Articles

Previous work has suggested that at very low temperatures TbInO₃ hosts an unconventional quantum ground state. Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy measurements of its excitations show that related exotic effects can persist to room temperature.

Coherent control is an interference technique widely used to control dynamic wave processes. Its analogue in the time domain allows the tailored suppression, enhancement and reshaping of optical pulses, and the mimicking of collisions between them.

The three-dimensional spin textures of a skyrmion lattice have now been measured in a bulk material using a tomographic small-angle neutron scattering technique.

Predictions of a quantum superconductor–insulator transition in Josephson junction arrays are not always borne out by experiments. Unexpectedly large thermal effects may explain why.

Achieving low decoherence is challenging in hybrid quantum systems. A superconducting-circuit-based optomechanical platform realizes millisecond-scale quantum state lifetime, which allows tracking of the free evolution of a squeezed mechanical state.

The wetting behaviour of drops attached to fibres is exploited in many applications including fog harvesting. The presence of a background air flow on fibre-attached drops on parallel fibres is now shown to lead to alignment, repulsion and coalescence processes.

The formation of molecules in binary particle collisions is forbidden in free space, but the presence of an external trapping potential now enables the realization of bound states in ultracold atom–ion collisions.

Entangled states are a key resource for quantum-enhanced sensing. A protocol based on spin-nematic squeezed states of atomic Bose–Einstein condensates has now been used to achieve record metrological gains in nonlinear interferometry experiments.

High-harmonic generation is a source of high-frequency radiation and is typically driven by strong, but classical, laser fields. A theoretical study now shows that using quantum light states as the driver extends the spectrum of outgoing radiation in a controllable manner.

Being able to perform qubit measurements within a quantum circuit and adapt to their outcome broadens the power of quantum computers. These mid-circuit measurements have now been used to implement a cryptographic proof of non-classical behaviour.

The behaviour of a superconductor can be altered by changing its symmetry properties. Coherently coupling two Josephson junctions breaks time-reversal and inversion symmetries, giving rise to a device with a controllable superconducting diode effect.

Disordered media with their numerous scattering channels can be used as optical operators. Measurements of the scattering tensor of a second-harmonic medium extend this computing application to the nonlinear regime.

Many applications of ultracold molecules require high densities that have been difficult to reach. An experiment now demonstrates the tight magnetic confinement of ultracold molecules, enabling the study of molecular collisions in the quantum regime.

YbRh₂Si₂ has a quantum phase transition between an antiferromagnetic phase and a so-called heavy-Fermi-liquid state. Measurements of critical slowing down suggest that the heavy-fermion quasiparticles break down at the transition.

The iron–nickel alloy Invar has an extremely small coefficient of thermal expansion that has been difficult to explain theoretically. A study of Invar under pressure now suggests that there is a cancellation of phonon and spin contributions to expansion.

Quantum computers are believed to exponentially outperform classical computers at some tasks, but it is hard to make guarantees about the limits of classical computers. It has now been proven that classical computers cannot efficiently simulate most quantum circuits.

Colloidal aggregates are conventionally formed by particle aggregation under thermal fluctuation. Now the structure and mechanical properties of aggregates can be controlled by an active bath of swimming Escherichia coli.

The ferroelectric uniaxial nematic liquid-crystal phase features a freely reorientable polarization field. When confined in microchannels and subjected to electric fields, this polarization is now found to align with the channels due to a superscreening effect.

The yielding transition in concentrated colloidal suspensions and emulsions lacks a universal description. A unified state diagram is now shown to underlie yielding for these materials, analogous to the van der Waals phase diagram for non-ideal gases.

Thouless pumping is the quantization of charge transport through the adiabatic variation of a system’s parameters. The robustness and breakdown of pumping under variations in interparticle interactions have now been shown with ultracold atoms in an optical lattice.