Browse Articles

Understanding heterogeneous topological structures in real-world complex networks is challenged by the difficulty of describing their multifractal nature and inferring their generator rules. Here, the authors present a weighted multifractal graph model as a generative approach for studying the structural properties of complex networks in realistic scenarios where only partial observational data is available or the input network is noisy, and demonstrate it on biological networks.

Controlling active matter represents an exciting avenue for studying collective pattern formation. In this article the authors present optical control of persistent flows of active filaments-motor protein mixtures and show how boundaries determine the architecture of active flows

Wetting of surfaces can be affected by surface roughness, presence of surface chemical defects, or by electric fields. Here, the authors perform electrowetting experiments on microstriped electrodes and show that the droplet’s static contact angle hysteresis can be controlled by an inhomogeneous electric field while remaining isotropic, as does the droplet contact radius.

Recent studies have shown that complex systems are often best represented by generalized networks such as hypergraphs, multilayer networks, and temporal networks. Here, the authors propose a unified framework to investigate cluster synchronization patterns in generalized networks and demonstrate the existence of chimera states that emerge exclusively in the presence of higher-order interactions.

All-optical platforms hold potential for fast and efficient analog computing, but are limited by their size and poor reconfigurability. Here, a zero-index nanophotonic platform enables post-Moore’s law analog optical computing, processing data with high throughput and low-energy levels.

While public space is traditionally shared by pedestrian and cars, the distancing measures imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic have underlined the need for wider pedestrian spaces. Here, the authors take a complex network approach to analyze sidewalk data from cities across the world to evidence a strong unbalance in the space distribution between cars and pedestrian, and propose a strategy to improve urban walkability within a socially distancing context and without compromising road traffic.

Elastocaloric materials exhibit temperature changes under applied stress and could be the basis for an environmentally friendly cooling system if issues with their long term stability can be addressed. Here, the authors design and build an elastocaloric device using evaporation and condensation of a fluid achieving enhanced specific cooling power and long term stability.

Sections of the Large Hadron Collider generate more secondary electrons, which induce heat load problems and limit collider performance. Here, beamline components are examined, surface modifications responsible for enhanced secondary electron emission are identified, and curative solutions are proposed.

The manipulation of spin degree of freedom allows the exploration of novel phenomena at the nanoscale. The authors achieved unprecedented submicroKelvin temperatures in the spin system of nuclei embedded in low dimensional semiconductors. A result that opens the way to the investigation of spin-spin interactions and exotic spin-ordered phases.

The evolution of epidemic outbreaks in urban settings is known to stem from the interplay between demographic, structural, and economical characteristics. Here, the authors combine a data driven approach with meta-population modelling to show that the epidemic vulnerability of cities hinges on the morphology of human flows, and propose how a city’s mobility backbone could be modified to minimize the epidemic risk.

The Kuramoto model describes how collective synchronization appears spontaneously in a population of rhythmic units and is typically studied on a one dimensional circle. Here, the authors generalise the Kuramoto model on higher-dimensional manifolds and show that it achieves almost global convergence to synchronization and, in even dimensions, the fully synchronized state is attainable for nonidentical frequencies, in sharp contrast with the classical one-dimensional model.

Here, Zanin and Olivares review the permutation patterns-based metrics used to distinguish chaos from stochasticity in discrete time series. They analyse their performance and computational cost, and compare their applicability to real-world time series.

Emerging experimental observation suggests that asymmetrical partitioning in cell division plays an important role in cell-to-cell variability, cell fate determination, cellular aging, and rejuvenation. Here, the authors propose a method based on multicolor flow cytometry to measure asymmetric division of cellular organelles, finding that cell cytoplasm is divided symmetrically but mitochondria and membrane lipids are asymmetrically distributed, and explain these observations through a minimal model of asymmetric partitioning based on biased binomial statistics.

Photon activation analysis is a non-destructive technique for material characterization that require high photon energies. Here, laser-driven accelerator is considered as a high-energy photon source and its optimization for photon activation analysis explored theoretically.

Excitonic physics dominates the optical response of semiconductor monolayers but single particle band structure parameters are hard to probe experimentally. Here, spin-orbit splitting in the conduction band of monolayer WSe₂ is revealed by the identification of the Rydberg series of dark excitons.

Controlling the generation of solitons in multimode photonic systems may boost the performance of optical communication networks. Here, the conditions under which an experimentally observed walk-off multimode soliton is generated are revealed.

Droplet impact on surfaces has wide applications regardless of the discipline area and several hypotheses have been put forward to explain the mechanism of film boiling. Here, the authors combine theory and experiment to investigate liquid drop impact off hot hydrophilic substrates, and explain the transition between deposition and rebound in terms of vapour percolation.

Ion-solid interactions are governed by a range of complex processes the direct experimental observation of which pose their own set of challenges. Here, the authors present a joint experimental and first-principles approach to study and describe the underlying mechanism of electron capture for an ion travelling through layers of graphene with monolayer precision.

Spintronic devices, where the spin of the electron becomes the main carrier of information, offer a promising avenue to develop quantum devices. The authors experimentally and theoretically investigate spin-polarization and spin-orbit mixing in a W(110) surface, and provide a mean to fine tune the quantum (de)coherence of materials by changing the spin polarization of a conduction electron in a spintronic device