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When multicellular systems need to communicate over long distances, and signalling molecules are too slow to diffuse, travelling fronts of these molecules emerge—a phenomenon now reconstituted in a coupled array of artificial cells.
Bound states in semiconductor–superconductor hybrids are shown to have parity lifetimes of over 10 milliseconds, suggesting that they could provide a platform for topological quantum computing.
To study atomic-scale friction in a controlled environment, researchers used two trapped, laser-cooled ions in an additional optical potential. This set-up provides a better understanding of the interplay between thermal and structural lubricity.
Although electron motion is prohibited in magnetic insulators, the electron spin can be transported by magnons. Such magnons, generated and detected using all-electrical methods, are now shown to travel micrometre distances at room temperature.
Nematic phases with broken crystal rotation symmetry are as ubiquitous in superconductors as they are puzzling. One model shows that frustrated magnetism alone can account for the nematicity in FeSe, which shows no measurable magnetic order.
Realizing non-trivial topological effects is challenging in acoustic systems. It is now shown that inversion symmetry breaking can be used to create acoustic analogues of the topological Haldane model.
In organic semiconductors, pairs of charge-carrying spins can behave as four-level systems. It is now shown that in the regime of ultrastrong coupling, the collective behaviour of these spins gives rise to a spin-Dicke effect.
Epidemics often exhibit drastic dynamics, unmatched by percolation theory—a difference that may be due to cooperation between contagions. A mechanistic model implicates network topology in regulating the efficiency of this cooperation.
A thermometer for atomic Bose–Einstein condensates and a new way of cooling below the critical temperature will help the exploration of the coldest states of matter.
Cooling the motion of mechanical resonators to the ground state and subsequent advances in cavity optomechanics have been made possible by resolved-sideband cooling — an atomic-physics-inspired technique — first demonstrated in a 2008 Nature Physics paper.
