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DOE OSTI2024

Atomic layer molecular beam epitaxy of kagome magnet RMn6Sn6 (R = Er, Tb) thin films

Kagome lattices have garnered substantial interest because their band structure consists of topological flat bands and Dirac cones. The RMn6Sn6 (R = rare earth) compounds are particularly interesting because of the existence of the large intrinsic anomalous Hall effect (AHE), which originates from the gapped Dirac cones near the Fermi level. This makes RMn6Sn6 an outstanding candidate for realizing the high-temperature quantum AHE. The growth of RMn6Sn6 thin films is beneficial for both fundamental research and potential applications. However, most of the studies on RMn6Sn6 have focused on bulk crystals, and the synthesis of RMn6Sn6 thin films has not been reported so far. Here, we report the atomic layer molecular beam epitaxy growth, structural and magnetic characterizations, and transport properties of ErMn6Sn6 and TbMn6Sn6 thin films. It is especially noteworthy that TbMn6Sn6 thin films have out-of-plane magnetic anisotropy, which is important for realizing the quantum AHE. Our work paves the avenue toward the control of the AHE using devices patterned from RMn6Sn6 thin films.

Materials Science↗

DOE OSTI2026

Interlayer Exciton Condensates between Second Landau Level Orbitals in Double Bilayer Graphene

Here, we present Coulomb-drag measurements on a heterostructure comprising two Bernal-stacked bilayer graphene (BLG) sheets separated by a 2.5 nm hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) spacer in the quantum Hall (QH) regime. Using top and bottom gate control, together with an interlayer bias, we independently tune the two BLG layers into either the lowest (N = 0) or second (N = 1) Landau level (LL) orbital and probe their interlayer QH states. When both layers occupy the N = 0 orbital, we observe both interlayer exciton condensates (ECs) at integer total filling and interlayer fractional QH states, echoing the results in double monolayer graphene. In contrast to previous studies, however, when both BLG layers occupy the N = 1 orbital, we also observe quantized drag signals, signifying an interlayer exciton condensate formed between the second LLs. By tuning the layer degree of freedom, we find that this N = 1 EC state arises only when the N = 1 wave function in each BLG is polarized toward the hBN interface to maximize the interlayer Coulomb interaction.

Electrical conductivity↗

DOE OSTI2026

Ultrafast x-ray imaging of coherently controlled molecular dynamics in real space and time

Coherent control aims to manipulate chemical processes on the latent length and timescales of atoms and bonds, scales that are intrinsic to molecular dynamics but not directly resolved by most experimental probes. As a result, existing coherent-control experiments, which overwhelmingly rely on spectroscopic observables, leave a crucial blind spot: the direct, real-space recovery of all atomic and molecular rearrangements in response to coherently controlled excitations. Here, we overcome this limitation by integrating a Tannor-Kosloff-Rice pump-control-probe scheme with ultrafast X-ray scattering to capture snapshots of the wavepacket motion in a benchmark molecular system. We demonstrate this by photoexciting diatomic iodine vapor with a visible pump pulse, selectively steering the wavepacket toward ground-state recombination or dissociative pathways with a time-delayed near-IR control pulse, and recording the dynamics with angstrom and femtosecond precision with an ultrashort hard X-ray probe pulse. By comparing these structural observations with numerical solutions of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, we reveal how coherent control actively reshapes the molecular charge density distribution. Our results pave the way for leveraging structural feedback as a control handle and provide a fundamental microscopic visualization of quantum decoherence and energy redistribution at the atomic level.

Hopper, Thomas R. [SLAC National Accelerator Labor↗

DOE OSTI2024

Anomalous Hall crystals in rhombohedral multilayer graphene. II. General mechanism and a minimal model

Here we propose a minimal "three-patch model"for the anomalous Hall crystal (AHC), a topological electronic state that spontaneously breaks both time-reversal symmetry and continuous translation symmetry. The proposal for this state is inspired by the recently observed integer and fractional quantum Hall states in rhombohedral multilayer graphene at zero magnetic field. There, interaction effects appear to amplify the effects of a weak moiré potential, leading to the formation of stable, isolated Chern bands. It has been further shown that Chern bands are stabilized in mean-field calculations even without a moiré potential, enabling a realization of the AHC state. Our model is built on the dissection of the Brillouin zone into patches centered around high-symmetry points. Within this model, the wave functions at high-symmetry points fully determine the topology and energetics of the state. We extract two quantum geometrical phases of the noninteracting wave functions that control the stability of the topologically nontrivial AHC state. The model predicts that the AHC state wins over the topological trivial Wigner crystal in a wide range of parameters, and agrees very well with the results of full self-consistent Hartree-Fock calculations of the rhombohedral multilayer graphene Hamiltonian.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

DOE OSTI2020

Transverse-Field Ising Dynamics in a Rydberg-Dressed Atomic Gas

Here, we report on the realization of long-range Ising interactions in a cold gas of cesium atoms by Rydberg dressing. The interactions are enhanced by coupling to Rydberg states in the vicinity of a Förster resonance. We characterize the interactions by measuring the mean-field shift of the clock transition via Ramsey spectroscopy, observing one-axis twisting dynamics. We furthermore emulate a transverse-field Ising model by periodic application of a microwave field and detect dynamical signatures of the paramagnetic-ferromagnetic phase transition. Our results highlight the power of optical addressing for achieving local and dynamical control of interactions, enabling prospects ranging from investigating Floquet quantum criticality to producing tunable-range spin squeezing.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Millisecond Coherence in a Superconducting Qubit

Improving control over physical qubits is a crucial component of quantum computing research. Here we report a superconducting fluxonium qubit with uncorrected coherence time $T^{*}_{2}$ = 1.48 ± 0.13 ms, exceeding the state of the art for transmons by an order of magnitude. The average gate fidelity was benchmarked at 0.99991(1). Notably, even in the millisecond range, the coherence time is limited by material absorption and could be further improved with a more rigorous fabrication. Further, our demonstration may be useful for suppressing errors in the next generation quantum processors.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

DOE OSTI2025

Experimental Generation of Extreme Electron Beams for Advanced Accelerator Applications

In this Letter, we report on the experimental generation of high energy (10 GeV), ultrashort (femtosecond-duration), ultrahigh current (∼ 0.1 MA), petawatt peak power electron beams in a particle accelerator. These extreme beams enable the exploration of a new frontier of high-intensity beam-light and beam-matter interactions broadly relevant across fields ranging from laboratory astrophysics to strong field quantum electrodynamics and ultrafast quantum chemistry. We demonstrate our ability to generate and control the properties of these electron beams by means of a laser-electron beam shaping technique. In conclusion, this experimental demonstration opens the door to on-the-fly customization of extreme beam current profiles for desired experiments and is poised to benefit a broad swath of cross-cutting applications of relativistic electron beams.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Growth and characterization of ferromagnetic Ga 2 O 3 :(Cr, Mn)

The goal of this Exploratory Express project was to explore the possibility of tunable ferromagnetism in Mn or Cr incorporated epitaxial Ga 2 O 3 films. Tunability of magnetic properties can enable novel applications in spintronics, quantum computing, and magnetism-based logics by allowing control of magnetism down to the nanoscale. Carriers (electrons or holes) mediated ferromagnetic ordering in semiconductor can lead to tunable ferromagnetism by leveraging the tunability of carrier density with doping level, gate electric field, or optical pumping of the carriers. The magnetic ions (Cr or Mn) in Ga 2 O 3 act as localized spin centers which can potentially be magnetically coupled through conduction electrons to enable ferromagnetic ordering. Here we investigated tunable ferromagnetism in beta Ga 2 O 3 semiconductor host with various n-doping levels by incorporating 2.4 atomic percent Mn or Cr. The R&D approach involved growth of epitaxial Ga 2 O 3 film on sapphire or Ga 2 O 3 substrate, implantation of Mn or Cr ions, annealing of the samples post implantation, and magnetic measurements. We studied magnetic behavior of Mn:Ga 2 O 3 as a function of different n-doping levels and various annealing temperatures. The vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) measurement exhibited strong ferromagnetic signals from the annealed Mn:Ga 2 O 3 sample with n-doping level of 5E19 cm -3 . This ferromagnetic behavior disappears from Mn:Ga 2 O 3 when the n-doping level is reduced to 5E16 cm -3 . Although these results are to be further verified by other measurement schemes due to the observation of background ferromagnetism from the growth substrate, these results indicate the possibility of tunable ferromagnetism in Mn:Ga 2 O 3 mediated by conduction electrons.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

DOE OSTI2025

Hybrid Metal Halides: Advancing Optoelectronic Materials (Final Technical Report)

Hybrid metal halides, particularly main group halide perovskites, are a unique class of materials that oﬀer exceptional optoelectronic properties along with a remarkable materials design space. Initial research on this class of materials was driven by the ability of the prototype hybrid 3D perovskite-structured compound methylammonium lead iodide to function as the active layer in thin film solar cells. It is now known that this class of materials comprise a large family with tunable band gaps, relatively high charge carrier mobilities in both single crystal and polycrystalline forms, and relatively low concentrations of (deleterious) electrically active states within the band gap. Beyond applications in solar cells, the potential of these materials has been extended to emitters in light emitting diodes, and active components of radiation detectors. Complementing new functionality, the design space for hybrid metal halides continues to increase with discovery of new structural motifs. In this project, the combination of organic and inorganic functionalities has been employed to open pathways to the design and synthesis new, functional hybrid metal halides. Beyond the simple perovskites, Ruddlesden-Popper and Dion-Jacobsen compounds, and other variants, such as the newly advanced “hollow” perovskites have been studied. The materials have provided routes to understanding the unique electronic properties of hybrid metal halides because of their natural quantum well structures as well as other means of controlling band gaps and band dispersions. Understanding these materials, including the design rules for their formation, their structures and compositions in bulk and in thin films form, and the role of local (non-crystallographic) structure has an important aspect of this endeavor. The goal of advancing new materials and new fundamental understanding within this deceptively simple, yet fascinating class of compounds, so richly endowed with interesting and useful functionality, has been fulfilled.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2025

Interference Control of Fano Resonances and Dynamical Imaging of an Electron Wave Packet

The Fano line shape, arising from the interference of pathways for the excitation of discrete and continuum states, plays a fundamental role in many branches of physics, chemistry, and materials science. Exciting the resonance with a high harmonic provides naturally a phase delay between the pathways leading to a complex asymmetry parameter. We demonstrate that its amplitude and phase can be controlled on the femtosecond and attosecond time scales, respectively. With our high-energy-resolution (10-meV) experiment, we dynamically image a resonance-enhanced electron wave packet during its temporal evolution, extracting both the amplitude and the phase. Calculations reproduce our experimental results. Our approach constitutes a method for measuring the photoionization delays of a resonance and enables the reconstruction of the electron wave packet in the time domain. This concept of an interference-controlled Fano line shape is a step toward attosecond quantum optics with potential ramifications into nanoscience and next-generation optical materials.

Han, Meng [ETH Zürich (Switzerland); Kansas State ↗

NASA NTRS1986

Received optical power calculations for optical communications link performance analysis

The factors affecting optical communication link performance differ substantially from those at microwave frequencies, due to the drastically differing technologies, modulation formats, and effects of quantum noise in optical communications. In addition detailed design control table calculations for optical systems are less well developed than corresponding microwave system techniques, reflecting the relatively less mature state of development of optical communications. Described below are detailed calculations of received optical signal and background power in optical communication systems, with emphasis on analytic models for accurately predicting transmitter and receiver system losses.

Marshall, W. K.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Light Source

Research on food growth for long duration spacecraft has resulted in a light source for growing plants indoors known as Qbeam, a solid state light source consisting of a control unit and lamp. The light source, manufactured by Quantum Devices, Inc., is not very hot, although it generates high intensity radiation. When Ron Ignatius, an industrial partner of WCSAR, realized that terrestrial plant research lighting was not energy efficient enough for space use, he and WCSAR began to experiment with light emitting diodes. A line of LED products was developed, and QDI was formed to market the technology. An LED-based cancer treatment device is currently under development.

Source record↗

DOE OSTI2020

Top Loading Helium Cryostat Integrated with High-Pressure Cell with Fast Remote Pressure Control (Final Report for SBIR Phase 1)

A large number of physical phenomena, such as superconductivity and quantum critical phenomena, often appear only at very low temperatures below 5 K. There is an immense interest to investigate these phenomena at high pressure as a means of tuning interatomic distances, and thus the interaction parameters controlling these phenomena, in a continuous and controlled fashion. The current P-T condition for neutron scattering experiments are limited to either relatively low pressures of about 2 GPa at temperatures below 5 K, or to relatively high temperatures at pressures or tens of GPa. The purpose of this research is to develop neutron sample environment instrumentation for reaching 10-20 GPa at 1-2K with rapid and reliable online pressure and temperature control (i.e. without having to interrupt the experiment). The ultimate goal of the project is to design an integrated fast-cooling low-temperature sample environment cryogenic system compatible with state of the art neutron diamond anvil cells suitable for single-crystal neutron scattering experiments for temperatures down to 2K and pressures of several tens of GPa. The integrated system will consist of top-loading Helium flow cryostat with in-situ sample alignment mechanisms, large-volume diamond anvil cells (DAC) made from novel superalloy Pascalloy and optimized for fast cooling and heating, and a compact remote pressure control mechanism for the DAC based on a novel concept of inflatable bellows integrated with a lever-arm based force amplifier. In Phase I, we have designed, manufactured, and tested prototypes of the novel compact force-amplified pneumatic pressure control mechanism for Neutron Diamond Anvil Cell (nDAC), which allows to use pneumatic bellows system for smooth remote pressure control in the nDAC inside a top-loading cryostat with bore size of 70 mm or larger. This allows significant minimum temperature decrease in remotely controlled nDAC from 5-10 K down to 2 K. We also studied mechanical properties of a novel non-magnetic superalloy Pascalloy with different heat-treatment conditions and preliminary results indicate that up to date this is probably the strongest and most suitable material for making more compact and lightweight cryogenic nDACs for neuron scattering experiments at extreme conditions, allowing much faster cooling and heating. Potential applications: The new developments will allow to create a wide range of compact Diamond Anvil Cells for neutron diffraction which can reach several tens of GPA pressure at 2-4 K while preserving accurate remote pressure control capabilities. The new concepts can be used for developing sample environment instrumentation outside the neutron scattering field. The new development have very strong potential for expanding experimental capabilities in materials sciences and have high commercialization potential. The proposed new cryogenic high-pressure system or any of its individual components will be in high demand not only in neutron scattering facilities, but also at synchrotron beamlines and other high-pressure research facilities around the world.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2025

Passive Environment-Assisted Quantum Communication with GKP States

Bosonic pure-loss channel, which represents the process of photons decaying into a vacuum environment, has zero quantum capacity when the channel’s transmissivity is less than 50%. Modeled as a beam splitter interaction between the system and its environment, the performance of bosonic pure-loss channel can be enhanced by controlling the environment state. We show that by choosing the ideal Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) states for the system and its environment, perfect transmission of quantum information through a beam splitter is achievable at arbitrarily low transmissivities. Our explicit constructions allow for experimental demonstration of the improved performance of a quantum channel through passive environment assistance, which is potentially useful for quantum transduction where the environment state can be naturally controlled. In practice, it is crucial to consider finite-energy constraints, and high-fidelity quantum communication through a beam splitter remains achievable with GKP states at the few-photon level.

Wang, Zhaoyou [Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States↗

DOE OSTI2025

Learning-Based Quantum Compilation: Translating QASM to QIR with CodeBERT

We propose a learning-based approach to quantum compilation by translating OpenQASM to Quantum Intermediate Representation (QIR) using a fine-tuned CodeBERT model. Trained on 10,000 synthetic QASM-QIR pairs, the model captures code semantics while addressing QIR verbosity and the 512-token limit via a custom token compression scheme. Finetuning was performed on the Frontier supercomputer, with results showing syntactic correctness and stable validation loss reduction. Our method moves toward enabling flexible, language-modeldriven quantum software tools. It also introduces syntax error handling and the possibility of incorporating classical control constructs, addressing limitations in existing rule-based compilers like qBraid-QIR. While the current model has been validated on quantum-only circuits, we propose future evaluations on hybrid quantum-classical examples. This poster will provide architecture insights, compression examples, training loss plots, and QIR outputs. Our work highlights the potential for scalable, adaptable compilation in future quantum toolchains.

Afrose, Sharmin [ORNL]↗

DOE OSTI2024

A nonlinear journey from structural phase transitions to quantum annealing

Motivated by an exact mapping between equilibrium properties of a one-dimensional chain of quantum Ising spins in a transverse field (the transverse field Ising (TFI) model) and a two-dimensional classical array of particles in double-well potentials (the “$\phi$ 4 model”) with weak inter-chain coupling, we explore connections between the driven variants of the two systems. Here, we argue that coupling between the fundamental topological solitary waves in the form of kinks between neighboring chains in the classical $\phi$ 4 system is the analog of the competing effect of the transverse field on spin flips in the quantum TFI model. As an example application, we mimic simplified measurement protocols in a closed quantum model system by studying the classical $\phi$ 4 model subjected to periodic perturbations. This reveals memory/loss of memory and coherence/decoherence regimes, whose quantum analogs are essential in annealing phenomena. In particular, we examine regimes where the topological excitations control the thermal equilibration following perturbations. This paves the way for further explorations of the analogy between lower-dimensional linear quantum and higher-dimensional classical nonlinear systems.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2026

Superdiffusion resilience in Heisenberg chains with two-dimensional interactions on a quantum processor

Superdiffusive spin transport in the one-dimensional (1D) Heisenberg model is a key theoretical discovery in nonequilibrium quantum many-body physics. Although extensively studied in 1D systems, the breakdown and sustenance of superdiffusion in two-dimensional (2D) lattices with integrability-breaking terms, as found in real materials, remains an open question. To address this, we develop a toy model that extends the 1D Heisenberg model with a representative set of 2D interaction types and tunable strengths. Our model exhibits varying degrees of superdiffusion breakdown depending on the interaction type, spanning ballistic to diffusive regimes. We establish and justify a hierarchy of 2D interactions based on their resilience against superdiffusion breakdown: Heisenberg >𝑋⁢𝑋 > Ising. This precise control over the superdiffusive behavior also enables rigorous benchmarking of quantum hardware, and our simulations on IBM's Heron devices confirm the hardware's ability to accurately capture these many-body nonequilibrium phenomena. Overall, our results are relevant not only to simulating superdiffusion in real materials, such as the 1D Heisenberg compound KCuF3, which contains modest nonintegrable 2D terms, but also to extending superdiffusive behavior to larger 2D qubit lattices and other 2D materials.

Alagarsamy Manikandan, Keerthi Kumaran [ORNL]↗

DOE OSTI2023

Operator Growth in Open Quantum Systems

The spreading of quantum information in closed systems, often termed scrambling, is a hallmark of many-body quantum dynamics. In open systems, scrambling competes with noise, errors, and decoherence. Here, in this work, we provide a universal framework that describes the scrambling of quantum information in open systems: we predict that the effect of open-system dynamics is fundamentally controlled by operator size distributions and independent of the microscopic error mechanism. This framework allows us to demonstrate that open quantum systems exhibit universal classes of information dynamics that fundamentally differ from their unitary counterparts. Implications for the Loschmidt echo, nuclear magnetic resonance experiments, and the classical simulability of open quantum dynamics will be discussed.

Physics↗