Nanoscale devices articles within Nature Physics

Featured

  • Article
    | Open Access

    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

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Leggett modes can occur when superconductivity arises in more than one band in a material and represent oscillation of the relative phases of the two superconducting condensates. Now, this mode is observed in Cd3As2, a Dirac semimetal.

    • Joseph J. Cuozzo
    • , W. Yu
    •  & Enrico Rossi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using the valley degree of freedom in analogy to spin to encode qubits could be advantageous as many of the known decoherence mechanisms do not apply. Now long relaxation times are demonstrated for valley qubits in bilayer graphene quantum dots.

    • Rebekka Garreis
    • , Chuyao Tong
    •  & Wei Wister Huang

  • News & Views |

    Measurements of two neighbouring silicon-based qubits show that the charge noise they each experience is correlated, suggesting a common origin. Understanding these correlations is crucial for performing error correction in these systems.

    • Łukasz Cywiński

  • Article |

    Errors in a quantum computer that are correlated between different qubits pose a considerable challenge for correction schemes. Measurements of noise in silicon spin qubits show that electric field fluctuations can create strongly correlated errors.

    • J. Yoneda
    • , J. S. Rojas-Arias
    •  & S. Tarucha

  • Article |

    Achieving low decoherence is challenging in hybrid quantum systems. A superconducting-circuit-based optomechanical platform realizes millisecond-scale quantum state lifetime, which allows tracking of the free evolution of a squeezed mechanical state.

    • Amir Youssefi
    • , Shingo Kono
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • Article |

    The behaviour of a superconductor can be altered by changing its symmetry properties. Coherently coupling two Josephson junctions breaks time-reversal and inversion symmetries, giving rise to a device with a controllable superconducting diode effect.

    • Sadashige Matsuo
    • , Takaya Imoto
    •  & Seigo Tarucha

  • Research Briefing |

    A coherent interface between a mechanical oscillator and superconducting electrical circuits would enable the control of quantum states of mechanical motion, but such interfaces often result in excess mechanical energy loss. A new material-agnostic approach is shown to achieve strong electromechanical coupling while preserving a long phonon lifetime.

  • Article |

    Electrical control of quantum mechanical oscillators is normally performed using piezoelectrics, but incorporating these additional materials can severely reduce performance. Electrostatic control has now been demonstrated in a silicon device.

    • Alkim Bozkurt
    • , Han Zhao
    •  & Mohammad Mirhosseini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Although mechanical resonators are routinely cooled to their quantum ground state, it has remained unclear if sizable nonlinearities could persist there. Experiments in the ultrastrong-coupling regime now show that this is possible.

    • C. Samanta
    • , S. L. De Bonis
    •  & A. Bachtold

  • News & Views |

    Generating and controlling noncollinear spin textures is a promising route towards developing next-generation logic architectures beyond CMOS. Now, these spin textures can be engineered in twisted magnetic two-dimensional materials.

    • Bevin Huang

  • News & Views |

    Quantum mechanical fluctuations of the electromagnetic field in a vacuum between two close together objects result in an attractive force. Now, it has been experimentally shown that by exploiting a similar repulsive interaction, attraction between objects can be modulated simply by tuning temperature.

    • Victoria Esteso Carrizo

  • Article |

    Established methods of controlling silicon spin qubits require high-frequency signals that can be difficult to implement for various reasons. Exploiting the coupling between spin and valley degrees of freedom provides an alternative approach.

    • Xinxin Cai
    • , Elliot J. Connors
    •  & John M. Nichol

  • News & Views |

    The magnetic flux in a superconducting loop can only change by discrete jumps called phase slips. The energy dissipated by an individual phase slip has now been detected thanks to advances in precision temperature measurements.

    • José Aumentado

  • Article |

    Superconducting currents around a loop containing a weak link can be quantized and only change during discrete events called phase slips. Now, the heat generated by a single phase slip and the subsequent relaxation have been experimentally observed.

    • E. Gümüş
    • , D. Majidi
    •  & C. B. Winkelmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Casimir forces are normally attractive and cause stiction, that is, static friction preventing surfaces in contact from starting to move. Now, a system exhibiting tunable repulsive critical Casimir forces, relevant for the development of micro- and nanodevices, is demonstrated.

    • Falko Schmidt
    • , Agnese Callegari
    •  & Giovanni Volpe

  • News & Views |

    Quantum sensing that uses electron spins in diamond can perform precise magnetic field measurements but does not work well at high magnetic fields. An alternative approach involving the spins of carbon-13 nuclei can operate in the high-field regime.

    • Norikazu Mizuochi

  • News & Views |

    Quantum waves can have stronger correlations than classical ones because of their particle nature. This effect has now been observed using quantum sound waves travelling in an acoustic waveguide.

    • H. Yamaguchi
    •  & D. Hatanaka

  • Article |

    Non-classical vibrations are generated and transmitted along a mechanical waveguide, providing a platform for distributing quantum information and realizing hybrid quantum devices using phonons in a solid-state system.

    • Amirparsa Zivari
    • , Robert Stockill
    •  & Simon Gröblacher

  • Letter |

    Heat transport in electronic systems is influenced by nearby superconductors due to the so-called proximity effect. Combining this with the manipulation of superconductivity using magnetic fields enables the control of nanoscale thermal transport.

    • Nadia Ligato
    • , Federico Paolucci
    •  & Francesco Giazotto

  • News & Views |

    A rare-earth ion in a long-lived clock state can control a nearby ensemble of nuclear spins. Interfacing this pristine photon emitter with a small quantum processor may be a route towards making identical solid-state nodes for quantum networks.

    • Claire Le Gall

  • Letter |

    Twisted double bilayer graphene is predicted to be a topological insulator under certain conditions. Simultaneous bulk and edge measurements now show metallic transport with a bulk bandgap, suggestive of this prediction.

    • Yimeng Wang
    • , Jonah Herzog-Arbeitman
    •  & Emanuel Tutuc

  • Article |

    Quantum networks require a connection between quantum memories and optical links, which often operate in different frequency ranges. An optomechanical device exploiting the strain dependence of a colour-centre spin provides such a spin–optics interface at room temperature.

    • Prasoon K. Shandilya
    • , David P. Lake
    •  & Paul E. Barclay

  • Article |

    A study of the dynamics of polymer translocation through synthetic nanopores provides a direct observation of tension propagation—a non-equilibrium description of the process of unfolding that a polymer undergoes during translocation.

    • Kaikai Chen
    • , Ining Jou
    •  & Nicholas A. W. Bell

  • Article |

    Quantum systems make it challenging to determine candidate Hamiltonians from experimental data. An automated protocol is presented and its capabilities to infer the correct Hamiltonian are demonstrated in a nitrogen-vacancy centre set-up.

    • Antonio A. Gentile
    • , Brian Flynn
    •  & Anthony Laing

  • Letter |

    The two-dimensional electron gas at an oxide interface is patterned to form a channel with a periodic potential imposed on top. This replicates the textbook Kronig–Penney model and leads to fractionalization of electron bands in the channel.

    • Megan Briggeman
    • , Hyungwoo Lee
    •  & Jeremy Levy

  • Perspective |

    Hybrid devices of superconductors and semiconductor nanowires may be topological and host majorana. This Perspective summarizes the current situation of the field, and highlights the developments in materials science required to make progress.

    • S. M. Frolov
    • , M. J. Manfra
    •  & J. D. Sau

  • Article |

    When interfacing a graphene layer with a thin solid emitter, the quantum plasmonic vacuum allows each solid electron to access all unoccupied valence states through the nonlocality of their light-matter interaction, creating ultra-strong coupling alongside mass and bandgap renormalization.

    • Yaniv Kurman
    •  & Ido Kaminer

  • Letter |

    Light-induced deformations in a film of superfluid helium covering an optical microresonator can greatly enhance Brillouin interactions, enabling strong coupling between counter-propagating modes as well as Brillouin lasing.

    • Xin He
    • , Glen I. Harris
    •  & Warwick P. Bowen

  • News & Views |

    Electrons driven through a suspended carbon nanotube by a constant bias excite mechanical vibrations — including self-sustaining oscillations — and, in some cases, even suppress them down to only a few quanta.

    • Martino Poggio
    •  & Nicola Rossi

  • News & Views |

    Qubits cannot exist without nonlinearity, but nonlinear elements in superconducting circuits lead to losses. A superconducting qubit has now been realized by nonlinearly coupling two microwave resonators, offering the promise of long coherence times.

    • Gerhard Kirchmair

  • Editorial |

    The demonstration of a quantum computational advantage is a milestone worth celebrating.

Browse broader subjects

Browse narrower subjects

Browse Nanoscale devices across other nature.com journals