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  • Rotational symmetry is shown to protect the quadratic dispersion of out-of-plane flexural vibrations in graphene and other two-dimensional materials against phonon–phonon interactions, making the bending rigidity of these materials non-divergent. The quadratic dispersion is then consistent with the propagation of sound in the graphene plane.

    Research Briefing
  • A successful silicon spin qubit design should be rapidly scalable by benefiting from industrial transistor technology. This investigation of exchange interactions between two FinFET qubits provides a guide to implementing two-qubit gates for hole spins.

    • Simon Geyer
    • Bence Hetényi
    • Andreas V. Kuhlmann
    ArticleOpen Access
  • The Q-value of electron capture in 163Ho has been determined with an uncertainty of 0.6 eV c–2 through a combination of high-precision Penning-trap mass spectrometry and precise atomic physics calculations. This high-precision measurement provides insight into systematic errors in neutrino mass measurements.

    Research Briefing
  • As counterparts to optical frequency combs, magnonic frequency combs could have broad applications if their initiation thresholds were low and the ‘teeth’ of the comb plentiful. Progress has now been made through exploiting so-called exceptional points to enhance the nonlinear coupling between magnons and produce wider magnonic frequency combs.

    Research Briefing
  • A practical and hardware-efficient blueprint for fault-tolerant quantum computing has been developed, using quantum low-density-parity-check codes and reconfigurable neutral-atom arrays. The scheme requires ten times fewer qubits and paves the way towards large-scale quantum computing using existing experimental technologies.

    Research Briefing
  • Frequency combs, which are important for applications in precision spectroscopy, depend on material nonlinearities for their function, which can be hard to engineer. Now an approach combining magnons and exceptional points is shown to be effective.

    • Congyi Wang
    • Jinwei Rao
    • Wei Lu
    Article
  • Controlling orbital magnetic moments for applications can be difficult. Now local probes of a kagome material, TbV6Sn6, demonstrate how the spin Berry curvature can produce a large orbital Zeeman effect that can be tuned with a magnetic field.

    • Hong Li
    • Siyu Cheng
    • Ilija Zeljkovic
    Article
  • Connecting two superfluid reservoirs leads to both particle and entropy flow between the systems. Now, a direct measurement of the entropy current and production in ultracold quantum gases reveals how superfluidity enhances entropy transport.

    • Philipp Fabritius
    • Jeffrey Mohan
    • Tilman Esslinger
    ArticleOpen Access
  • Bart Verberck uses the musical cent as a pretext to touch on some of the intricacies of musical tuning systems.

    • Bart Verberck
    Measure for Measure
  • Eighty years on from the publication of Erwin Schrödinger’s interdisciplinary analysis on the origin of order in living organisms — What is Life? — we look at how physicists and biologists are approaching the topic today.

    Editorial
  • When photons impinge on a material, free electrons can be created by the photoelectric effect. The emitted electron current usually fluctuates with Poisson statistics, but if squeezed quantum light is applied, the electrons bunch up.

    • Alfred Leitenstorfer
    • Peter Baum
    News & Views
  • As amorphous solids, glasses and gels are similar, but the origins of their different elastic properties are unclear. Simulations now suggest differing free-energy-minimizing pathways: structural ordering for glasses and interface reduction for gels.

    • Yinqiao Wang
    • Michio Tateno
    • Hajime Tanaka
    Article