Condensed-matter physics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    There are now several van der Waals magnets that have been shown to host skyrmions, however, these are typically hampered by a low Curie temperature, restricting the temperature at which the skyrmions can exist. Here, Zhang, Jiang, Jiang and coauthors find a skyrmion lattice in the van der Waals magnet Fe3 − xGaTe2 above room temperature and demonstrate the critical role of symmetry breaking in crystal lattice in the origin of these skyrmions.

    • Chenhui Zhang
    • , Ze Jiang
    •  & Hyunsoo Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Switchable structural and physical bistability in ferroelectric materials can be achieved as result of molecular orbital breaking. Here, the authors describe the photo-mediated bistability in organosilicon Schiff base ferroelectric crystals for the modulation of dielectric, second-harmonic generation, and ferroelectric polarization and showing good in vitro biocompatibility.

    • Zhu-Xiao Gu
    • , Nan Zhang
    •  & Han-Yue Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Toggle switching refers to the switching of magnetization induced by a train of ultrashort laser pulses. The high speed make such switching in extremely promising for devices, however, the underlying toggle switching mechanism in metals is due to heating, and thus has a downside of dissipation. Here, Zalewski et al demonstrate ultrafast ‘cold’ toggle switching, with a mechanism that does not rely on heating in dielectric Cobalt doped Yittrium Iron Garnet.

    • T. Zalewski
    • , A. Maziewski
    •  & A. Stupakiewicz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors study tunneling junctions in rhombohedral MoS2 bilayers and correlate their performance with the local domain layout. They show that the switching behavior in sliding ferroelectrics is strongly dependent on the pre-existing domain structure.

    • Yunze Gao
    • , Astrid Weston
    •  & Roman Gorbachev

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors study the [Nb/V/Ta] superconducting artificial superlattice, known to support a superconducting diode effect, by pulsed THz spectroscopy and simultaneous transport. They found a non-monotonic switching between the superconducting and normal state, which can be explained if the THz-driven vortex depinning determines the critical current.

    • Fumiya Sekiguchi
    • , Hideki Narita
    •  & Yoshihiko Kanemitsu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The strong connection between the dynamics of a physical system and its Hamiltonian’s spectrum has scarcely been applied in the non-Hermitian case. Here, the authors use a photonic quantum walk to confirm and expand previous theoretical analyses connecting self-acceleration dynamics with non-trivial point-gap topology.

    • Peng Xue
    • , Quan Lin
    •  & Wei Yi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Topological flat bands offer a solid-state platform for studying the interplay between topology and electron correlations. Here, the authors demonstrate that a prototypical 3D Dirac material can host topological flat bands under magnetic fields due to polar-distortion-assisted Rashba splitting.

    • Dong Xing
    • , Bingbing Tong
    •  & Cheng-Long Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors study the intrinsic superconducting diode effect (SDE) in a single Josephson junction consisting of a InGaAs/InAs/InGaAs quantum well as the weak link, and an Al film as the superconductor. They find a correspondence between SDE and an offset in the relationship between critical current and the difference in phase of the superconducting order parameter across the junction.

    • S. Reinhardt
    • , T. Ascherl
    •  & N. Paradiso

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recently, superconductivity near 80 K was observed in La3Ni2O7 under high pressure, but the mechanism is debated. Here the authors report angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measurements under ambient pressure, revealing flat bands with strong electronic correlations that could be linked to superconductivity.

    • Jiangang Yang
    • , Hualei Sun
    •  & X. J. Zhou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors discover the ground and excited state interlayer excitons in bi- and tri-layer 2H-MoSe2 crystals which exhibit electric-field-driven hybridisation with the intralayer A excitons, showing distinct spin, layer and valley characteristics.

    • Shun Feng
    • , Aidan J. Campbell
    •  & Brian D. Gerardot

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Frustrated magnetic systems typically have multiple ground state configurations. While such multistability is common in amorphous materials, periodic mechanical systems have long range elastic interactions that tend to lead to a long-range ordered ground state. Herein, Sirote-Katz, Shohat et al. introduce periodic mechanical systems that have many disordered metastable states.

    • Chaviva Sirote-Katz
    • , Dor Shohat
    •  & Yair Shokef

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The hierarchy of symmetry breaking in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene remains a topic of intense fundamental study. Here, the authors determine the spin polarization of symmetry-broken quantum Hall states and Chern insulators in MATBG using a twist-decoupled graphene probe.

    • Jesse C. Hoke
    • , Yifan Li
    •  & Benjamin E. Feldman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Helimagnetic materials host a twisted magnetic texture, realizing screws, cycloids, and cones. While helimagnets are common in three dimensional materials, layered van der Waals helimagnets are exceedingly rare. Here, Akatsuka et al. demonstrate conical ordering in the easily cleavable magnet DyTe3.

    • Shun Akatsuka
    • , Sebastian Esser
    •  & Max Hirschberger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Néel spin-orbit torques arise due to charge currents in some antiferromagnets, and have sparked interest as a possible pathway for achieving electrical control of antiferromagnetic order. While the driving of antiferromagnetic order by Néel spin-orbit torques is now experimentally well established, the inverse process, where magnetic excitations in an antiferromagnetic drive a charge current is not reported. Here Huang, Liao, Qiu, and coauthors observe this inverse process in an Mn2Au thin film.

    • Lin Huang
    • , Liyang Liao
    •  & Cheng Song

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Extreme magnetoresistance is characterized by a large and non-saturating magnetoresistance. Typically, it is observed in materials with compensated bandstructures, however, here, Christensen et al demonstrate a large and non-saturating magnetoresistance in a γAl2O3/SrTiO3 heterostructure, which is related to disorder, rather than the materials bandstructure.

    • D. V. Christensen
    • , T. S. Steegemans
    •  & N. Pryds

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Control of correlated excitonic states is a key goal of modern optoelectronic physics. Here, the authors demonstrate filling- and field-tunable exciton valley-pseudospin orders in a moiré heterostructure.

    • Richen Xiong
    • , Samuel L. Brantly
    •  & Chenhao Jin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The band topology of twisted 2D systems is a key factor behind their fascinating physics. Here, the authors demonstrate the role of polarization in driving the band topology evolution in twisted transition metal dichalcogenide homobilayers.

    • Xiao-Wei Zhang
    • , Chong Wang
    •  & Di Xiao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Existing proposals of axion insulators are limited to spin-1/2 systems. Here the authors put forward a concept of a high spin axion insulator with several peculiar properties, such as the absence of gapless surface states and tunability of the axion field by an external magnetic field.

    • Shuai Li
    • , Ming Gong
    •  & X. C. Xie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors observe multiferroicity in a single-layer non van der Waals material, CuCrSe2. The coexistence of room-temperature ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism up to 120 K is corroborated by a set of comprehensive experimental techniques.

    • Zhenyu Sun
    • , Yueqi Su
    •  & Baojie Feng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Antiferromagnetic spintronics offer high speed operations, and reduced issues with stray fields compared to ferromagnetic systems, however, antiferromagnets are typically more challenging to manipulate electrically. Here, Yang, Kim, and coauthors demonstrate electrical control of magnon dispersion and frequency in an α-Fe2O3/Pt heterostructure.

    • Dongsheng Yang
    • , Taeheon Kim
    •  & Hyunsoo Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Extending magnetic nanostructures into three dimensions offers a vast increase in potential functionalities, but this typically comes at the expense of ease of fabrication and measurement. Here, Dion et al. demonstrate an approach to creating three dimensional magnetic nanostructures while retaining easy fabrication and readout of established two dimensional approaches.

    • Troy Dion
    • , Kilian D. Stenning
    •  & Jack C. Gartside

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors demonstrate a wafer-scale, low-temperature process using atomic layer deposition, for the synthesis of uniform, conformal amorphous boron nitride (aBN) thin films. They further fabricate aBN-encapsulated monolayer MoS2 field-effect transistors.

    • Cindy Y. Chen
    • , Zheng Sun
    •  & Joshua A. Robinson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here Pantazopoulos, Feist, García-Vidal, and Kamra explore the combination spin, phonon and photon coupling in a system of magnetic nanoparticles, and find that it leads to an emergent spin-spin interaction. This interaction is long-range and leads to an unconventional form of magnetism that can exhibit strong magnetization at temperatures very close to the critical temperature.

    • Petros Andreas Pantazopoulos
    • , Johannes Feist
    •  & Akashdeep Kamra

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The coupling between topological electronic properties and magnetic order offers a promising route for magnetoelectric control with great potential for both applications and fundamental physics. Here, Susilo et al demonstrate the rich tunability of magnetic properties in nodal-line magnetic semiconductor Mn3Si2Te6 using pressure as control knob.

    • Resta A. Susilo
    • , Chang Il Kwon
    •  & Jun Sung Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors theoretically study the pressure dependence of the phase diagram of the nickelate PrNiO2 with and without Sr doping. At high pressure, they find that the superconducting dome is significantly enhanced in both Tc and doping-range of superconductivity compared with ambient pressure, with a maximal Tc of 100 K around 100 GPa in absence of external doping.

    • Simone Di Cataldo
    • , Paul Worm
    •  & Karsten Held

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Authors predict polar Bloch points with negative capacitance in tensile-strained ultrathin ferroelectric PbTiO3 film by phase-field simulations, observing their polarization structures by scanning transmission electron microscopic imaging.

    • Yu-Jia Wang
    • , Yan-Peng Feng
    •  & Xiu-Liang Ma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Previous work proposed the Berry curvature dipole as the mechanism of the nonlinear Hall effect. Lee et al. establish the sign-changing Berry curvature hot spots from spin-orbit split bands as the origin of the Berry curvature dipole and link it to the nonlinear Hall effect in the topological semimetal NbIrTe4.

    • Ji-Eun Lee
    • , Aifeng Wang
    •  & Hyejin Ryu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors study a YbCoIn5/CeCoIn5/YbRhIn5 heterostructure. Using non-reciprocity in the second harmonic transport response, they demonstrate the existence of a specific form of finite-momentum pairing called a helical superconducting state, where the phase of the order parameter is spontaneously spatially modulated.

    • T. Asaba
    • , M. Naritsuka
    •  & Y. Matsuda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors report the observation of an interlayer plasmon polaron in heterostructures composed of graphene and monolayer WS2. This is manifested in the ARPES spectra as a strong quasiparticle peak accompanied by several carrier density-dependent shake-off replicas around the WS2 conduction band minimum.

    • Søren Ulstrup
    • , Yann in ’t Veld
    •  & Jyoti Katoch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Low-dimensional ferroelectric systems are predicted to have topologically nontrivial polar structures, such as vortices or skyrmions. Here authors present atomic-scale 3D topological polar structures in BaTiO3 nanoparticles using atomic electron tomography and revealed their size-dependent transitions.

    • Chaehwa Jeong
    • , Juhyeok Lee
    •  & Yongsoo Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Stabilizing non-trivial magnetic spin textures at room temperature remains challenging. Here, the authors propose introducing magnetic atoms into the van der Waals gap of 2D magnets Fe3GaTe2 to stabilize the magnetic spin textures beyond skyrmion.

    • Hongrui Zhang
    • , Yu-Tsun Shao
    •  & Ramamoorthy Ramesh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lightweight and flexible thin crystalline silicon solar cells have huge market potential but remain relatively unexplored. Here, authors present a thin silicon structure with reinforced ring to prepare free-standing 4.7-μm 4-inch silicon wafers, achieving efficiency of 20.33% for 28-μm solar cells.

    • Taojian Wu
    • , Zhaolang Liu
    •  & Wenzhong Shen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Polarization reversal dynamics in sliding ferroelectrics is important for the application in slidetronics. Here, the authors observe the interlayer directional sliding induced polarization switching with simultaneous hysteresis response in γ-InSe:Y.

    • Fengrui Sui
    • , Haoyang Li
    •  & Chungang Duan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Previous measurements of FeSe0.45Te0.55 found one-dimensional (1D) defects that were interpretated as domain walls hosting propagating Majorana topological modes. Here, the authors reveal that these 1D defects correspond to sub-surface debris and show that the filling of the superconducting gap on these defects is topologically trivial.

    • A. Mesaros
    • , G. D. Gu
    •  & F. Massee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sublattice symmetry has long been synonymous with chiral symmetry when it comes to topological classification. Here, the authors challenge this notion by systematically investigating sublattice symmetry and revealing its spatial nature with a precise description in terms of symmetry algebra and representation.

    • Rong Xiao
    •  & Y. X. Zhao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) of ultracold atoms serve as low-entropy sources for a multitude of quantum-science applications. Here, the authors realize a non-ground-state caesium BEC with tunable interactions and tunable loss, opening up new possibilities for polaron and impurity physics.

    • Milena Horvath
    • , Sudipta Dhar
    •  & Hanns-Christoph Nägerl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spin-momentum locking is a fundamental property of condensed matter systems. Here, the authors evidence parallel Weyl spin-momentum locking of multifold fermions in the chiral topological semimetal PtGa.

    • Jonas A. Krieger
    • , Samuel Stolz
    •  & Niels B. M. Schröter

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