arXiv subjects

Felipe A. Pinheiro

Publications and source records attributed to Felipe A. Pinheiro.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

From rings to resonance: an inverse method links biophotonic structural color to inverse photonic glasses

Structural color arises from the interaction of light with nanoscale structures and is widespread in nature. As structural complexity increases, the mechanisms governing coloration become progressively less understood. The optical response of periodic photonic crystals with a spatially periodic refractive index is well described by Bloch theory, whereas that of photonic glasses composed of randomly assembled uniform spheres is more subtle yet well studied. In contrast, disordered photonic networks found in many beetles are among the most complex natural photonic architectures, and the fundamental relationships between their structure and color remain unclear. Here, we use an inverse method to identify the structural features encoded in the reflectance spectrum. By comparing the spectrum of an unknown system with a database of simulated spectra from computer-generated photonic networks, we infer its structural properties. Applying this approach to both simulated networks and the biophotonic network responsible for the blue coloration of the weevil Pachyrhynchus congestus mirabilis, we identify rings and pores as the key local scattering motifs. Their characteristic sizes govern the spectral position of the reflectance peak, whereas short-range disorder controls its width. The inverse method reveals clear spectral signatures of short-range order, whereas the influence of hyperuniformity and primitive similarity appears comparatively weak. This suggests that blue structural coloration is governed by local scattering mechanisms rather than photonic band-gap effects. We propose an analogy to an inverse photonic glass, in which pores and rings act as correlated local resonators. This perspective provides new design principles for bio-inspired structural-color materials.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2026

Inferring stealthy hyperuniform correlations from quantum transport

Stealthy hyperuniform disordered systems exhibit strongly suppressed long-wavelength fluctuations, producing correlated disorder with unusual consequences for wave propagation. A central quantity characterizing these systems is the stealthiness parameter $\chi$, which controls the range of excluded Fourier components in the disorder spectrum. However, in realistic settings, the microscopic disorder configuration may not be directly accessible, making it challenging to determine $\chi$ from structural information alone. Here, we propose a conductance-based inverse protocol to recover stealthy hyperuniform correlations from transport data. As a proof of concept, we study spinless fermions in a one-dimensional tight-binding chain connected to clean semi-infinite leads, with on-site disorder generated by imposing a stealthy spectrum $S(k)=\Theta(|k|-K)$, where $K=2\pi\chi$. The energy-dependent transmittance is computed using a recursive Green's function method and compared with target spectra through a misfit function defined over an energy window. We show that the position of the sharp drop separating high- and low-transmittance regions is strongly controlled by $\chi$, while the disorder strength $W$ mainly affects the absolute magnitude of the transmittance. As a result, the misfit function displays a clear minimum close to the target stealthy parameter. Our results demonstrate that transmittance spectra can serve as fingerprints of stealthy hyperuniform disorder, providing a practical route to infer correlated-disorder parameters from transport measurements.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2026

Enantioselective optical trapping and characterization of all dielectric disorder-enabled chiral particles

We trap submicroscopic silica spheres coated with randomly distributed titanium dioxide nanoparticles in optical tweezers with Laguerre-Gaussian modes and observe orbital dynamics that differ from those of achiral silica spheres. We show that the disordered nanoparticle coating generates an effective chiral geometry, giving rise to enhanced enantioselective chiral optical forces and a measurable modification of the orbital period. A theoretical model based on the Mie-Debye formalism, including optical aberrations, not only quantitatively explains the experimental results but also allows to characterize the Pasteur parameter quantifying the chiroptical response of individual composite particles. These findings constitute direct experimental evidence of chiral optical forces exerted by structured light beams on individual chiral particles and identify disorder-enabled, all-dielectric particles as a versatile material platform to tailor chiral optical forces at the nanoscale.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2026

Strong Collective Chiroptical Response from Electric-Dipole Interactions in Atomic Systems

Chiroptical responses in atomic systems are usually weak, as they arise from the interference between electric- and much weaker magnetic-dipole transitions. We show that atoms arranged in chiral geometries can instead exhibit a strong collective chiroptical response mediated entirely by electric-dipole interactions. Using a coupled-dipole framework, we identify a regime of pronounced chiroptical response emerging at subwavelength interatomic separations, which can be tuned by the probe frequency. This enhancement is directly linked to the formation of subradiant collective modes. Our results establish a fundamental connection between geometric chirality and collective light-matter interactions, opening new pathways for engineering and exploiting chiral optical responses in atomic systems.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2025

Inverse determination of light-matter coupling in disordered systems from transmittance spectra

We investigate quantum inverse problems in one-dimensional (1D) electronic disordered systems strongly coupled to optical cavities. More specifically, we consider the Anderson and the Aubry-Andre-Harper models connected to electronic reservoirs and embedded in a single-mode optical cavity. The light-matter interaction enables photon-assisted hopping processes that significantly modify the transmittance spectrum. Within the nonequilibrium Green's function formalism, we implement an inversion-based approach capable of accurately extracting the electron-photon coupling strength directly from transmittance spectra. While cavity coupling acts as a minor perturbation within the Anderson model, yielding broad yet precise parameter estimates, its influence is markedly different in the Aubry-Andr\'e-Harper model. The latter exhibits a sharp metal-insulator transition in 1D, thus resulting in more pronounced cavity-induced spectral changes. This renders even more accurate inverse solutions, offering unparalleled precision in the characterization of low-dimensional disordered systems. Altogether, our results demonstrate that the quantum inverse problem provides a robust diagnostic tool for quantum materials, particularly effective for systems exhibiting metal-insulator transitions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2025

Nonergodic extended phase for waves in three dimensions

Wave transport in complex media is determined by the nature of quasimodes at the microscopic level. In three dimensional disordered media, waves generally undergo a phase transition from diffusion to Anderson localization, characterized by exponentially localized modes. A remarkable exception are electromagnetic waves, whose vector-like nature prevents Anderson localization to occur. Here we demonstrate that both scalar and vector (electromagnetic) waves exhibit a non-ergodic extended phase characterized by fractal quasimodes, for a broad range of disorder strengths. While electromagnetic waves remain in the non-ergodic extended phase at high disorder strength, scalar waves eventually enter a localized regime. These results pave the way for the engineering of anomalous wave transport phenomena in disordered media without spatial correlations.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2025

Circular Dichroism without absorption in isolated chiral dielectric Mie particles

We demonstrate that an effect phenomenologically analogous to circular dichroism can arise even for dielectric and isotropic chiral spherical particles. By analyzing the polarimetry of light scattered from a chiral, lossless microsphere illuminated with linearly polarized light, we show that the scattered light becomes nearly circularly polarized, exhibiting large, nonresonant values of the Stokes parameter $S_3$ for a broad range of visible frequencies. This phenomenon occurs only in the Mie regime, with the microsphere radius comparable to the wavelength, and provided that the scattered light is collected by a high-NA objective lens, including non-paraxial Fourier components. Altogether, our findings offer a theoretical framework and motivation for an experimental demonstration of a novel chiroptical effect with isolated dielectric particles, with potential applications in enantioselection and characterization of single microparticles, each and every one with its own chiral response.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2025

Multifractal critical phase driven by coupling quasiperiodic systems to electromagnetic cavities

We theoretically investigate criticality and multifractal states in a one-dimensional Aubry-Andre-Harper model coupled to electromagnetic cavities. We focus on two specific cases where the phonon frequencies are $ω_{0}=1$ and $ω_{0}=2$, respectively. Phase transitions are analyzed using both the average and minimum inverse participation ratio to identify metallic, fractal, and insulating states. We provide numerical evidence to show that the presence of the optical cavity induces a critical, intermediate phase in between the extended and localized phases, hence drastically modifying the traditional transport phase diagram of the Aubry-Andre-Harper model, in which critical states can only exist at the well-defined metal-insulator critical point. We also investigate the probability distribution of the inverse participation ratio and conduct a multifractal analysis to characterize the nature of the critical phase, in which we show that extended, localized, and fractal eigenstates coexist. Altogether, our findings reveal the pivotal role that the coupling to electromagnetic cavities plays in tailoring critical transport phenomena at the microscopic level of the eigenstates.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2025

Optimal control over the full counting statistics in a non-adiabatic pump

We introduce a systematic procedure based on optimal control theory to address the full counting statistics of particle transport in a stochastic system. Our approach enhances the performance of a Thouless pump in the non-adiabatic regime by simultaneously optimizing the average pumping rate while minimizing noise. We demonstrate our optimization procedure on a paradigmatic model for the electronic transport through a quantum dot, both in the limit of vanishing Coulomb interaction and in the interacting regime. Our method enables independent control of the moments associated with charge and spin transfer, allowing for the enhancement of spin current with minimal charge current or the independent tuning of spin and charge fluctuations. These results underscore the versatility of our approach, which can be applied to a broad class of stochastic systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Probing the chirality of a single microsphere trapped by a focused vortex beam through their orbital period

When microspheres are illuminated by tightly focused vortex beams, they can be trapped in a non-equilibrium steady state where they orbit around the optical axis. By using the Mie-Debye theory for optical tweezers, we demonstrate that the orbital period strongly depends on the particle's chirality index. Taking advantage of such sensitivity, we put forth a method to experimentally characterize with high precision the chiroptical response of individual optically trapped particles. The method allows for an enhanced precision at least one order of magnitude larger than that of similar existing enantioselective approaches. It is particularly suited to probe the chiroptical response of individual particles, for which light-chiral matter interactions are typically weak.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2023

Strong localization of microwaves beyond 2D in aperiodic Vogel spirals

We carry out dynamical microwave transport experiments in aperiodic Vogel spiral arrays of cylinders with high dielectric permittivity. We experimentally disclose the electromagnetic modal structure of these structures in real space showing that they simultaneously support long-lived modes with Gaussian, exponential, and power law spatial decay. This unique modal structure, which cannot be found in traditional periodic or disordered photonic materials, is shown to be at the origin of strong localization in Vogel spirals that survives even in three dimensions. Altogether our results unveil the manifestations of the rich, unprecedented, spatial structure of electromagnetic modes supported by aperiodic photonic systems in wave transport and localization.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2022

Wave localization in number-theoretic landscapes

We investigate the localization of waves in aperiodic structures that manifest the characteristic multiscale complexity of certain arithmetic functions with a central role in number theory. In particular, we study the eigenspectra and wave localization properties of tight-binding Schrödinger equation models with on-site potentials distributed according to the Liouville function $λ(n)$, the Möbius function $μ(n)$, and the Legendre sequence of quadratic residues modulo a prime (QRs). We employ Multifractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (MDFA) and establish the multifractal scaling properties of the energy spectra in these systems. Moreover, by systematically analyzing the spatial eigenmodes and their level spacing distributions, we show the absence of level repulsion with broadband localization across the entire energy spectra. Our study introduces deterministic aperiodic systems whose eigenmodes are all strongly localized in realistic finite one-dimensional systems and provides opportunities for novel quantum and classical devices of particular importance to cold-atom experiments in engineered speckle potentials and enhanced light-matter interactions.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2021

Structural entropy and spatial decay of quasimodes in Vogel spirals

We investigate the spatial decay and temporal localization properties of quasimodes (i.e., scattering resonances) of two-dimensional Vogel spirals, composed of deterministic, aperiodic arrays of electric dipoles. By determining the structural entropy and localization maps of Vogel spirals using the Green's matrix method, we show that three distinctive decay types of quasimodes coexist in Vogel spirals: exponential, power-law, and Gaussian. While the exponential and the power-law decays typically occur in disordered media and multifractal systems, respectively, the Gaussian decay is demonstrated to characterize, on average, the most localized quasimodes of Vogel spirals, both spatially (smallest participation ratios) and temporarily (longest lifetimes). These decay forms are demonstrated by a no-fitting analysis of the localization maps, independently corroborated by calculating the electric field in real space, which also provides a direct evidence of the algebraic spatial decay of critical quasimodes. Altogether our findings unveil a rich spectrum of both long-lived and spatially localized quasimodes that coexist in Vogel spirals and can be of direct relevance to novel optical functionalities for applications to light sources and sensing devices.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2021

Optical forces on an oscillating dipole near VO$_2$ phase transition

We investigate optical forces on oscillating dipoles close to a phase-change vanadium dioxide (VO$_2$) film, which exhibits a metal-insulator transition around $340$ K and low thermal hysteresis. This configuration is related to one composed of an excited two-level quantum emitter and we employ a classical description to capture important aspects of the radiation-matter interaction. We consider both electric and magnetic dipoles for two different configurations, namely, with the dipole moments parallel and perpendicular to the VO$_2$ film. By using Bruggeman theory to describe the effective optical response of the material, we show that, in the near-field regime, the force on the dipoles can change from attractive to repulsive just by heating the film for a selected frequency range. We demonstrate that the thermal hysteresis present in the VO$_2$ transition clearly shows up in the behavior of the optical forces, setting the grounds for alternative approaches to control light-matter interactions using phase-change materials.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Fast and robust quantum state transfer in a topological Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chain with Next-to-Nearest-Neighbour interactions

We suggest a method for fast and robust quantum-state transfer in a Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) chain, which exploits the use of next-to-nearest-neighbour (NNN) interactions. The proposed quantum protocol combines a rapid change in one of the topological edge states, induced by a modulation of nearest-neighbour interactions, with a fine tuning of NNN interactions operating a counter-adiabatic driving. The latter cancels nonadiabatic excitations from the edge state multiplicity to the energy bands. We use this shortcut technique for topological pumping of edge states on a single dimerized chain and also through an interface that connects two dimerized Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chains with different topological order. We investigate the robustness of this protocol against both uncorrelated and correlated disorder, and demonstrate its strong resilience to the former in comparison to traditional adiabatic protocols for topological chains. We show that introducing spatial correlations in the disorder increases the robustness of the protocol, widening the range of its applicability.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2019

Tuning quantum reflection in graphene with an external magnetic field

We theoretically demonstrate that an external magnetic field can be used to control quantum reflection of matter waves in graphene due to its extraordinary magneto-optical properties. We calculate the quantum reflection probabilities in graphene for three experimentally relevant atomic species (He, Na, and Rb) using the full Casimir-Polder potential computed by Lifshitz formula valid at all distance regimes, going beyond the traditional approach to quantum reflection, based on power law potentials, which are known to be valid only in the short distance (non-retarded van der Waals) or in the large distance (retarded) regimes. We predict the energy range for which quantum reflection is more likely to occur as a function of the magnetic field, and show that the quantum reflection probabilities exhibit discontinuities that reflect the structure of Landau levels in graphene. Altogether our findings suggest an alternative way to control quantum reflection at the nanoscale, and pave the way for the design of alternative, magnetically tuned reflective diffraction elements for matter waves.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2018

Controlling optical memory effects in disordered media with coated metamaterials

Most applications of memory effects in disordered optical media, such as the tilt-tilt and shift-shift spatial correlations, have focused on imaging through and inside biological tissues. Here we put forward a metamaterial platform not only to enhance but also to tune memory effects in random media. Specifically, we investigate the shift-shift and tilt-tilt spatial correlations in metamaterials composed of coated spheres and cylinders by means of the radiative transfer equation. Based on the single-scattering phase function, we calculate the translation correlations in anisotropically scattering media with spherical or cylindrical geometries and find a simple relation between them. We show that the Fokker-Planck model can be used with the small-angle approximation to obtain the shift-tilt memory effect with ballistic light contribution. By considering a two-dimensional scattering system, composed of thick dielectric cylinders coated with subwavelength layers of thermally tunable magneto-optical semiconductors, we suggest the possibility of tailoring and controlling the shift-shift and tilt-tilt memory effects in light scattering. In particular, we show that the generalized memory effect can be enhanced by increasing the temperature of the system, and it can be decreased by applying an external magnetic field. Altogether our findings unveil the potential applications that metamaterial systems may have to control externally memory effects in disordered media.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2018

Photonic spin Hall effect in bilayer graphene Moiré superlattices

The formation of a superstructure - with a related Moiré pattern - plays a crucial role in the extraordinary optical and electronic properties of twisted bilayer graphene, including the recently observed unconventional superconductivity. Here we put forward a novel, interdisciplinary approach to determine the Moiré angle in twisted bilayer graphene based on the photonic spin Hall effect. We show that the photonic spin Hall effect exhibits clear fingerprints of the underlying Moiré pattern, and the associated light beam shifts are well beyond current experimental sensitivities in the near-infrared and visible ranges. By discovering the dependence of the frequency position of the maximal photonic spin Hall effect shift on the Moiré angle, we argue that the latter could be unequivocally accessed via all-optical far-field measurements. We also disclose that, when combined with the Goos-Hänchen effect, the spin Hall effect of light enables the complete determination of the electronic conductivity of the bilayer. Altogether our findings demonstrate that sub-wavelength spin-orbit interactions of light provide a unprecedented toolset for investigating optoelectronic properties of multilayer two-dimensional van der Waals materials.

physics.optics↗