Articles

The Magnus effect refers to rotating objects developing a lift force when travelling through a fluid. It normally vanishes at microscopic length scales but now a very large Magnus effect is demonstrated for spinning colloids in viscoelastic fluids.

The interplay between flat and dispersive bands in moiré materials has not yet been examined in detail. Now, the phase diagram of a transition metal dichalcogenide bilayer shows correlated states arising from both types of band.

Wrinkling of cell nuclei is associated with disease. During development, the nucleus behaves like a sheet of paper and the wrinkling amplitude can be manipulated without changing its pattern.

Measurements of the electronic structure of a trilayer cuprate superconductor suggest that its high critical temperature is explained by the different doping levels of the layers. The combination of underdoped inner layer and overdoped outer layers supports superconductivity.

Hole and particle-like quasiparticles of a Mott insulator can pair into excitonic bound states. Now, time-resolved measurements of Sr₂IrO₄ show signs of an excitonic fluid forming from a photo-excited population of quasiparticles.

Phonons that carry a large magnetic moment may be helpful for creating spintronic devices. Now this phenomenon is observed in an antiferromagnet and is enhanced by the critical fluctuations associated with a phase transition.

Quantum computers may help to solve classically intractable problems, such as simulating non-equilibrium dissipative quantum systems. The critical dynamics of a dissipative quantum model has now been probed on a trapped-ion quantum computer.

Cooper pairs that form with finite centre-of-mass momentum are rare. Now there is evidence that this can happen below the Pauli limit in a bilayer material.

The boson peak refers to an excess in the phonon density of states seen in three-dimensional amorphous materials. Helium-atom scattering experiments have now revealed a boson peak in a two-dimensional material, too, at a frequency similar to that of the bulk material.

The high inelastic loss rate in gases of bosonic molecules has so far hindered the stabilization needed to reach quantum degeneracy. Now, an experiment using microwave shielding demonstrates a large reduction of losses for bosonic dipolar molecules.

Geometric frustration and bond-dependent interactions each introduce quantum fluctuations that can create spin liquid phases. Now it is shown that CoI₂ is a triangular lattice material that combines both.

Electronic nematic order as a distinct phase in kagome materials without any entanglement with charge density wave or charge stripe order has not been detected. Now, it is observed in a titanium-based kagome metal.

Aliovalent doping affects the electrical properties of semiconductors, but its effect on phonons is unclear. Now, strong softening and deceleration of phonons, causing a significant reduction in lattice thermal conductivity, is reported for Hf-doped NbFeSb.

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.