquid crystals, we demonstrate that radiation beams have some unique tunable capabilities in the THz regime, such as single-beam, dual-beam, and multi-beam reconfigurabilities. Moreover, leveraging the idea of digitally encoding waveguide channels, we provide a solution for dynamically steerable traveling-wave radiation in the valley topological photonic platform. The proposed configurations provide more freedom to manipulate traveling-wave radiation and open a pathway for developing reconfigurable traveling-wave antennas in THz multi-link wireless communication system.

Recently, besides investigating the transmission characteristics of topological edge states, researchers have also explored their localization and trapping behaviors. However, the scenario where topological edge states are localized and confined at specific interfaces in a frequency-dependent manner remains unexplored and unreported. In this work, by leveraging the coupling effects of different interface stacking types, we systematically investigate valley Hall edge states at distinct interfaces of valley photonic crystals (VPCs), including bearded and armchair interfaces. Subsequently, we construct a U-shaped topological waveguide composed of these interfaces. Both numerically and experimentally, we demonstrate that valley Hall topological states in this U-shaped waveguide can be localized and confined at a designated interface in a frequency-dependent manner. Compared with conventional topological rainbow systems — where edge states of different frequencies are separated and trapped at distinct spatial positions — our proposed waveguide avoids complex techniques such as modulating external magnetic fields or designing structures with gradually varying parameters, thereby greatly facilitating photonic integration. These results provide a practical and feasible platform for nanoscale electromagnetic wave manipulation using the interface as a valley degree of freedom (DOF), with promising applications in integrated photonic devices such as multi-frequency routers and ultra-compact topological rainbow nanolasers.

We provide deeper insights into the nonlinear transports in strained monolayer graphene and find that both nonlinear valley and nonlinear charge Hall effects can be interpreted with the orbital magnetic moment (OMM). Since strain induced anisotropic velocities and band-warping terms break the inversion and rotation symmetry, the nonlinear valley and charge Hall effect emerges. We demonstrate that the intrinsic OMM, originating from Berry curvature linearly corrected by electric field, is valley-contrasting which contributes to the nonlinear valley Hall current, and the shift OMM, originating from Fermi distribution function linearly corrected by electric field, is valley-independent which contributes to the nonlinear Berry-curvature-dipole (BCD) Hall current. Thus, we reveal that the nonlinear BCD Hall current and nonlinear valley current essentially have the same physics and the dependence of valley index of the orbital magnetic moment determines which nonlinear Hall effect emerges. Physically, we give an interpretation of two-step process: One electric field E_x induces an orbital magnetization and then the other electric field E_x generates the anomalous Hall effect under the orbital magnetization. These results establish a microscopic connection between orbital magnetization and nonlinear Hall responses. Furthermore, the strong dependence of OMM on strain provides a route to strain-engineered control of the nonlinear Hall transports.

Spatial self-similarity is a hallmark of critical phenomena. We study the dynamic process of percolation, in which bonds are incrementally added to an initially empty lattice until the system becomes fully occupied. By tracking the gap – the size increment of clusters upon bond addition – and the corresponding merged cluster, we identify scale-invariant temporal patterns in both quantities throughout a large portion of the process. This reveals a form of temporal self-similarity that has not been reported before. We further establish quantitative relations between the dynamic scaling exponents and the conventional static critical exponents, which enable the determination of critical behavior without prior knowledge of the critical point. The same self-similar dynamics is observed in both bond and site percolation on lattices and networks, and extends to other systems such as explosive and rigidity percolation. Moreover, similar temporal scaling is found in the initial nonequilibrium evolution of the Bak−Tang−Wiesenfeld sandpile model, suggesting a dynamic critical behavior distinct from its equilibrium state. These results provide a unified framework for understanding critical dynamics and may find applications in a broad range of complex systems.

Quantum battery has become one of the hot issues at the research frontiers of quantum physics recently. Charging power, ergotropy and wireless charging over long-distance are three important aspects of interest. The electromagnetic interaction provides an important avenue for wireless charging. In this paper, we design a wireless and remote charging scheme based on the quantized Hamiltonian of two coupled LC circuits and investigate the charging dynamics of a continuous variable quantum battery. It is found that the battery can obtain more ergotropy only when its characteristic frequency is larger than that of the charger under rotating wave coupling. The quantum coherence is more significant than the quantum entanglement for the ergotropy of the quantum battery, regardless of whether the interaction between the charger and the battery is rotating or counter-rotating wave coupling. The feasibility of enabling the battery to extract ergotropy from the thermal reservoir through interplay between the charger and the environment is demonstrated when the roles of the rotating and counter-rotating wave couplings are considered simultaneously. Our wireless charging scheme is not only simple and cost-effective but also offers a longer charging distance than existing qubit batteries.

Polarization, as a fundamental property of light, carries abundant environmental and target-specific information that is invisible to the human eye but crucial for advanced vision. In biological visual systems, such polarization information is effectively encoded, processed, and integrated to enhance scene perception and target recognition. Inspired by this biological paradigm, polarization sensitive optoelectronic synapses provide a promising pathway toward information perception and neuromorphic computing. Benefiting from its low-symmetry monoclinic lattice, β-Ga₂O₃ inherently exhibits strong optical absorption anisotropy, which can be used to enable photo-synapses. Here, the structural anisotropy of β-Ga₂O₃ single crystals with (100), (010), and (001) orientations was systematically investigated through atomic arrangement analysis, polarization-resolved Raman spectroscopy, polarization-dependent absorption, and XPS characterization. Compared with the (010) and (001) orientations, the (100) β-Ga₂O₃ crystal exhibited stronger optical absorption anisotropy and a higher density of oxygen vacancies, making it a favorable candidate for constructing polarization-sensitive neuromorphic synapses. A solar-blind polarization-sensitive optoelectronic synapse was developed in this work, demonstrating polarization-dependent excitatory postsynaptic currents (EPSC), paired-pulse facilitation (PPF), and learning-forgetting-relearning functionalities. Furthermore, the optoelectronic synapse enabled the construction of a neuromorphic visual system (NVS), achieving noise suppression, enhanced image quality, and handwritten digit recognition accuracy up to 98.74%. Beyond static recognition, integration of the arrays into a reservoir computing system allowed efficient motion direction perception with accuracies approaching 99.7%. These results highlight the potential of anisotropic β-Ga₂O₃ as a material foundation for next-generation solar-blind polarization-sensitive neuromorphic vision systems.

Superconducting transmon qubits are a promising platform for quantum computation, yet they face significant fidelity degradation due to connectivity noise, particularly in the intermediate coupling regime where noise levels are substantial. While prior works suggest that high fidelity requires operating in regimes with strongly suppressed noise, maintaining such conditions under practical experimental constraints remains challenging. To address this, we investigate quantum gate operations in fully connected transmon rings, examining both SWAP and general circuits. Our study reveals that fidelity can be significantly enhanced by tuning gate operation durations, with local maxima emerging even under strong noise conditions. These fidelity enhancements occur consistently across different qubit numbers and operation types, and for specific initial states — particularly those with favorable symmetry or entanglement properties — the achieved fidelities approach quantum error correction thresholds. Furthermore, we develop a supervised machine learning model that accurately predicts the optimal operation durations for new devices, enabling efficient optimization without extensive experimental simulations. These results provide a pathway toward robust quantum circuit design in noisy experimental environments.