Volume 13 Issue 1, January 2017

This month we officially welcome our new sister journal, Nature Astronomy.

Secure communication is emerging as a significant challenge for our hyper-connected data-dependent society. The answer may lie in a clever combination of quantum and classical cryptographic techniques.

By exploiting the optical Stark effect, the valley degree of freedom in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides can be selectively manipulated and detected using all-optical methods.

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.

When light and matter are strongly coupled, they lose their distinct character and merge into a hybrid state. Three experiments explore this exotic regime using artificial atoms, with promise for quantum technologies.

Recent progress in engineering quantum gases of polar molecules brings closer their application in fundamental tests, ultracold chemistry and the study of new quantum phases of matter.

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.

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.

Atom–molecule interactions are orientation-dependent. Now the anisotropy of He–H₂ interactions has been probed by measuring how the associated quantum scattering resonances respond to tuning of the H₂ rotational state.

A superconducting artificial atom coupled to a 1D waveguide tests the limits of light–matter interaction in an unexplored coupling regime, which may enable new perspectives for quantum technologies.

A circuit that pairs a flux qubit with an LC oscillator via Josephson junctions pushes the coupling between light to matter to uncharted territory, with the potential for new applications in quantum technologies.

Using a superconducting transmon qubit coupled to a microwave photonic crystal one can study intriguing strong-coupling effects such as the emergence of localized cavity modes within the photonic bandgap.

Solitonic modes that are redshifted due to a Raman-related effect are reported in optical microcavities, and termed Stokes solitons.

Spindle-shaped cells readily form nematic structures marked by topological defects. When confined, the defect distribution is independent of the domain size, activity and type of cell, lending a stability not found in non-cellular active nematics.

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.

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.

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.

A near-field optical microscopy study provides nanoscale insight into an insulator-to-metal transition and the interplay with a neighbouring structural phase transition in a prototypical correlated electron material.

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.

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.

Temperature measurement standards rely on highly reproducible states of matter — including eutectic points, as Jonathan Pearce explains.