News & Views

An atomic Bose–Einstein condensate represents a highly correlated, coherent state of matter. Experiments now reveal that the collective matter-wave properties extend to include coherent dynamics of the spin degrees of freedom.

Excited quantum states in nature are normally extremely short-lived, and this certainly applies to most nuclei. But what makes the metastable nuclear states different? And how can we exploit them for useful applications?

Whether or not a superconductor is truly superconducting depends on its size and even its shape. In a geometry intermediate between one and two dimensions, it seems a thin film does not reach a state of zero resistance except at zero temperature.

Read-heads based on the manipulation of spin have already revolutionized the performance of magnetic data storage devices. The development of more-complex spin-devices using carbon nanotubes could enable the next logical step in spintronics.

The discovery of a superconductor is always exciting, but particularly so when the material is a common stationery item and the superconductivity is possibly unconventional.

Although recent years have seen substantial improvements in the perfomance of photonic-crystal cavities, their design has been a rather hit and miss affair. By turning around the general approach to cavity design through the use of Bloch waves, an important avenue to the discovery of optimal cavity geometries could be opened.

Physical phenomena associated with a quantum critical point are different from their classical counterpart in many ways. For one thing, the effects of quantum criticality might in some cases be observed far away, at unexpectedly high temperatures.

The wave nature of matter is well established for isolated particles, from electrons to molecules. Now experiment reveals that even deeply buried core-shell electrons in a diatomic molecule can emit coherently.

There is good reason to suppose that the Universe has more than three spatial dimensions. The first dedicated search for warped extra dimensions has drawn a blank, but hopes are high for the future.

Crackling noise emitted in systems as diverse as candy wrappers and earthquakes show strikingly similar behaviour, but how it is influenced by the details of these systems is unclear. A study that identifies the microscopic origin of unexplained asymmetries in the noise emitted by a magnet could provide some answers.

Wet sand is more stable than dry sand, but exactly how this greater stability arises has been the subject of considerable discussion. Conflicting ideas are now unified by a hybrid theory that considers both surface and bulk properties of a sandpile.