Nonlinear wave dynamics on a chip
Abstract
Shallow water waves are a striking example of nonlinear hydrodynamics, giving rise to phenomena such as tsunamis and undular waves. These dynamics are typically studied in hundreds-of-meter-long wave flumes. Here, we demonstrate a chip-scale, quantum-enabled wave flume. The wave flume exploits nanometer-thick superfluid helium films and optomechanical interactions to achieve nonlinearities surpassing those of extreme terrestrial flows. Measurements reveal wave steepening, shock fronts, and soliton fission -- nonlinear behaviors long predicted in superfluid helium but never previously directly observed. Our approach enables lithography-defined wave flume geometries, optomechanical control of hydrodynamic properties, and orders of magnitude faster measurements than terrestrial flumes. Together, this opens a new frontier in hydrodynamics, combining quantum fluids and nanophotonics to explore complex wave dynamics at microscale.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2504.13001,
title = {Nonlinear wave dynamics on a chip},
author = {Matthew T. Reeves and Walter W. Wasserman and Raymond A. Harrison and Igor Marinkovic and Nicole Luu and Andreas Sawadsky and Yasmine L. Sfendla and Glen I. Harris and Warwick P. Bowen and Christopher G. Baker},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.13001},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
MTR and WWW contributed equally. Main text: 4 figures; Supplementary material: 32 pages, 17 figures