Articles in 2016

Micro-explosions triggered by the absorption of X-ray laser light in drops and jets of water result in shock waves and in rapid heating and expansion of the liquid — as now revealed in state-of-the-art experiments.

The most precise measurements of the atomic masses of the proton and the electron make use of Penning traps, and for the latter, a hydrogen-like ion, as Edmund Myers explains.

Nature Physics now requires its published papers to include information on whether and how their underlying data are accessible to others.

Simple models have given us surprising insight into how animals flock, but most assume they do so through a homogeneous landscape. Colloidal experiments now suggest that a little disorder can have unexpected — and spectacular — effects.

Our understanding of collective animal behaviour generally assumes that flocks and herds move through homogeneous environments. Colloidal experiments suggest that flocking can be distorted or even suppressed by the introduction of disorder.

An optomechanical system made of an optical cavity filled with superfluid liquid helium provides the means to study phenomena involving different degrees of freedom than those in traditional solid-state resonators.

The triple point is a well-known feature on pressure–temperature phase diagrams. A multiferroic triple point is now reported for La-doped BiFeO₃; La concentration and temperature are the phase variables and the phases display different spin (dis)order.

Light propagating through a cloud of cold atoms can be slowed down by exciting a certain type of spin wave in the atomic ensemble. This stationary light could find applications in quantum technologies.

Spin currents can be carried by electrons and by magnons. Experiments now show that, in one-dimensional spin chains, spin currents can also be carried by particle-like excitations known as spinons.

A study of the dynamics of so-called Kerr solitons in optical microresonators reports the discovery of a simple mechanism that permits the step-wise reduction of soliton states, one by one.

Surprising observations in the evolution of electronic states in electron-doped iridates provide fresh insight into the melting of the Mott state and might lead to a fuller understanding of corresponding processes in copper-oxide superconductors.

Valleys in momentum space provide a degree of freedom that could be exploited for applications. A demonstration of valley pseudospin control now completes the generation–manipulation–detection paradigm, paving the way for valleytronic devices.

The interplay between spin physics and superconductivity is examined in HgTe quantum wells, revealing a tunable momentum of the Cooper pairs that drives changes in their superconducting behaviour.