On some important chapters in the history of liquid crystals

Before 1910, the study of liquid crystals was dominated by Lehmann and the German school of chemists. The point of gravity then moved to France with Friedel as a leading figure. While there are many studies about Lehmann, there are fewer about Friedel. He has written about himself, so to speak, and more people have cited him than read his original papers. In the first part of this historical review, I will, after a close reading of the original papers, trace the development on French soil between 1910 and 1922.

After 1922, the progress stopped in France, but a renewal of interest in liquid crystals came from Germany in the late 1920s and the first international symposium was organised there in 1931, closely followed by one in England 1933. After the Second World War, a new symposium in 1958 revived the field and then came a new outburst of turbulent productivity in the late 1960s. My aim is to focus on some of the most prominent persons and some turning points also in this modern era. But my foremost aim is to illustrate that nothing happened in the straightforward way in which most texts tend to outline the history.     

Using Prussian blue analogue nanoparticles confined into ordered mesoporous silica monoliths as precursors of oxides

Powdered Prussian blue analogues (PBAs) and PBAs confined in ordered mesoporous silica monoliths were used as oxide precursors through thermal treatment under an oxidizing atmosphere. The study focuses on the transformation of the alkali cation-free CoCo PBA of chemical formula K_0.1Co^II₄[Co^III(CN)₆]_2.7·20 H₂O. The compounds were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), IR spectroscopy and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), and the magnetic properties of the calcined samples were investigated. In both cases, powdered and confined PBAs, the coordination polymers are transformed into well-crystallized Co₃O₄ spinel oxide. In the case of the confined PBA, isolated Co₃O₄ single crystals confined within the ordered mesoporosity of the monoliths were evidenced by HRTEM. A preliminary study shows an effect of particle size and confinement on the magnetic properties of the confined oxide particles.     

Simultaneous effect of carbon and water on NOx adsorption on a stabilized Pt–Ba/Al2O3 catalyst

The influence of the presence of H₂O on the contact between carbon, used as model soot, and a model four-way catalyst (1% Pt–10% BaO/Al₂O₃) was investigated. NO_x adsorption/TPD cycles at 300 °C together with XRD, XPS and DRIFTS characterizations showed that only surface nitrate species are destabilized by the carbon present in the catalytic bed, leading to a decrease of the NO_x storage capacity and carbonate species formation. In another way, injection of water in the reactive gas flow decreases also the NO_x storage capacity of the catalyst, but promotes the formation of stable nitrate species. A non-cumulative effect of carbon and water was observed. It was proposed that a competition between the destabilization, by carbon, of weakly bonded surface nitrate species and the enhancement of bulk nitrate species formation in the presence of water occurs.     

Atomistic De-novo Inhibitor Generation-Guided Drug Repurposing for SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein with Free-Energy Validation by Well-Tempered Metadynamics

Computational drug design is increasingly becoming important with new and unforeseen diseases like COVID-19. In this study, we present a new computational de novo drug design and repurposing method and applied it to find plausible drug candidates for the receptor binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). Our study comprises three steps: atom-by-atom generation of new molecules around a receptor, structural similarity mapping to existing approved and investigational drugs, and validation of their binding strengths to the viral spike proteins based on rigorous all-atom, explicit-water well-tempered metadynamics free energy calculations. By choosing the receptor binding domain of the viral spike protein, we showed that some of our new molecules and some of the repurposable drugs have stronger binding to RBD than hACE2. To validate our approach, we also calculated the free energy of hACE2 and RBD, and found it to be in an excellent agreement with experiments. These pool of drugs will allow strategic repurposing against COVID-19 for a particular prevailing conditions.     

Quantum Zeno dynamics in atoms and cavities

Quantum Zeno Dynamics restricts the evolution of a system in a tailorable subspace of the Hilbert space by repeated measurements of a proper observable. This restricted dynamics can be counterintuitive and lead to the generation of interesting nonclassical states. We describe an experiment implementing the Zeno dynamics in an atomic Rydberg level manifold, and we propose an implementation in the cavity quantum electrodynamics context. Both systems open promising perspectives for quantum-enabled metrology and decoherence studies.     

Towards a spin-ensemble quantum memory for superconducting qubits

This article reviews efforts to build a new type of quantum device, which combines an ensemble of electronic spins with long coherence times, and a small-scale superconducting quantum processor. The goal is to store over long times arbitrary qubit states in orthogonal collective modes of the spin-ensemble, and to retrieve them on-demand. We first present the protocol devised for such a multi-mode quantum memory. We then describe a series of experimental results using NV (as in nitrogen vacancy) center spins in diamond, which demonstrate its main building blocks: the transfer of arbitrary quantum states from a qubit into the spin ensemble, and the multi-mode retrieval of classical microwave pulses down to the single-photon level with a Hahn-echo like sequence. A reset of the spin memory is implemented in-between two successive sequences using optical repumping of the spins.     

Negative refraction and imaging of acoustic waves in a two-dimensional square chiral lattice structure

The negative refraction behavior and imaging effect for acoustic waves in a kind of two-dimensional square chiral lattice structure are studied in this paper. The unit cell of the proposed structure consists of four zigzag arms connected through a thin circular ring at the central part. The relation of the symmetry of the unit cell and the negative refraction phenomenon is investigated. Using the finite element method, we calculate the band structures and the equi-frequency surfaces of the system, and confirm the frequency range where the negative refraction is present. Due to the rotational symmetry of the unit cell, a phase difference is induced to the waves propagating from a point source through the structure to the other side. The phase difference is related to the width of the structure and the frequency of the source, so we can get a tunable deviated imaging. This kind of phenomenon is also demonstrated by the numerical simulation of two Gaussian beams that are symmetrical about the interface normal with the same incident angle, and the different negative refractive indexes are presented. Based on this special performance, a double-functional mirror-symmetrical slab is proposed for realizing acoustic focusing and beam separation.     

Harvesting vibrations via 3D phononic isolators

We report on the existence of unidirectional phononic band gaps that may span over extended regions of the Brillouin zone and can find application in trapping elastic (acoustic) waves in properly designed multilayered 3D structures. Phononic isolators operate as a result of asymmetrical wave transmission through a slab of a crystallographic phononic structure with broken mirror symmetry. Due to the use of lossless materials in the crystal, the absorption rate is dramatically enhanced when the proposed isolator is placed next to a vibrational harvesting cell.     

Frequency combinations in the magnetoresistance oscillations spectrum of a linear chain of coupled orbits with a high scattering rate

The oscillatory magnetoresistance spectrum of the organic metal (BEDO)₅Ni(CN)₄. 3C₂H₄(OH)₂ has been studied up to 50 T, in the temperature range from 1.5 K to 4.2 K. In high magnetic field, its Fermi surface corresponds to a linear chain of quasi-two-dimensional orbits coupled by magnetic breakdown (MB). The scattering rate consistently deduced from the data relevant to the basic α and the MB-induced β orbits is very large which points to a significant reduction of the chemical potential oscillation. Despite of this feature, the oscillations spectrum exhibits many frequency combinations. Their effective masses and (or) Dingle temperature are not in agreement with either the predictions of the quantum interference model or the semiclassical model of Falicov and Stachowiak.