Technical Review

X-ray lasers offer unprecedented capabilities, with their tunable, intense and short X-ray pulses. This Technical Review discusses the current and future use of X-ray lasers for probing molecular catalysts and metalloenzymes and their chemical reactions in real time and under functional conditions.

Fourier ptychography is an imaging approach that addresses the intrinsic trade-off between resolution and field of view in optical systems and provides computational correction of optical aberrations. This Technical Review surveys its implementations and applications.

Symmetry breaking plays a significant role in the determination of the fascinating physical phenomena and quantum phase transitions in 2D materials. This Review discusses the state-of-the-art physical and chemical approaches to engineer the symmetry breaking of 2D materials and their heterostructures.

Understanding light–matter interactions in layered materials is crucial for applications in photonics and optoelectronics. This Technical Review discusses the optical spectroscopy techniques to access details of the electronic band structure, crystal quality, crystal orientation and spin–valley polarization, including key aspects of practical set-ups to perform experiments for a broad range of applications.

Acoustic and optical waves can be used to exert non-contact forces on microscopic and mesoscopic objects. In this Technical Review, we compare and contrast the use of these modalities, or combinations thereof, in terms of sample manipulation and suitability for biomedical studies.

Quantum simulation with ultracold atomic gases is an established platform for investigating complex quantum processes. Focusing on optical lattice experiments, this Technical Review overviews the available tools and their applications to the simulation of solid-state physics problems.

Quantum technologies require an extremely precise functioning of their components which is ensured by sophisticated tools for device characterization. This Technical Review surveys and assesses the currently available tools according to their overall complexity, information gain, and underlying assumptions.

Methods for measuring stress in living cells, tissues and organs are advancing steadily and are increasingly being used for biomedical applications. In this Review, we discuss the concept of tissue stress and the techniques available to measure it in 2D and 3D cell and tissue cultures and in vivo.

Ion traps enable the precise control and manipulation of the quantum state of a trapped ion. This Technical Review discusses the way in which ion-trap microchips can be fabricated and integrated with advanced on-chip features for implementing practical quantum technologies.

Plasmon-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (PERS) is a highly sensitive technique that can provide molecular fingerprint information. This Technical Review discusses the fundamental principles, advantages and limitations of PERS, key issues in using PERS and interpreting results, and state-of-the-art applications in materials characterization, bioanalysis and the study of surfaces.

Active matter consists of energy-consuming units, which self-propel, exert forces on their neighbours and act collectively, resulting in emergent non-equilibrium behaviour. This Review surveys computational models that describe a wide range of active systems, from synthetic microswimmers to animal herds.

Metadynamics is a technique to enhance the probability of observing rare events, such as chemical reactions and phase transitions, in molecular dynamics simulations. This Technical Review surveys the technique, addressing the critical issues that are met in practical applications.

Cosmological computer simulations of galaxy formation emerged as the primary tool to study structure formation in the Universe. This Technical Review describes the main techniques and ingredients of such simulations and their application to develop and constrain galaxy formation theories.

Neutron spectroscopy is a powerful probe to study the dynamics in materials. This Technical Review assesses the state-of-the-art experimental spectroscopic methods, which are optimized to provide high energy resolution and can reveal dynamic processes on the picosecond and nanosecond timescales.

Numerical methods such as the close-coupling, R-matrix and Kohn variational methods have been around for decades, but more recently they have been applied to the treatment of the time-dependent interaction of strong electromagnetic fields with atoms and molecules.

Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) is a tool for directly probing the electronic structure of solids and has had a crucial role in studying topological materials. In this Technical Review, we discuss the latest developments of various ARPES techniques and their applications to topological materials

Advances in semiconductor technologies have enabled the development of numerous designs of silicon tracking detectors in particle physics. This Technical Review outlines the current state-of-the-art technologies and discusses challenges, future directions and some of the recent applications outside particle physics.

This Review describes how acoustic cavitation can be used to improve the delivery of drugs for the treatment of diseases such as cancer and stroke. Methods for seeding cavitation, treatment monitoring, and current and future clinical applications are described.

Quantum aspects of transport through single molecules are observable at room temperature. In this Technical Review, we discuss the different processes and energy scales involved in charge transport through single-molecule junctions, the resulting electronic functionalities and the new possibilities for controlling these functionalities for the realization of nanoscale devices.

The knowledge of local structures of non-crystalline materials is of fundamental importance in the understanding of their physical properties. This Review describes recent advances in local structural analysis methods, which shed new light on mysterious phenomena in liquids and glasses.