Solid-state quantum emitters can be used as nanoscale optical transducers in quantum metrology. Here, we present a technique to probe voltage controlled magnetic exchange fields with a quantum emitter embedded in a WSe2/ferromagnet heterostrucutre. © OSA 2020.

Problematizing is a physics practice involving the articulation of a gap in understanding into a clear question or problem. Inquiry-based labs may be conducive to problematizing behaviors, as students often collect data that do not agree with simplified models or their intuitive predictions. In this study, we analyzed video of students performing a lab in which they find the acceleration of an object in flight to be different from what the presented models predict. We aimed to identify the various activities that groups engaged in upon recognizing this inconsistency.

. Instructional physics labs are critical junctures for many STEM majors to develop an understanding of experimentation in the sciences. Students can acquire useful experimental skills and grow their identities as scientists. However, many traditionally-instructed labs do not necessarily involve authentic physics experimentation features in their curricula. Recent research calls for a reformation in undergraduate labs to incorporate more student agency and choice in the learning processes. In our institution, we have adopted open-ended lab teaching in the introductory physics courses.

Monolayer WSe2 hosts bright single-photon emitters. Because of its compliance, monolayer WSe2 conforms to patterned substrates without breaking, thus creating the potential for large local strain, which is one activation mechanism of its intrinsic quantum emitters. Here, we report an approach to creating spatially isolated quantum emitters from WSe2 monolayers that display clean spectra with little detrimental background signal.

Prior research has shown that physics students often think about experimental procedures and data analysis very differently from experts. One key framework for analyzing student thinking has found that student thinking is more point-like, putting emphasis on the results of a single experimental trial, whereas set-like thinking relies on the results of many trials. Recent work, however, has found that students rarely fall into one of these two extremes, which may be a limitation of how student thinking is evaluated.

Measurement uncertainty and experimental error are important concepts taught in undergraduate physics laboratories. Although student ideas about error and uncertainty in introductory classical mechanics lab experiments have been studied extensively, there is relatively limited research on student thinking about experimental measurement uncertainty in quantum mechanics.

With ongoing calls to engage students in science through physics lab instruction, understanding how students frame lab environments informs instructional approaches that promote students’ productive engagement. To deliberately identify students’ frames in a new lab environment, two students who were previously in experimentation physics labs were placed together during the first activity of a content-reinforcement lab. The students initially framed the activity as exploring the phenomena and developing investigations, similar to the previous semester.

Fifty years of Moore’s law scaling in microelectronics have brought remarkable opportunities for the rapidly evolving field of microscopic robotics1–5. Electronic, magnetic and optical systems now offer an unprecedented combination of complexity, small size and low cost6,7, and could be readily appropriated for robots that are smaller than the resolution limit of human vision (less than a hundred micrometres)8–11.

We develop a phenomenological mean-field theory describing the hidden-order phase in URu2Si2 as a nematic of the B1g representation staggered along the c axis. Several experimental features are reproduced by this theory: The topology of the temperature-pressure phase diagram, the response of the elastic modulus (C11-C12)/2 above the transition at ambient pressure, and orthorhombic symmetry breaking in the high-pressure antiferromagnetic phase.

Solid-state magnetic field sensors are important for applications in commercial electronics and fundamental materials research. Most magnetic field sensors function in a limited range of temperature and magnetic field, but Hall sensors in principle operate over a broad range of these conditions. Here, we evaluate ultraclean graphene as a material platform for high-performance Hall sensors. We fabricate micrometer-scale devices from graphene encapsulated with hexagonal boron nitride and few-layer graphite. We optimize the magnetic field detection limit under different conditions.