Giulia Magi Meconi, I. R. Sasselli, V. Bianco, J. Onuchic, I. Coluzza
{"title":"Key aspects of the past 30 years of protein design","authors":"Giulia Magi Meconi, I. R. Sasselli, V. Bianco, J. Onuchic, I. Coluzza","doi":"10.1088/1361-6633/ac78ef","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6633/ac78ef","url":null,"abstract":"Proteins are the workhorse of life. They are the building infrastructure of living systems; they are the most efficient molecular machines known, and their enzymatic activity is still unmatched in versatility by any artificial system. Perhaps proteins’ most remarkable feature is their modularity. The large amount of information required to specify each protein’s function is analogically encoded with an alphabet of just ∼20 letters. The protein folding problem is how to encode all such information in a sequence of 20 letters. In this review, we go through the last 30 years of research to summarize the state of the art and highlight some applications related to fundamental problems of protein evolution.","PeriodicalId":21110,"journal":{"name":"Reports on Progress in Physics","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":18.1,"publicationDate":"2022-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87327014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Peihui Li, Li Zhou, Cong Zhao, Hongyu Ju, Qinghua Gao, Wei Si, Li Cheng, Jie Hao, Mengmeng Li, Yijian Chen, Chuancheng Jia, Xuefeng Guo
{"title":"Single-molecule nano-optoelectronics: insights from physics","authors":"Peihui Li, Li Zhou, Cong Zhao, Hongyu Ju, Qinghua Gao, Wei Si, Li Cheng, Jie Hao, Mengmeng Li, Yijian Chen, Chuancheng Jia, Xuefeng Guo","doi":"10.1088/1361-6633/ac7401","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6633/ac7401","url":null,"abstract":"Single-molecule optoelectronic devices promise a potential solution for miniaturization and functionalization of silicon-based microelectronic circuits in the future. For decades of its fast development, this field has made significant progress in the synthesis of optoelectronic materials, the fabrication of single-molecule devices and the realization of optoelectronic functions. On the other hand, single-molecule optoelectronic devices offer a reliable platform to investigate the intrinsic physical phenomena and regulation rules of matters at the single-molecule level. To further realize and regulate the optoelectronic functions toward practical applications, it is necessary to clarify the intrinsic physical mechanisms of single-molecule optoelectronic nanodevices. Here, we provide a timely review to survey the physical phenomena and laws involved in single-molecule optoelectronic materials and devices, including charge effects, spin effects, exciton effects, vibronic effects, structural and orbital effects. In particular, we will systematically summarize the basics of molecular optoelectronic materials, and the physical effects and manipulations of single-molecule optoelectronic nanodevices. In addition, fundamentals of single-molecule electronics, which are basic of single-molecule optoelectronics, can also be found in this review. At last, we tend to focus the discussion on the opportunities and challenges arising in the field of single-molecule optoelectronics, and propose further potential breakthroughs.","PeriodicalId":21110,"journal":{"name":"Reports on Progress in Physics","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":18.1,"publicationDate":"2022-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86239899","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bacterial active matter","authors":"I. Aranson","doi":"10.1088/1361-6633/ac723d","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6633/ac723d","url":null,"abstract":"Bacteria are among the oldest and most abundant species on Earth. Bacteria successfully colonize diverse habitats and play a significant role in the oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen cycles. They also form human and animal microbiota and may become sources of pathogens and a cause of many infectious diseases. Suspensions of motile bacteria constitute one of the most studied examples of active matter: a broad class of non-equilibrium systems converting energy from the environment (e.g., chemical energy of the nutrient) into mechanical motion. Concentrated bacterial suspensions, often termed active fluids, exhibit complex collective behavior, such as large-scale turbulent-like motion (so-called bacterial turbulence) and swarming. The activity of bacteria also affects the effective viscosity and diffusivity of the suspension. This work reports on the progress in bacterial active matter from the physics viewpoint. It covers the key experimental results, provides a critical assessment of major theoretical approaches, and addresses the effects of visco-elasticity, liquid crystallinity, and external confinement on collective behavior in bacterial suspensions.","PeriodicalId":21110,"journal":{"name":"Reports on Progress in Physics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":18.1,"publicationDate":"2022-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87174211","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Attosecond spectroscopy for the investigation of ultrafast dynamics in atomic, molecular and solid-state physics","authors":"R. Borrego-Varillas, M. Lucchini, M. Nisoli","doi":"10.1088/1361-6633/ac5e7f","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6633/ac5e7f","url":null,"abstract":"Since the first demonstration of the generation of attosecond pulses (1 as = 10−18 s) in the extreme-ultraviolet spectral region, several measurement techniques have been introduced, at the beginning for the temporal characterization of the pulses, and immediately after for the investigation of electronic and nuclear ultrafast dynamics in atoms, molecules and solids with unprecedented temporal resolution. The attosecond spectroscopic tools established in the last two decades, together with the development of sophisticated theoretical methods for the interpretation of the experimental outcomes, allowed to unravel and investigate physical processes never observed before, such as the delay in photoemission from atoms and solids, the motion of electrons in molecules after prompt ionization which precede any notable nuclear motion, the temporal evolution of the tunneling process in dielectrics, and many others. This review focused on applications of attosecond techniques to the investigation of ultrafast processes in atoms, molecules and solids. Thanks to the introduction and ongoing developments of new spectroscopic techniques, the attosecond science is rapidly moving towards the investigation, understanding and control of coupled electron–nuclear dynamics in increasingly complex systems, with ever more accurate and complete investigation techniques. Here we will review the most common techniques presenting the latest results in atoms, molecules and solids.","PeriodicalId":21110,"journal":{"name":"Reports on Progress in Physics","volume":"208 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":18.1,"publicationDate":"2022-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78056435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jingyi Yang, Sudip Gurung, Subhajit Bej, P. Ni, Ho Wai Howard Lee
{"title":"Active optical metasurfaces: comprehensive review on physics, mechanisms, and prospective applications","authors":"Jingyi Yang, Sudip Gurung, Subhajit Bej, P. Ni, Ho Wai Howard Lee","doi":"10.1088/1361-6633/ac2aaf","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6633/ac2aaf","url":null,"abstract":"Optical metasurfaces with subwavelength thickness hold considerable promise for future advances in fundamental optics and novel optical applications due to their unprecedented ability to control the phase, amplitude, and polarization of transmitted, reflected, and diffracted light. Introducing active functionalities to optical metasurfaces is an essential step to the development of next-generation flat optical components and devices. During the last few years, many attempts have been made to develop tunable optical metasurfaces with dynamic control of optical properties (e.g., amplitude, phase, polarization, spatial/spectral/temporal responses) and early-stage device functions (e.g., beam steering, tunable focusing, tunable color filters/absorber, dynamic hologram, etc) based on a variety of novel active materials and tunable mechanisms. These recently-developed active metasurfaces show significant promise for practical applications, but significant challenges still remain. In this review, a comprehensive overview of recently-reported tunable metasurfaces is provided which focuses on the ten major tunable metasurface mechanisms. For each type of mechanism, the performance metrics on the reported tunable metasurface are outlined, and the capabilities/limitations of each mechanism and its potential for various photonic applications are compared and summarized. This review concludes with discussion of several prospective applications, emerging technologies, and research directions based on the use of tunable optical metasurfaces. We anticipate significant new advances when the tunable mechanisms are further developed in the coming years.","PeriodicalId":21110,"journal":{"name":"Reports on Progress in Physics","volume":"2013 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":18.1,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86450537","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Quantum many-body scars and Hilbert space fragmentation: a review of exact results","authors":"Sanjay Moudgalya, B. Bernevig, N. Regnault","doi":"10.1088/1361-6633/ac73a0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6633/ac73a0","url":null,"abstract":"The discovery of quantum many-body scars (QMBS) both in Rydberg atom simulators and in the Affleck–Kennedy–Lieb–Tasaki spin-1 chain model, have shown that a weak violation of ergodicity can still lead to rich experimental and theoretical physics. In this review, we provide a pedagogical introduction to and an overview of the exact results on weak ergodicity breaking via QMBS in isolated quantum systems with the help of simple examples such as the fermionic Hubbard model. We also discuss various mechanisms and unifying formalisms that have been proposed to encompass the plethora of systems exhibiting QMBS. We cover examples of equally-spaced towers that lead to exact revivals for particular initial states, as well as isolated examples of QMBS. Finally, we review Hilbert space fragmentation, a related phenomenon where systems exhibit a richer variety of ergodic and non-ergodic behaviors, and discuss its connections to QMBS.","PeriodicalId":21110,"journal":{"name":"Reports on Progress in Physics","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":18.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75115508","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Wang Yi-peng, Guo Shu-qing, Bao Xiao-jun, Deng Jun-gang, Zhang Hong-fei
{"title":"Study of the Synthesis of Super Heavy Nuclei Based on Dinuclear System","authors":"Wang Yi-peng, Guo Shu-qing, Bao Xiao-jun, Deng Jun-gang, Zhang Hong-fei","doi":"10.13725/J.CNKI.PIP.2021.04.001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13725/J.CNKI.PIP.2021.04.001","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":21110,"journal":{"name":"Reports on Progress in Physics","volume":"277 1","pages":"157"},"PeriodicalIF":18.1,"publicationDate":"2021-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79600520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Superconductivity in infinite-layer nickelates","authors":"Y. Nomura, R. Arita","doi":"10.1088/1361-6633/ac5a60","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6633/ac5a60","url":null,"abstract":"The recent discovery of the superconductivity in the doped infinite layer nickelates RNiO2 (R = La, Pr, Nd) is of great interest since the nickelates are isostructural to doped (Ca, Sr)CuO2 having superconducting transition temperature (T c) of about 110 K. Verifying the commonalities and differences between these oxides will certainly give a new insight into the mechanism of high T c superconductivity in correlated electron systems. In this paper, we review experimental and theoretical works on this new superconductor and discuss the future perspectives for the ‘nickel age’ of superconductivity.","PeriodicalId":21110,"journal":{"name":"Reports on Progress in Physics","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":18.1,"publicationDate":"2021-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73135204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Quantum guessing games with posterior information","authors":"C. Carmeli, Teiko Heinosaari, A. Toigo","doi":"10.1088/1361-6633/ac6f0e","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6633/ac6f0e","url":null,"abstract":"Quantum guessing games form a versatile framework for studying different tasks of information processing. A quantum guessing game with posterior information uses quantum systems to encode messages and classical communication to give partial information after a quantum measurement has been performed. We present a general framework for quantum guessing games with posterior information and derive structure and reduction theorems that enable to analyze any such game. We formalize symmetry of guessing games and characterize the optimal measurements in cases where the symmetry is related to an irreducible representation. The application of guessing games to incompatibility detection is reviewed and clarified. All the presented main concepts and results are demonstrated with examples.","PeriodicalId":21110,"journal":{"name":"Reports on Progress in Physics","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":18.1,"publicationDate":"2021-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89387062","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
He Jia-Dian, Ding Yi-Fan, Teng Bo-Lun, D. Peng, L. Yi-Fei, Zhang Yi-wen, Wu Yue-Shen, Wang Jing-Hui, Zhou Xiang, Wang Zhi, Li Jun
{"title":"Proximity effect in topological insulator/superconductor heterostructure","authors":"He Jia-Dian, Ding Yi-Fan, Teng Bo-Lun, D. Peng, L. Yi-Fei, Zhang Yi-wen, Wu Yue-Shen, Wang Jing-Hui, Zhou Xiang, Wang Zhi, Li Jun","doi":"10.13725/J.CNKI.PIP.2021.03.001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.13725/J.CNKI.PIP.2021.03.001","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":21110,"journal":{"name":"Reports on Progress in Physics","volume":"1 1","pages":"113"},"PeriodicalIF":18.1,"publicationDate":"2021-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85965272","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}