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By varying the voltage on an isolated gate electrode beneath a graphene sheet, the ionization state of cobalt atoms on its surface can be controlled. This enables the electronic structure of individual ionized atoms, and the resulting cloud of screening electrons that form around them, to be obtained with a scanning tunnelling microscope.
The complex wrinkling patterns produced when a sheet or membrane is compressed are often difficult to predict. Observations of unexpected spatial period-doubling bifurcation instability in the wrinkling of a rigid membrane attached to a soft substrate can be described within a framework similar to that used for the parametric resonance of nonlinear oscillators.
In magnetic nanostructures, the core of a vortex points either up or down, and the polarity can be reversed by alternating-field pulses. An experiment now demonstrates deterministic and coherent control of vortex-core polarity using sequences of resonant microwave pulses and highlights routes to optimizing the technique, which might find application in magnetic-storage devices.
The absorption of one photon of an entangled pair by a lone trapped atom is identified by a correlation between the atomic absorption process and the detection of the second photon.
Betratron oscillations of electrons driven through a plasma by a high-intensity laser generate coherent X-rays. A new study demonstrates the intensity of these X-rays can be as bright as that generated by conventional third-generation synchrotrons, in a device a fraction of the size and cost.
Laser beams travelling side-by-side through a medium usually only interact if they’re within a beam-diameter apart. An observation of the attraction and coalescence of high-power beams separated by several beam diameters in a plasma has implications for the development of laser-driven fusion.
Tunnelling measurements reveal the emergence of a thickness-dependent in-built potential across LaAlO3 thin films grown on SrTiO3 substrates. As well as being useful for developing novel LaAlO3/SrTiO3 devices, these observations help explain the origin of the two-dimensional electron gas that is known to arise at the interface between these two insulators.
One-way quantum computing requires an entangled multiqubit system. So-called cluster states have been proposed to provide this resource, but they are difficult to generate. An alternative that uses the ground state of a one-dimensional chain of spins is now experimentally realized and used to construct a quantum logic gate.
A study of the electronic structure of molecular wires as a function of their length reveals strong coupling between electrons and molecular vibrations. The mechanism provides a means to coherently couple electronic levels by nuclear motion, and possibly to mechanically control electron transport in molecular electronics.
An array of nanomagnets in a kagome lattice structure should support the creation and separation of oppositely charged monopoles, which are connected by Dirac strings of flipped dipoles. And indeed, such monopoles and their Dirac strings can be observed at room temperature.
The Landau–Zener model of a two-state system is a standard method for studying quantum dynamics. This textbook example of single-particle dynamics has now been generalized to a many-body system represented by two coupled ultracold Bose liquids.
Laser light can trap and manipulate small particles. Scientists now show that femtosecond near-infrared laser pulses can split a single trap into two. The effect is a result of third-order optical nonlinearities that arise once the laser power crosses a certain threshold, and the direction of the split is determined by the light’s polarization.
Magnetic reconnection governs many astrophysical phenomena, but its details are poorly understood. The extreme magnetic fields generated by the interaction of a high-intensity laser with a plasma enables the study of magnetic reconnection processes similar to those that occur in solar flares.
Quantitative measurements that establish the existence and evolution of quasiparticles across the whole phase diagram of a cuprate superconductor help to distinguish the many theoretical models for high-temperature superconductivity.
Raman amplification has been proposed as a means to generate high-power laser pulses without the bulky and expensive components of conventional lasers, but with limited success. Large-scale three-dimensional simulations enable researchers to identify conditions under which these limitations might be overcome.
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2010 has been awarded to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene".
