Exceptional points (EPs) have long promised enhanced sensing of physical signals, but have practically been limited by simultaneous enhancement of noise. Aligning an EP's non-analytic response with target perturbations while suppressing noise has, however, remained challenging. Here we show that fully passive, phase-tuned multi-port scattering networks enable scattering EPs with tailored anisotropic response to perturbations. We leverage projection-induced non-unitarity to realize effective non-Hermitian behavior when measuring only a subset of system ports. By formulating EP design in terms of the discriminant of the projected scattering sub-block and its directional derivatives, we give control-counting rules relating the number of programmable link phases to achievable Riemann surface topologies. We demonstrate our framework in a four-port photonic network by designing both an anisotropic EP and a Dirac-type EP with linear splitting along two parametric directions. We further suppress the global thermal drift response of a network-based sensor to a 3/2 power-law scaling while retaining square-root sensitivity to localized signals. Since the effective non-Hermiticity arises purely from port projection, our approach transfers to integrated photonic and microwave meshes, acoustic circuits, and projected metasurfaces, offering a phase-only route to reconfigurable non-Hermitian response and noise-robust EP sensing.
Autonomous multifunctional image processing via programmable multimode lasing
Tsinghua University（清华大学）；Key Laboratory of Photonic Control Technology, Ministry of Education, Tsinghua University（教育部光子控制技术重点实验室，清华大学）；State Key Laboratory of Precision Space-time Information Sensing Technology（精密时空信息传感技术国家重点实验室）；The University of Hong Kong（香港大学）；City University of Hong Kong（香港城市大学）
Interferometric Readout of Momentum-Space Topology in a Programmable Dissipative Photonic Circuit
KTH Royal Institute of Technology（皇家理工学院）；Stockholm University（斯德哥尔摩大学）；Singapore University of Technology and Design（新加坡科技设计大学）；Huazhong University of Science and Technology（华中科技大学）
Wavelength-Multiplexed 2D Beam Steering via a Passive Diffractive Network
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of California, Los Angeles（加州大学洛杉矶分校电气与计算机工程系）；Bioengineering Department, University of California, Los Angeles（加州大学洛杉矶分校生物医学工程系）；California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI), University of California, Los Angeles（加州大学洛杉矶分校加州纳米系统研究所）
Coherent Perfect Tunneling at Exceptional Points via Directional Degeneracy
Institute of Estuarine and Coastal Research, School of Ocean Engineering and Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University / Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai)（中山大学海洋工程与技术学院河口海岸研究所/南方海洋科学与工程广东省实验室（珠海））；State and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Estuarine Hydraulic Technology / Guangdong Provincial Engineering Research Center of Coasts, Islands and Reefs / Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Marine Resources and Coastal Engineering / Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Information Technology for Deep Water Acoustics / Key Laboratory of Comprehensive Observation of Polar Environment (Sun Yat-Sen University), Ministry of Education（河口水动力技术省部共建国家重点实验室培育基地/广东省海岸岛礁工程研究中心/广东省海洋资源与海岸工程重点实验室/广东省深水声学信息技术重点实验室/教育部极地环境综合观测重点实验室（中山大学））；Zhuhai Research Center, Hanjiang National Laboratory（汉江国家实验室珠海研究中心）；School of Marine Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University（中山大学海洋科学学院）
Non-Hermitian Exceptional Topology on a Klein Bottle Photonic Circuit
KTH Royal Institute of Technology（皇家理工学院）；Stockholm University（斯德哥尔摩大学）；Rochester Institute of Technology（罗切斯特理工学院）；Huazhong University of Science and Technology（华中科技大学）
Non-volatile Programmable Photonic Integrated Circuits using Mechanically Latched MEMS: A System-Level Scheme Enabling Power-Connection-Free Operation Without Performance Compromise
State Key Laboratory of Information Photonics and Optical Communications, School of Electronic Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications（北京邮电大学电子工程学院信息光子学与光通信国家重点实验室）
Exceptional point induced by hyperbolicity in an electrostatic spherical shell
International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory（国际伊比利亚纳米技术实验室）；University of Lorraine（洛林大学）；University of Minho（米尼奥大学）；University of Southern Denmark（南丹麦大学）
Higher-order exceptional points unveiled by nilpotence and mathematical induction
NTT Research, Inc.（NTT研究所）；Nanophotonics Center, NTT, Inc.（NTT光子学中心）；NTT Basic Research Laboratories, NTT, Inc.（NTT基础研究中心）；Central Michigan University（中密歇根大学）；Department of Physics, Institute of Science Tokyo（东京科学大学物理学系）
