Wave Packet Spreading with Disordered Nonlinear Discrete-Time Quantum Walks.

We use a novel unitary map toolbox-discrete-time quantum walks originally designed for quantum computing-to implement ultrafast computer simulations of extremely slow dynamics in a nonlinear and disordered medium. Previous reports on wave packet spreading in Gross-Pitaevskii lattices observed subdiffusion with the second moment m_{2}∼t^{1/3} (with time in units of a characteristic scale t_{0}) up to the largest computed times of the order of 10^{8}. A fundamental and controversially debated question-whether this process can continue ad infinitum, or has to slow down-stands unresolved.

Conversion of self-assembled monolayers into nanocrystalline graphene: structure and electric transport.

Graphene-based materials have been suggested for applications ranging from nanoelectronics to nanobiotechnology. However, the realization of graphene-based technologies will require large quantities of free-standing two-dimensional (2D) carbon materials with tunable physical and chemical properties. Bottom-up approaches via molecular self-assembly have great potential to fulfill this demand.

Superinsulator and quantum synchronization.

Synchronized oscillators are ubiquitous in nature, and synchronization plays a key part in various classical and quantum phenomena. Several experiments have shown that in thin superconducting films, disorder enforces the droplet-like electronic texture--superconducting islands immersed into a normal matrix--and that tuning disorder drives the system from superconducting to insulating behaviour. In the vicinity of the transition, a distinct state forms: a Cooper-pair insulator, with thermally activated conductivity.