Condensed-matter physics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding liquid behavior is a challenge due to their disorder nature and rapid molecular rearrangements. Here, the authors show how weak interactions between OH groups and aromatic rings can participate in cooperative mechanisms that give rise to highly structured molecular arrangements in the liquid state.

    • Camilla Di Mino
    • , Andrew G. Seel
    •  & Neal T. Skipper

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Symmetry is an essential ingredient that governs numerous physical phenomena, including spin transport. Following this principle, spin current sources with a highly symmetric cubic structure are not expected to support anisotropic spin currents. Here, the authors demonstrate an anomalous spin current anisotropy in a cubic noncollinear antiferromagnet Mn3Pt by exploiting the combination of conventional and magnetic spin-hall effects.

    • Cuimei Cao
    • , Shiwei Chen
    •  & Qingfeng Zhan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors use tip-enhanced photoluminescence spectroscopy to show a discontinuity of the exciton density distribution on each side of the interface of a MoSe2/WSe2 lateral heterostructure. They introduce the concept of ‘exciton Kapitza resistance’ by analogy with the interfacial thermal resistance known as ‘Kapitza resistance’.

    • Hassan Lamsaadi
    • , Dorian Beret
    •  & Jean-Marie Poumirol

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Early theoretical work predicted that fluctuations above the superfluid transition in liquid 3He should be observable in viscosity. Baten et al. document the reduction of the viscosity due to fluctuations, by monitoring the quality factor of a resonator immersed in 3He as a function of pressure and temperature.

    • Rakin N. Baten
    • , Yefan Tian
    •  & Jeevak M. Parpia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Kinetic energy put into a granular medium as a collective is typically dissipated as friction. The situation is different when forces are applied to the individual particles. An experiment now shows that when torques are applied to particles in a dense bed of microrollers, the grains roll uphill.

    • Samuel R. Wilson-Whitford
    • , Jinghui Gao
    •  & James F. Gilchrist

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Organic martensitic compounds are emerging smart materials with intriguing physical properties. Here authors show that upon H/F substitution a series of 1,4,5,8-naphthalenediimide derivatives exhibit reversible ferroelectric and martensitic transitions with a large thermal hysteresis.

    • Nan Zhang
    • , Wencong Sun
    •  & Han-Yue Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many-body localized systems are believed to reach a stationary state without thermalizing. By using analytical and numerical calculations, the authors construct simple initial states for a typical MBL model, which neither equilibrate nor thermalize, similar to non-ergodic behavior in many-body scarred systems.

    • Henrik Wilming
    • , Tobias J. Osborne
    •  & Christoph Karrasch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electronic bandwidth modulation by static pressure has been explored in several material families. Wang et al. use temperature-dependent Raman spectroscopy and density functional theory to reveal phonon-driven modulation of electronic pseudogap and density wave fluctuations in a ruthenate Ca3Ru2O7.

    • Huaiyu (Hugo) Wang
    • , Yihuang Xiong
    •  & Venkatraman Gopalan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photonic, electronic and lattice resonances in patterned semiconductor microcavities are tailored to demonstrate coherent bidirectional microwave-to-optical conversion via phonon-exciton-photon quasi-particles in the strong-coupling regime.

    • Alexander Sergeevich Kuznetsov
    • , Klaus Biermann
    •  & Paulo Ventura Santos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mechanical properties of materials are governed by dislocations, yet it remains a challenge to resolve their evolution on the atomic scale. Svetlizky et al. use colloidal crystals to investigate, in three dimensions, how dislocations enable plastic relaxation and the formation of networks.

    • Ilya Svetlizky
    • , Seongsoo Kim
    •  & Frans Spaepen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent work has reported puzzling results on the surface of 1T-TaS2. Based on first-principles calculations, the authors show that charge density wave order undergoes surface reconstruction, leading to modifications in the surface electronic structure, which can explain recent experiments.

    • Sung-Hoon Lee
    •  & Doohee Cho

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The nanoparticle-polymer interface plays a key role in nanoparticle-polymer composites but understanding the structures and properties of the interfacial region remains challenging. Here, the authors directly observe the presence of two interfacial polymer layers around a nanoparticle in polar polymers with different polar molecular conformations from the bulk polymer leading to an enhancement in polarity-related properties of polymer nanocomposites

    • Xinhui Li
    • , Shan He
    •  & Ce-Wen Nan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Artificial spin ice systems have been used to simulate a variety of phenomena including phase transitions. Here, the authors expand the scope of applications to encompass non-ergodic dynamics, by reporting real-space imaging of ergodicity transitions in a vortex-frustrated artificial spin ice.

    • Michael Saccone
    • , Francesco Caravelli
    •  & Alan Farhan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optical properties of organic semiconductors enable various optoelectronic applications. Müller et al. report a large exciton bandwidth in a crystalline organic material and attribute it to the strong Coulomb interaction in directed exciton pathways induced by the donor–acceptor type molecular structure.

    • Kai Müller
    • , Karl S. Schellhammer
    •  & Frank Ortmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Skyrmions are topological spin textures, which have been proposed as useful for a diverse array of applications. One such proposal is to make use of a skyrmion’s thermally activated Brownian-like diffusive motion for unconventional computing and true random number generation. Here, Dohi et al show how, in a synthetic antiferromagnet, this diffusive motion can be significantly enhanced.

    • Takaaki Dohi
    • , Markus Weißenhofer
    •  & Mathias Kläui

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors theoretically predict the formation of synergistic correlated and topological states in Coulomb-coupled and gate-tunable graphene/insulator heterostructures, proposing a number of promising substrate candidates and a possible explanation for recent experimental observations in graphene/CrOCl heterostructures.

    • Xin Lu
    • , Shihao Zhang
    •  & Jianpeng Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent experiments reported charge order with a stripe pattern in parent compounds of infinite-layer nickelate superconductors. Chen et al. use first principles and effective model calculations to propose an electronic, charge-transfer-driven mechanism of the charge order.

    • Hanghui Chen
    • , Yi-feng Yang
    •  & Hongquan Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Switching the magnetization of a ferromagnetic layer with a current induced spin-orbit torques requires the breaking symmetry, either via an in-plane magnetic field, or in the case of field-free switching via a device asymmetry. Here, Liang et al carefully control the Burgers vector of crystal dislocations to break the in-plane symmetry and allow for field-free switching of magnetization in a Pt/Co heterostructure.

    • Yuhan Liang
    • , Di Yi
    •  & Yuan-Hua Lin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum simulations of topological matter with superconducting qubits have been attracting attention recently. Xiang et al. realize 2D and bilayer Chern insulators with synthetic dimensions on a programmable 30-qubit-ladder superconducting processor, showing bulk-boundary correspondence.

    • Zhong-Cheng Xiang
    • , Kaixuan Huang
    •  & Heng Fan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In the magneto-optical Kerr effect, light incident on a magnetic material is reflected with a shifted polarization, the size of the shift characterized by the Kerr angle. Here, Kato et al introduce a topological magneto-optical Kerr effect, where the presence of skyrmions, a type of topological spin texture, leads to a significant enhancement of the Kerr signal.

    • Yoshihiro D. Kato
    • , Yoshihiro Okamura
    •  & Youtarou Takahashi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rydberg atom arrays are a promising platform for simulating many-body systems. The authors introduce a tensor-network method to compute phase diagrams of infinite arrays with long-range interactions and experimental-scale finite arrays, unveiling a new entangled phase and offering a guide for experiments.

    • Matthew J. O’Rourke
    •  & Garnet Kin-Lic Chan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnons (spin-waves) in magnetic materials offer the potential for fast and efficient information processing. To avoid excessive damping due to free electrons, one is typically limited to magnetic insulators as host materials. Here, Poelchen et al demonstrate long lived spin-waves, at terahertz frequencies in the metallic antiferromaget CeCo2P2, opening up the possibility of using metallic aniferromagnets for spinwave information processing.

    • G. Poelchen
    • , J. Hellwig
    •  & K. Kummer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Superconductivity was recently reported experimentally in nitrogen-doped lutetium hydride with Tc = 294 K at a pressure of 1 GPa. Here, via theoretical calculations, the authors find no structures capable of supporting conventional superconductivity in the Lu-N-H system at ambient pressure.

    • Pedro P. Ferreira
    • , Lewis J. Conway
    •  & Lilia Boeri

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Van der Waals materials are composed of layers held weakly by van der Waals forces. This feature allows different materials to be combined into heterostructures, with fewer restrictions on growth and lattice matching. Here, Zhu et al make use of this feature to create a van der Waals magnetic tunnel junction with a semiconducting spacer, allowing for improved tunability and reduced device thickness.

    • Wenkai Zhu
    • , Yingmei Zhu
    •  & Kaiyou Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Over the last few years, several van der Waals materials have been found that retain magnetic ordering down to monolayer thickness. These materials provide a simple platform for studying the magnetism in reduced dimensions. Here, Zhong et al study the thickness dependence of magnetic ordering in Cr2Te3, and find a crossover from Stoner to Heisenberg-type magnetism as thicknesses are reduced.

    • Yong Zhong
    • , Cheng Peng
    •  & Zhi-Xun Shen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Kagome materials, such as CsV3Sb5, a rich array of correlated phase, including a time-reversal symmetry breaking phase, which could possibly be the result of loop currents. Attempts to verify this with magneto-optical measurements have yielded mixed results. Here, Farhang et al show that the magneto-optical signals are due to specular optical rotation. ‘

    • Camron Farhang
    • , Jingyuan Wang
    •  & Jing Xia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A hidden effect can occur in materials where locally a symmetry is broken, even though global symmetry is preserved. An example is hidden spin-polarization, arising from local inversion symmetry breaking in otherwise globally centro-symmetric materials. Here, Yuan et al uncover a hidden spin-polarization that can occur in antiferromagnets without spin-orbit coupling and identify the key material requirements for this to occur.

    • Lin-Ding Yuan
    • , Xiuwen Zhang
    •  & Alex Zunger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An Alice ring is related to the unusual topology of the monopole field and its decay. Here the authors demonstrate a topological monopole defect in the form of an Alice ring using gaseous Bose–Einstein condensates of 87Rb atoms.

    • Alina Blinova
    • , Roberto Zamora-Zamora
    •  & David S. Hall

  • Article
    | Open Access

    By carefully inducing twists or lattice stacking offsets between two adjacent van der Waals crystals, a superlattice potential can be introduced. This Moire lattice offers an incredibly rich physics, ranging from superconductivity to exotic magnetism, depending on van der Waals materials in question. Here, Du et al. study the magnetic domains in twisted CrI3, and show that despite this domain structure, spin fluctuations are spatially homogenous.

    • Mengqi Huang
    • , Zeliang Sun
    •  & Chunhui Rita Du

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hyperbolic phonon polaritons occurring in anisotropic materials exhibit strong light confinement and propagation directionality. Matson et al. report real-space imaging and control of recently discovered hyperbolic shear phonon-polaritons in beta-Ga2O3, arising from symmetry breaking in the dielectric response.

    • Joseph Matson
    • , Sören Wasserroth
    •  & Joshua D. Caldwell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dressing is a concept used to describe moderately interacting electrons. Here authors present the notion of dressed spin-orbit 3/2 moments and how this picture breaks down with increasing electronic interactions across group-5 lacunar spinel magnets.

    • Thorben Petersen
    • , Pritam Bhattacharyya
    •  & Liviu Hozoi

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