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The twisted stacking of two layered crystals has led to the emerging moiré physics as well as intriguing chiral phenomena such as chiral phonon and photon generation. In this work, we identified and theoretically formulated a non-trivial twist-enabled coupling mechanism in twisted bilayer photonic crystal (TBPC), which connects the bound state in the continuum (BIC) mode to the free space through the twist-enabled channel. Moreover, the radiation from TBPC hosts an optical vortex in the far field with both odd and even topological orders. We quantitatively analyzed the twist-enabled coupling between the BIC mode and other non-local modes in the photonic crystals, giving rise to radiation carrying orbital angular momentum. The optical vortex generation is robust against geometric disturbance, making TBPC a promising platform for well-defined vortex generation. As a result, TBPCs not only provide a new approach to manipulating the angular momentum of photons, but may also enable novel applications in integrated optical information processing and optical tweezers. Our work broadens the field of moiré photonics and paves the way toward the novel application of moiré physics.

Well-resolved direct numerical simulations (DNS) have been performed of the flow in a smooth circular pipe of radius$R$and axial length$10{\rm \pi} R$at friction Reynolds numbers up to$Re_\tau =5200$using the pseudo-spectral code OPENPIPEFLOW. Various turbulence statistics are documented and compared with other DNS and experimental data in pipes as well as channels. Small but distinct differences between various datasets are identified. The friction factor$\lambda$overshoots by$2\,\%$and undershoots by$0.6\,\%$the Prandtl friction law at low and high$Re$ranges, respectively. In addition,$\lambda$in our results is slightly higher than in Pirozzoliet al.(J. Fluid Mech., vol. 926, 2021, A28), but matches well the experiments in Furuichiet al.(Phys. Fluids, vol. 27, issue 9, 2015, 095108). The log-law indicator function, which is nearly indistinguishable between pipe and channel up to$y^+=250$, has not yet developed a plateau farther away from the wall in the pipes even for the$Re_\tau =5200$cases. The wall shear stress fluctuations and the inner peak of the axial turbulence intensity – which grow monotonically with$Re_\tau$– are lower in the pipe than in the channel, but the difference decreases with increasing$Re_\tau$. While the wall value is slightly lower in the channel than in the pipe at the same$Re_\tau$, the inner peak of the pressure fluctuation shows negligible differences between them. The Reynolds number scaling of all these quantities agrees with both the logarithmic and defect-power laws if the coefficients are properly chosen. The one-dimensional spectrum of the axial velocity fluctuation exhibits a$k^{-1}$dependence at an intermediate distance from the wall – also seen in the channel. In summary, these high-fidelity data enable us to provide better insights into the flow physics in the pipes as well as the similarity/difference among different types of wall turbulence.

Miniaturized spectrometers in the mid-infrared (MIR) are critical in developing next-generation portable electronics for advanced sensing and analysis. The bulky gratings or detector/filter arrays in conventional micro-spectrometers set a physical limitation to their miniaturization. In this work, we demonstrate a single-pixel MIR micro-spectrometer that reconstructs the sample transmission spectrum by a spectrally dispersed light source instead of spatially grated light beams. The spectrally tunable MIR light source is realized based on the thermal emissivity engineered via the metal-insulator phase transition of vanadium dioxide (VO₂). We validate the performance by showing that the transmission spectrum of a magnesium fluoride (MgF₂) sample can be computationally reconstructed from sensor responses at varied light source temperatures. With potentially minimum footprint due to the array-free design, our work opens the possibility where compact MIR spectrometers are integrated into portable electronic systems for versatile applications.

Control and understanding of ensembles of skyrmions is important for realization of future technologies. In particular, the order-disorder transition associated with the 2D lattice of magnetic skyrmions can have significant implications for transport and other dynamic functionalities. To date, skyrmion ensembles have been primarily studied in bulk crystals, or as isolated skyrmions in thin film devices. Here, we investigate the condensation of the skyrmion phase at room temperature and zero field in a polar, van der Waals magnet. We demonstrate that we can engineer an ordered skyrmion crystal through structural confinement on theμm scale, showing control over this order-disorder transition on scales relevant for device applications.