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Quantum phase transitions and emergent electronic ordered states are intriguing phenomena in condensed matter physics. Using a ruthenate material system, the authors employ scanning tunnelling microscopy and spectroscopy to visualise the transition from a metal to a Mott insulator via doping and find evidence for emergent charge order.
Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy is an important technology for many branches of science where unpaired electrons need to be unambiguously detected. The authors propose an EPR spectrometer that uses a single artificial atom as a sensitive detector of spin magnetization enabling them to significantly improve the sensitivity when small sample volumes are present.
Magnetic resonance imaging is widely used for the diagnosis of many ailments and efforts to continuously improve image resolution and decrease acquisition time are strongly sought after. The authors demonstrate that the application of specially designed metamaterials could help improve the signal-to-noise ratio, which in turn can be translated to boost the performance of MRI.
Soliton explosions are a nonlinear instability phenomenon in which a dissipative soliton experiences a sudden structural collapse, but can return back to its original shape despite the strong energy dissipation. The authors report the experimental observation of soliton explosions in a fibre laser, finding that the instability is triggered by the collision of double dissipative solitons.
Ferroelectric negative capacitance could be used to overcome the Boltzmann limit for next-generation energy-efficient transistors. This study demonstrates the performance capability of nanothick ZrO2 observing negative capacity and ferroelectric inductance and characterizes the role of multidomains in the observed behaviors.
Standard time domain photoacoustic imaging techniques neglect the abundant information encoded in the frequency domain of photoacoustic signals. The authors present an imaging technique that utilizes features in photoacoustic signal power spectra to visualize structures of different scale in image datasets acquired using classical methods.
Applications of high temperature superconductors often use layers of materials, and the application of a magnetic field to these layers can generate disk-like pancake vortices within layers crossed with vortices in between layers. The authors present low temperature magnetic force microscopy imaging on a layered superconducting crystal and demonstrate that they are able to manipulate the crossed vortex lattices, hence making this technique an ideal tool for imaging and manipulating superconducting vortices.
The electronic structure and transport properties of organic semiconductors are known not to follow standard semiconductor models and a complete understanding is still lacking in the literature. The authors experimentally and theoretically demonstrate the role of phonon–charge interactions on the highest occupied molecular orbital and mobility of the organic semiconductor tetracene.
The necessity to design transistors at increasingly smaller scale is at the heart of future technological developments. The authors report a fabrication method to produce uniform electrochemical metallization cells at the nanometer scale with precisely designed geometries and which demonstrate applicable functionality.
Antiferromagnetic materials were considered unfavorable for spintronic devices due to their zero net magnetic moment however recent research suggests that they may be much more useful than their ferromagnetic counterparts. The authors model an antiferromagnetic system, where the spin textures can be controlled and detected by breaking the inversion symmetry and by applying a magnetic field.
The valley Hall effect in transition metal dichalcogenides has been studied as a potential mean to develop new electronic and optoelectronic devices. The authors theoretically demonstrate that valley Hall effect can be derived from spin degrees of freedom, which is distinct from the conventional orbital related type.
Quantifying the entropic effects of confined polymers in biological environments or single molecule experiments is a challenging task. Using the same strategy as the chemical potential of solutions, the authors derive a simple entropic force formula, which largely reduces that difficulty and clarifies several recent experiments in confined polymers.
Topological superconductors possess Majorana modes at the edge and are important in future quantum computational devices. The authors theoretically demonstrate the Larkin-Ovchinnikov superconducting phase can be topologically non-trivial in certain sandwich structure or iron-based superconductor films and possess a chain of Majorana modes.
Single layers of transition metal dichalcogenides are expected to be suitable for a number of applications and by stacking layers of different materials on top of each other (heterostructures) an even richer variety of properties can be explored. To this end the authors theoretically investigate cross material exciton states in a heterostructures of MoSe2 and WSe2 layers.
Vibration is a promising source of renewable energy, but to be of use it must be efficiently converted into electrical energy. In this paper, the authors propose a poly-stable energy harvesting approach for achieving synergetic multistable vibration which does not rely on external magnetic fields.
Negative capacitance describes a phenomenon where the increase in the charge of the capacitor results in decreasing its voltage. The authors put forth a ferroelectric nanodot harboring two polarization domains which stabilize static reversible negative capacitance.
Spin torque nano-oscillators are important candidates for several device applications. The authors demonstrate that the combination of two excitation methods, spin-polarised tunnelling current and pure spin Hall current, allows them to achieve greater injected spin current densities and power output than by each individual mechanism.
Plasmonic nanostructures may provide a way to further enhance the strong light-matter coupling in 2D materials. In this paper, the authors use Raman spectroscopy to characterize the charge transfer, temperature, and strain of an individual gold nanoparticle on a sheet of graphene.
The intriguing coexistence of superconductivity and magnetism is examined via first-principle calculations in an iron-based superconductor. By calculating the RKKY interaction and bared susceptibility, the authors explained the unchanged Curie temperature and largely suppressed superconducting temperature upon doping observed in experiment.
Research on spin qubit systems for use in quantum computational devices has recently focused on the use of hole spins rather than the conventional single electron spins. The authors report the spin relaxation time of a single hole by developing a novel spin-sensitive charge-latching technique using a GaAs gated double quantum dot device.
