Perspectives in 2021

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  • Chemically active, flexible sheets convert chemical energy into the flow of the surrounding fluid, which, in turn, transforms the sheet’s shape. This Perspective describes how this feedback produces shape-changing 3D objects, coupled oscillators exhibiting spatiotemporal coordination and the rotation of chemically driven gears.

    • Raj Kumar Manna
    • Abhrajit Laskar
    • Anna C. Balazs
    Perspective
  • Nanoscopic chiroptics studies the spin-dependent asymmetric light–matter interactions at the nanoscale, where the asymmetry can stem from the intrinsic properties of materials, structures or light. This Perspective establishes an overarching framework for nanoscopic chiroptics across the spatial, moment and integrated spatial–momentum dimensions, and discusses applications enabled by this approach.

    • Yang Chen
    • Wei Du
    • Cheng-Wei Qiu
    Perspective
  • Graphene nanoribbons are an emerging class of 1D materials hosting rich quantum-confined and topological states. This Perspective discusses recent breakthroughs in graphene nanoribbon materials and devices, and identifies key challenges towards electronics and quantum information applications.

    • Haomin Wang
    • Hui Shan Wang
    • Xinran Wang
    Perspective
  • This Perspective describes how visualizations help to understand several key aspects of big science projects: productivity and impact over different phases, evolution of teams and their management, big data and cyberinfrastructure, and measuring and communicating success.

    • Katy Börner
    • Filipi Nascimento Silva
    • Staša Milojević
    Perspective
  • The study of hypernuclei contributes to the understanding of the fundamental baryonic interactions and the physics of neutron stars. This Perspective discusses different experimental approaches to answer open questions regarding hypernuclei.

    • Takehiko R. Saito
    • Wenbou Dou
    • Xiaohong Zhou
    Perspective
  • The recent measurement of a nonlinear Hall effect has provided a new way to probe the spectral, symmetry and topological properties of quantum materials. This Perspective discusses the open questions around this new effect and potential applications.

    • Z. Z. Du
    • Hai-Zhou Lu
    • X. C. Xie
    Perspective
  • Blending occurs when multiple sources of light occupy the same region of the sky. This Perspective discusses the problems arising from blending for astrophysical and cosmological studies, and introduces the two main strategies for solutions.

    • Peter Melchior
    • Rémy Joseph
    • Daniel Gruen
    Perspective
  • The Weyl orbit is a type of cyclotron orbit that appears in topological semimetals. This Perspective discusses the Weyl orbit in the context of the 3D quantum Hall effect and provides an outlook on new phenomena that can arise from these states.

    • Cheng Zhang
    • Yi Zhang
    • Faxian Xiu
    Perspective
  • The rotations of levitated particles can show pronounced quantum effects, enabling tests of quantum physics and torque measurements with unprecedented sensitivity. Breakthroughs in cooling and controlling nanorotors set the stage for such experiments.

    • Benjamin A. Stickler
    • Klaus Hornberger
    • M. S. Kim
    Perspective
  • The recent discovery of higher-order band topology in topological insulators has unveiled the hierarchical structure of topological band theory. This Perspective reviews this rapidly developing field and discusses future directions, including open challenges, future trends, synergy and its use in other fields and potential applications.

    • Biye Xie
    • Hai-Xiao Wang
    • Yanfeng Chen
    Perspective
  • Experiments suggest that graphene systems with moiré potentials exhibit orbital magnetism. This Perspective discusses the experimental evidence and introduces theoretical perspectives on the phenomena.

    • Jianpeng Liu
    • Xi Dai
    Perspective
  • Complexity economics relaxes the assumptions of neoclassical economics to assume that agents differ, that they have imperfect information about other agents and they must, therefore, try to make sense of the situation they face. This Perspective sketches the ideas of complexity economics and describes how it links to complexity science more broadly.

    • W. Brian Arthur
    Perspective