This month, two scanning tunnelling microscopy studies report advances in our understanding of Yu–Shiba–Rusinov bound states. Our cover comes from Olof Peters et al., who used microwave radiation to enable photon-assisted tunnelling processes, thereby allowing more detailed scrutiny of these impurity states. Haonan Huang et al. showed tunnelling between two such states, a technique that can probe and enhance the impurity state lifetime.

See Franke et al. and SeeAst et al.

Higher-dimensional entanglement between two photons can be preserved for a photon passing through a complex medium by applying an appropriate scrambling operation on the entangled partner that does not enter the complex medium.

See Malik

See Forbes

The number 15 is created by quantum imaging, self-assembly of green-fluorescent-protein-active Escherichia coli bacteria, self-assembly of polystyrene beads and with a quantum gas microscope.

See Feature and Editorial

An interferometer device is used to detect the quantum-mechanical phase that is gained when two anyons are braided around each other. The fractional value of the phase proves that these quasiparticles are neither bosons nor fermions.

Manfra, Article

The interface between a quantum Hall state and a superconductor hosts topological modes. Here, interference between two such modes turns an electron into either a hole or an electron depending on the phase difference along the interference path.

Zhao, Article

Experiments realizing the indirect-drive fast ignition scheme for inertial confinement fusion are reported. Enabled by a tightly compressed target, an increase of neutron yield is observed.

See Zhang et al.

Activity in certain living systems can lead to swirling flows akin to turbulence. Here, the authors connect the dynamics of topological defects in starfish oocyte membranes to vortex dynamics in 2D Bose–Einstein condensates.

See Tan et al.

A detailed neutron-scattering study reveals a quantum spin liquid behaviour in Ce2Sn2O7 originating from its higher-order magnetic multipolar moments acting on the geometrically frustrated pyrochlore lattice.

See Sibille et al.

The physics that underlies the glass transition is both subtle and non-trivial. A machine learning approach based on graph networks is now shown to accurately predict the dynamics of glasses over a wider range of temperature, pressure and density.

See Bapst et al.

An experiment with three alternating-current generators demonstrates converse symmetry breaking — a phenomenon whereby the system achieves frequency synchronization when its component systems are tuned asymmetrically.

See Nishikawa et al.

In our understanding of planetary formation, it is still unclear how millimetre-sized dust grains grow into centimetre-sized aggregates. Microgravity experiments now show that electrical charging of the grains leads to the formation of larger clumps.

See Steinpilz et al.

A transient topological response in graphene is driven by a short pulse of light. When the Fermi energy is in the predicted band gap the Hall conductance is around two conductance quanta. An ultrafast detection technique enables the measurement.

See Cavalleri et al.