No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).The geometric phase due to the evolution of the Hamiltonian is a central concept in quantum physics and may become advantageous for quantum technology. In noncyclic evolutions, a proposition relates the geometric phase to the area bounded by the phase-space trajectory and the shortest geodesic connecting its end points. The experimental demonstration of this geodesic rule proposition in different systems is of great interest, especially due to the potential use in quantum technology. Here, we report a previously unshown experimental confirmation of the geodesic rule for a noncyclic geometric phase by means of a spatial SU(2) matter-wave interferometer, demonstrating, with high precision, the predicted phase sign change and π jumps. We show the connection between our results and the Pancharatnam phase. Last, we point out that the geodesic rule may be applied to obtain the red shift in general relativity, enabling a new quantum tool to measure gravity. Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).We present a novel concept to achieve high performance and high safety simultaneously by passivating a Li-ion cell and then self-heating before use. By adding a small amount of triallyl phosphate in conventional electrolytes, we show that resistances of the passivated cells can increase by ~5×, thereby ensuring high safety and thermal stability. High power before battery operation is delivered by self-heating to an elevated temperature such as 60°C within tens of seconds. The present approach of building a resistive cell with highly stable materials and then delivering high power on demand through rapid thermal stimulation leads to a revolutionary route to high safety when batteries are not in use and high battery performance upon operation. Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).A well-known result in unconventional superconductivity is the fragility of nodal superconductors against nonmagnetic impurities. Despite this common wisdom, Bi2Se3-based topological superconductors have recently displayed unusual robustness against disorder. Here, we provide a theoretical framework that naturally explains what protects Cooper pairs from strong scattering in complex superconductors. Our analysis is based on the concept of superconducting fitness and generalizes the famous Anderson's theorem into superconductors having multiple internal degrees of freedom with simple assumptions such as the Born approximation. For concreteness, we report on the extreme example of the Cu x (PbSe)5(BiSe3)6 superconductor. Thermal conductivity measurements down to 50 mK not only give unambiguous evidence for the existence of nodes but also reveal that the energy scale corresponding to the scattering rate is orders of magnitude larger than the superconducting energy gap. This provides the most spectacular case of the generalized Anderson's theorem protecting a nodal superconductor. Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).One of the holy grails of materials science, unlocking structure-property relationships, has largely been pursued via bottom-up investigations of how the arrangement of atoms and interatomic bonding in a material determine its macroscopic behavior. Here, we consider a complementary approach, a top-down study of the organizational structure of networks of materials, based on the interaction between materials themselves. We unravel the complete "phase stability network of all inorganic materials" as a densely connected complex network of 21,000 thermodynamically stable compounds (nodes) interlinked by 41 million tie line (edges) defining their two-phase equilibria, as computed by high-throughput density functional theory. Analyzing the topology of this network of materials has the potential to uncover previously unidentified characteristics inaccessible from traditional atoms-to-materials paradigms. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/7acc2.html Using the connectivity of nodes in the phase stability network, we derive a rational, data-driven metric for material reactivity, the "nobility index," and quantitatively identify the noblest materials in nature. Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).Spin and valley degrees of freedom in materials without inversion symmetry promise previously unknown device functionalities, such as spin-valleytronics. Control of material symmetry with electric fields (ferroelectricity), while breaking additional symmetries, including mirror symmetry, could yield phenomena where chirality, spin, valley, and crystal potential are strongly coupled. Here we report the synthesis of a halide perovskite semiconductor that is simultaneously photoferroelectricity switchable and chiral. Spectroscopic and structural analysis, and first-principles calculations, determine the material to be a previously unknown low-dimensional hybrid perovskite (R)-(-)-1-cyclohexylethylammonium/(S)-(+)-1 cyclohexylethylammonium) PbI3. Optical and electrical measurements characterize its semiconducting, ferroelectric, switchable pyroelectricity and switchable photoferroelectric properties. Temperature dependent structural, dielectric and transport measurements reveal a ferroelectric-paraelectric phase transition. Circular dichroism spectroscopy confirms its chirality. The development of a material with such a combination of these properties will facilitate the exploration of phenomena such as electric field and chiral enantiomer-dependent Rashba-Dresselhaus splitting and circular photogalvanic effects. Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).