ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences

About: ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences is a facility organization based out in Barcelona, Spain. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Quantum & Quantum entanglement. The organization has 872 authors who have published 1965 publications receiving 56273 citations.

Full-wave electromagnetic modes and hybridization in nanoparticle dimers.

Abstract: The plasmon hybridization theory is based on a quasi-electrostatic approximation of the Maxwell’s equations. It does not take into account magnetic interactions, retardation effects, and radiation losses. Magnetic interactions play a dominant role in the scattering from dielectric nanoparticles. The retardation effects play a fundamental role in the coupling of the modes with the incident radiation and in determining their radiative strength; their exclusion may lead to erroneous predictions of the excited modes and of the scattered power spectra. Radiation losses may lead to a significant broadening of the scattering resonances. We propose a hybridization theory for non-Hermitian composite systems based on the full-Maxwell equations that, overcoming all the limitations of the plasmon hybridization theory, unlocks the description of dielectric dimers. As an example, we decompose the scattered field from silicon and silver dimers, under different excitation conditions and gap-sizes, in terms of dimer modes, pinpointing the hybridizing isolated-sphere modes behind them.

High-Efficiency Light-Emitting Diodes Based on Formamidinium Lead Bromide Nanocrystals and solution processed transport layers

Abstract: Perovskite nanocrystal light-emitting diodes (LEDs) employing architecture comprising a ZnO nanoparticles electron-transport layer and a conjugated polymer hole-transport layer have been fabricated. The obtained LEDs demonstrate a maximum external-quantum-efficiency of 6.04%, luminance of 12998 Cd/m2 and stable electroluminescence at 519 nm. Importantly, such high efficiency and bright-ness have been achieved by employing solution processed transport layers, formamidinium lead bromide nanocrystals (CH(NH2)2PbBr3 NCs) synthesized at room-temperature and in air without the use of a Schlenk line, and a procedure based on atomic layer deposition to insolubilize the NC film. The obtained NCs show a photoluminescence quantum yield of 90% that is retained upon film fabrication. The results show that perovskite NC LEDs can achieve high-performance without the use of transport layers deposited through evaporation in ultra-high-vacuum.

New factors for protein transport identified by a genome-wide CRISPRi screen in mammalian cells

Abstract: Protein and membrane trafficking pathways are critical for cell and tissue homeostasis. Traditional genetic and biochemical approaches have shed light on basic principles underlying these processes. However, the list of factors required for secretory pathway function remains incomplete, and mechanisms involved in their adaptation poorly understood. Here, we present a powerful strategy based on a pooled genome-wide CRISPRi screen that allowed the identification of new factors involved in protein transport. Two newly identified factors, TTC17 and CCDC157, localized along the secretory pathway and were found to interact with resident proteins of ER-Golgi membranes. In addition, we uncovered that upon TTC17 knockdown, the polarized organization of Golgi cisternae was altered, creating glycosylation defects, and that CCDC157 is an important factor for the fusion of transport carriers to Golgi membranes. In conclusion, our work identified and characterized new actors in the mechanisms of protein transport and secretion and opens stimulating perspectives for the use of our platform in physiological and pathological contexts.

Topological dipole Floquet solitons

Abstract: Y.V.K. and S.K.I. acknowledge funding of this study by RFBR and DFG according to Research Project No. 18- 502-12080. A.S. acknowledges funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Grants No. BL 574/13-1, No. SZ 276/19-1, and No. SZ 276/20-1). Y.V.K. and L.T. acknowledge support from the Government of Spain (Severo Ochoa CEX2019-000910-S), Fundacio Cellex, Fundacio Mir-Puig, Generalitat de Catalunya (CERCA). V.V.K. acknowledges financial support from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under Contract No. UIDB/00618/2020.

Universal Extensions of Restricted Classes of Quantum Operations

Abstract: For numerous applications of quantum theory it is desirable to be able to apply arbitrary unitary operations on a given quantum system However, in particular situations only a subset of unitary operations is easily accessible This raises the question of what additional unitary gates should be added to a given gate set in order to attain physical universality, ie, to be able to perform arbitrary unitary transformation on the relevant Hilbert space In this work, we study this problem for three paradigmatic cases of naturally occurring restricted gate sets: (A) particle-number preserving bosonic linear optics, (B) particle-number preserving fermionic linear optics, and (C) general (not necessarily particle-number preserving) fermionic linear optics Using tools from group theory and control theory, we classify, in each of these scenarios, what sets of gates are generated, if an additional gate is added to the set of allowed transformations This allows us to solve the universality problem completely for arbitrary number of particles and for arbitrary dimensions of the single-particle Hilbert space