Nanoscience and technology articles within Nature Physics

Featured

  • Research Highlights |

    • Bart Verberck

  • News & Views |

    Small metal-free organic molecules on an epitaxial graphene monolayer are shown to receive a local magnetic moment from the substrate. This magnetic moment survives when many molecules combine to form a layer, with some indication of long-range ferromagnetic order.

    • Friedrich Reinert

  • Letter |

    The fractional alternating-current Josephson effect produces a series of steps in the current–voltage characteristics of a superconducting junction driven at radiofrequencies. This unusual phenomenon is now observed in a semiconductor–superconductor nanowire. What is more, a doubling in step size when a strong magnetic field is applied could be a possible signature of Majorana fermions, particles that are their own antiparticle.

    • Leonid P. Rokhinson
    • , Xinyu Liu
    •  & Jacek K. Furdyna

  • News & Views |

    Graphene could offer an efficient and controllable interface between nanoscale optics and electronics, and promises a new generation of optoelectronic devices.

    • Stefan A. Maier

  • News & Views |

    Single electrons in quantum dots can be disturbed by the apparatus used to measure them. The disturbance can be mediated by incoherent phonons — literally, noise. Engineering acoustic interference could negate these deleterious effects and bring quantum dots closer to becoming a robust quantum technology.

    • Thaddeus D. Ladd

  • Article |

    A demonstration of the ability to transmit spin currents over distances of more than one hundred micrometres with an efficiency of up to 75% in graphene grown epitaxially on silicon carbide improves the prospects of graphene-based spintronic devices.

    • Bruno Dlubak
    • , Marie-Blandine Martin
    •  & Albert Fert

  • Letter |

    You influence a system by measuring it. This back-action is an important consideration when studying tiny structures in which quantum effects play a crucial role. Researchers now show that quantum interference could provide a way to negate back-action in quantum-dot-qubit circuits.

    • G. Granger
    • , D. Taubert
    •  & A. S. Sachrajda

  • Article |

    Small clusters of magnetic atoms can behave in very different ways to those same atoms in bulk. Arranging iron atoms one by one into complex but well-defined patterns on a copper surface enables the construction of nanoscale magnetic structures with tailored characteristics.

    • Alexander Ako Khajetoorians
    • , Jens Wiebe
    •  & Roland Wiesendanger

  • Letter |

    Conventional approaches to optomechanics control and monitor the motion of nanoscale mechanical resonators by coupling it to a high-quality photonic cavity. An all-mechanical implementation is now demonstrated by creating a so-called phonon cavity from different oscillating modes of the resonator. This idea opens a route to using solid-state systems to investigate physics not accessible in their analogous, but better developed, quantum-optics counterpart.

    • I. Mahboob
    • , K. Nishiguchi
    •  & H. Yamaguchi

  • Letter |

    The degree to which an electrical current is spin polarized is usually determined by how easily it travels across an interface with a magnetic contact. By using nonlinear interactions between spin and charge in graphene, the polarization of spin currents can be measured without magnetic contacts.

    • Ivan J. Vera-Marun
    • , Vishal Ranjan
    •  & Bart J. van Wees

  • News & Views |

    The electronic degrees of freedom in semiconductor membranes provide an innovative new way of cooling mechanical motion.

    • Andrew Armour

  • Article |

    Chiral superconducting states are expected to support a variety of exotic and potentially useful phenomena. Theoretical analysis suggests that just such a state could emerge in a doped graphene monolayer.

    • Rahul Nandkishore
    • , L. S. Levitov
    •  & A. V. Chubukov

  • Article |

    A novel mechanism for cooling nanomechanical objects has now been demonstrated. Optically excited electron–hole pairs produce a mechanical stress that damps the motion of a gallium arsenide membrane. In this way, the nanoscale resonator is cooled from room temperature to 4 K.

    • K. Usami
    • , A. Naesby
    •  & E. S. Polzik

  • Letter |

    The presence, or otherwise, of magnetism in graphene has been the subject of much debate. A systematic study of point defects—a widely suggested source of ferromagnetism in graphene—suggests that although they can exhibit net spin, they remain paramagnetic, even at liquid helium temperature.

    • R. R. Nair
    • , M. Sepioni
    •  & I. V. Grigorieva

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