Volume 14 Issue 11, November 2018

Building spinning microrotors that self-assemble and synchronize to form a gear sounds like an impossible feat. However, it has now been achieved using only a single type of building block — a colloid that self-propels.

The discovery of large anomalous electronic and thermal transport in candidate magnetic Weyl semimetals reveals another example of the striking features of topological materials.

Despite the growing interdisciplinarity of research, the Nobel prize consolidates the traditional disciplinary categorization of science. There is, in fact, an opportunity for the most revered scientific reward to mirror the current research landscape.

Knotted lines representing torus knot and figure-eight knot are produced in the polarization profile of optical beams, leading to a topological characterization of the structure of the polarization field.

The entropy of a few-electron quantum system is measured for the first time by tracking the movement of charge in and out of the system. This could allow the unambiguous detection of Majorana fermions in solid state devices.

Coherent driving of all transitions of a three-level system generates a closed-contour interaction, which is here shown to create efficient manipulation methods for electronic spins in nitrogen–vacancy centres in diamond.

Light–matter interactions in monolayer MoSe₂ can be dramatically modified by the interactions between the excitonic states, leading to a rich set of light-driven coherent phenomena.

Surprising phenomena are known to occur when magnetic systems are confined to low-dimensional geometries. A resonant X-ray scattering study of NdNiO₃ slabs reveals a crossover between different magnetic ground states as a function of thickness.

Using terahertz pulses, the quasiparticle dynamics of the heavy-fermion compound CeCu_6−xAu are investigated in the vicinity of its quantum critical point.

Fluid transport at the nanoscale is important for understanding a range of phenomena in biological and physical systems. A theory accounting for transport through fluctuating channels is presented, providing a framework for designing active membranes.

Active colloidal particles are shown to be capable of aggregating into stable spinning clusters that constitute self-powered microgears. The demonstration reveals a new design principle for micromachinery using dissipative building blocks.

A magnetic field and temperature gradient produce a large electric potential in a ferromagnet, indicating the possible presence of Weyl points. The specific structure of Weyl points gives the electrons quantum-critical properties.

Electrical transport measurements reveal that Co₃Sn₂S₂ is probably a magnetic Weyl semimetal, and hosts the highest simultaneous anomalous Hall conductivity and anomalous Hall angle. This is driven by the strong Berry curvature near the Weyl points.

A highly precise measurement of an optical transition in the helium atom has been obtained using state-of-the-art techniques. The result provides a stringent test of QED theory at low energy levels with tools of atomic physics.

The phase transition between a superconductor and insulator is examined in a new type of heterostructure. A metallic regime is found, which disappears in a magnetic field, giving fresh insight to a paradigmatic quantum phase transition.

Understanding the muon’s magnetic moment holds the key for unlocking potential new physics, as Thomas Teubner shows.