Condensed-matter physics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors theoretically study superconductivity in twisted-bilayer and twisted-trilayer graphene, finding that flavor polarization allows for Cooper pairing in which the pairs consist of electrons in different bands. Both intervalley phonons and fluctuations of a time-reversal-symmetric intervalley coherent order can favor such pairing.

    • Maine Christos
    • , Subir Sachdev
    •  & Mathias S. Scheurer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Topological spin textures, such as skyrmions and antiskyrmions are of interest for use in information storage, owing to their inherent robustness. Critical to this use is the ability to manipulate these spin textures. Here, Yasin et al. demonstrate heat current driven transformation of a topological spin texture in a ferromagnet at room temperature.

    • Fehmi Sami Yasin
    • , Jan Masell
    •  & Xiuzhen Yu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Two-dimensional metal-organic frameworks (2D MOFs) are ideal platforms to realize exotic theoretical lattice models. Here, the authors experimentally realize second-order topological corner states in the 2D MOF Ni3(HITP)2, which features a star-lattice configuration.

    • Tianyi Hu
    • , Weiliang Zhong
    •  & Z. F. Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High-temperature behaviour of thermopower is special in cuprates, allowing for theory-experiment comparisons. Wang et al. use quantum Monte Carlo to compute high temperature thermopower in the Hubbard model, demonstrating qualitative and quantitative agreement with experiments across multiple cuprate families.

    • Wen O. Wang
    • , Jixun K. Ding
    •  & Thomas P. Devereaux

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The layered material 1T-TaS2 continues to attract attention due to its many correlated phases and metastable states. Bozin et al. report persistent symmetry-breaking polaronic distortions in the wide range of temperatures, which has implications for understanding the mechanisms of charge and spin ordered states.

    • E. S. Bozin
    • , M. Abeykoon
    •  & D. Mihailovic

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors present resonant inelastic x-ray scattering measurements of Sr2RuO4 in the normal Fermi-liquid state. They find that spin excitations are confined below 200 meV, while orbital fluctuations appear only at higher energies. This separation of energy scales is a hallmark of Hund’s-rule-induced electron correlations.

    • H. Suzuki
    • , L. Wang
    •  & B. Keimer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors deposit non-superconducting metallic thin films on surfaces of the kagome Chern magnet TbMn6Sn6 and observe emergent superconductivity even though neither component is a superconductor. Furthermore, the superconducting state is quasi-two-dimensional and coexists with ferromagnetism, consistent with possible spin-triplet pairing and topological superconductivity.

    • He Wang
    • , Yanzhao Liu
    •  & Jian Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recently the Kondo effect has been observed in transition metal dichalcogenide heterobilayers, but the evidence for low-temperature coherent state has been missing. Wan et al. observe signatures of such state in the form of a split Kondo peak with a characteristic magnetic-field dependence by STM at 340 mK.

    • Wen Wan
    • , Rishav Harsh
    •  & Miguel M. Ugeda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recently, a Luttinger liquid state was reported in a moiré superlattice of bilayer tungsten ditelluride at small twist angles and temperatures of a few kelvins. Here, the authors extend this result to millikelvin temperatures, supporting the existence of the 2D anisotropic Luttinger liquid as a stable ground state.

    • Guo Yu
    • , Pengjie Wang
    •  & Sanfeng Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors study the layered superconductor AuSn4 (Tc = 2.4 K) and reveal a two-fold symmetric angular dependence, consistent with unconventional pairing. They argue that the two-fold symmetry results from the Rashba-driven mixture of p-wave surface and s-wave bulk contributions.

    • Wenliang Zhu
    • , Rui Song
    •  & Qi-Kun Xue

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The structure of GeO2 melt has been debated for decades due to several unexplained bands present in the GeO2 melt Raman spectra. Here authors present a promising way to analyse melt structures from Raman spectra and they demonstrate threefold coordinated germanium is formed in the GeO2 melt.

    • Songming Wan
    • , Shujie Zhang
    •  & Jinglin You

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many-body localization is observed in synthetic systems, but experiments on real materials with Coulomb interactions are vital for insights in higher dimensions. Stanley et al. report a prethermal regime in the dynamics of a 2D disordered electron system in Si MOSFETs and explore the effects of interaction range.

    • L. J. Stanley
    • , Ping V. Lin
    •  & Dragana Popović

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Terahertz frequencies offer the potential of much higher data transfer rates, but this requires devices able to generate and manipulate terahertz waves. One approach is to utilize the spin dynamics of a magnetic system. Here, Ilyakov et al. show how a multilayer magnetic and heavy-metal heterostructure can be used to achieve terahertz second harmonic generation and optical rectification.

    • Igor Ilyakov
    • , Arne Brataas
    •  & Sergey Kovalev

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent experiments have shown that proton transport through graphene electrodes can be promoted by light, but the understanding of this phenomenon remains unclear. Here, the authors report the electrical tunability of this photo-effect, showing a connection between graphene electronic and proton transport properties.

    • S. Huang
    • , E. Griffin
    •  & M. Lozada-Hidalgo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    When two magnetic layers are separated by a metallic spacer, an interlayer exchange coupling can occur. Recently, it has been shown that interlayer Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions can also occur, driving chiral spin canting in the magnetic layers. Here, Arregi et al. demonstrate a large interlayer Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in Co/Ag/Co multilayers, which occurs despite the weak atomic spin-orbit coupling of the Ag spacer layer.

    • Jon Ander Arregi
    • , Patricia Riego
    •  & Elena Y. Vedmedenko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Andreev bound states can form in hybrid semiconducting-superconducting devices and can mirror the experimental signatures of the much sought topologically non-trivial Majorana bound states. Here, van Driel, Wang and coauthors present a method of directly measuring the spin-polarized excitation spectrum of Andreev bound states.

    • David van Driel
    • , Guanzhong Wang
    •  & Tom Dvir

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors study conductance replicas emerging under microwave irradiation in the tunnelling spectrum of Josephson junctions in InAs/Al heterostructures, focusing on distinguishing the signatures of Floquet-Andreev states (FASs) from those of photon-assisted tunneling (PAT). They establish that PAT largely dominates the response to microwave radiation in their device.

    • Daniel Z. Haxell
    • , Marco Coraiola
    •  & Fabrizio Nichele

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnetic impurities on superconductors lead to bound states within the superconducting gap, so called Yu-Shiba-Rusinov (YSR) states. Here, the authors study tunneling from a vanadium STM tip to a V(100) surface and show that YSR states can be excited at very low temperature by applying a microwave signal.

    • Janis Siebrecht
    • , Haonan Huang
    •  & Christian R. Ast

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors study Andreev bound states (ABSs) in 3-terminal InAs/Al Josephson-junction devices. They find signatures of hybridization between two ABSs, with band structure tunable by electric currents that generate magnetic fluxes threading superconducting loops in the device.

    • Marco Coraiola
    • , Daniel Z. Haxell
    •  & Fabrizio Nichele

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors report two anomalies in the specific heat of (Ba,K)Fe2As2, providing thermodynamic confirmation of the separation of superconducting Tc and the onset of time-reversal symmetry breaking (TRSB). Further, they argue that the TRSB is associated with a four-fermion condensate induced by phase fluctuations.

    • Ilya Shipulin
    • , Nadia Stegani
    •  & Vadim Grinenko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (MATBG) hosts flat electronic bands allowing for a rich variety of correlated electronic states. Here, using a scanning single electron transistor, Yu et al find thermodynamically gapped ground states in MATBG at several filling factors, with spin-skyrmion charge excitations.

    • Jiachen Yu
    • , Benjamin A. Foutty
    •  & Benjamin E. Feldman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nuclear spins in solid-state systems present a promising platform for quantum information applications. Here the authors report evidence of the long-predicted entangled dark nuclear spin state via optical polarization of localized hole spins coupled to the nuclear bath in a lead halide perovskite semiconductor.

    • E. Kirstein
    • , D. S. Smirnov
    •  & M. Bayer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Zig-Zag graphene nanoribbons have edge states that are predicted to be spin-polarized, however, measurement of these spin-polarized states has proved elusive. Here, Brede et al overcome this challenge by growing graphene nanoribbons on ferromagnetic GdAu2, allowing for the direct observation of the spin-polarized edge states.

    • Jens Brede
    • , Nestor Merino-Díez
    •  & David Serrate

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A rational design of deep eutectic solvents (DESs) is hindered because fundamental DES components, such as choline chloride (ChCl), decompose before melting. Here authors determine the melting properties of ChCl, unveiling ionic plastic crystals as a platform for DESs that meet modern sustainability, health, and safety requirements.

    • Adriaan van den Bruinhorst
    • , Jocasta Avila
    •  & Margarida Costa Gomes

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recently topological phases have been generalized to amorphous materials, but demonstrations have been limited to non-interacting particles. Cassella et al. show the emergence of chiral amorphous quantum spin liquid in an exactly soluble model by extending the Kitaev honeycomb model to random lattices.

    • G. Cassella
    • , P. d’Ornellas
    •  & J. Knolle

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors experimentally discover a class of higher-order Weyl semimetal phase in a three-dimensional photonic crystal, exhibiting the concurrence of the surface and hinge Fermi arcs from the nonzero Chern number and the nontrivial generalized real Chern number, respectively, coined a real higher-order Weyl photonic crystals.

    • Yuang Pan
    • , Chaoxi Cui
    •  & Yihao Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The recently discovered charge density wave in ScV6Sn6 kagome metal is under intense debate. By using a combination of experimental and theoretical techniques, the authors point to the role of flat phonon mode softening and momentum-dependent electron-phonon coupling in the formation of the charge density wave.

    • A. Korshunov
    • , H. Hu
    •  & S. Blanco-Canosa

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tunneling spectroscopy is widely used to examine the subgap spectra in semiconductor/superconductor nanostructures. Here, the authors develop an alternative type of tunnel probe for InSb-Al hybrid nanowires, enabling study of the spatial extension of Andreev bound states.

    • Vukan Levajac
    • , Ji-Yin Wang
    •  & Leo P. Kouwenhoven

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Control of spins down to the atomic scale is a major goal for spin-based information processing. Here, Kot et al. demonstrate electric control over the spin-resonance transitions of a single TiH molecule placed on a surface of MgO by exploiting the electric field between the scanning tunnelling microscopy tip and the sample.

    • Piotr Kot
    • , Maneesha Ismail
    •  & Christian R. Ast

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Some systems can exhibit topologically non-trivial characteristics only when specific coordinate transformations are applied. Here, the authors report on a family of metamaterials whose topological properties are unveiled in higher order coordinates (such as strain) and predicts that topological edge states can exist for diverse boundary conditions.

    • Florian Allein
    • , Adamantios Anastasiadis
    •  & Georgios Theocharis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Weyl semimetals exhibit a rich variety of transport phenomena, but it usually takes low temperatures and a strong magnetic field to realize them. Here, Quirk et al. show that when the ferromagnetic Weyl semimetal Co2MnGa is polished to micron thicknesses, it develops a remarkable resistance anisotropy that has opposite directions on opposing crystal faces. They show that this unusual transport property, which is robust at room temperature and in a strong magnetic field, may be generated by distinct conducting states on the surfaces of these thin crystals.

    • Nicholas P. Quirk
    • , Guangming Cheng
    •  & N. P. Ong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conventional voltage control of magnetism relies on making direct electrical contacts to target samples. Here, wireless converse magnetoelectric actuation through bipolar electrochemistry is reported in magnetoionic transition metal nitride films.

    • Zheng Ma
    • , Laura Fuentes-Rodriguez
    •  & Jordi Sort

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this work, authors demonstrate a fast and versatile microprinting technique to produce high-performance and customizable piezoelectric elements by employing a conductive spiny disc to electrostatically trigger instability to the liquid-air interface of the ink.

    • Xuemu Li
    • , Zhuomin Zhang
    •  & Zhengbao Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors propose an implementation of Floquet non-Abelian topological insulators in a 1D three-band system with parity-time symmetry. Furthermore, they demonstrate that the bulk-edge correspondence is multifold and follows the multiplication rule of a quaternion group.

    • Tianyu Li
    •  & Haiping Hu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Arranging nanomagnets into a two-dimensional lattice provides access to a rich landscape of magnetic behaviours. Control of the interactions between the nanomagnets after fabrication is a challenge. Here, Yun et al demonstrate all-electrical control of magnetic couplings in a two-dimensional array of nanomagnets using ionic gating.

    • Chao Yun
    • , Zhongyu Liang
    •  & Zhaochu Luo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Half-Heusler alloys containing rare earth ions have attracted interest due to combination of band-inversion and magnetism. Ueda et al study less studied trivial semiconductor HoAuSn, and show that it undergoes a magnetic field induced transition to a Weyl semimetal state, with a large reduction in the resistance.

    • Kentaro Ueda
    • , Tonghua Yu
    •  & Yoshinori Tokura

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A critical step to enable practical structural superlubricity (SSL) applications is to enable high throughput to both fabrication and performance evaluation. Here, the authors demonstrate an automated system for efficient and multiple SSL materials transfer and tribological measurement.

    • Li Chen
    • , Cong Lin
    •  & Ming Ma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Homochirality, a key feature of life, has unknown origins. Magnetic mineral surfaces can act as chiral agents, but are only weakly magnetized by nature. Here, the authors report the uniform magnetization of magnetite by an RNA precursor that spreads across the surface like an avalanche.

    • S. Furkan Ozturk
    • , Deb Kumar Bhowmick
    •  & Dimitar D. Sasselov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    2D materials with Kagome lattices have attracted significant interest due to their exotic electronic properties. Here, the authors report the synthesis and characterization of a 2D MoTe2 phase characterized by a colouring-triangular lattice (a Kagome variant), showing evidence of Dirac-like and flat electronic bands.

    • Le Lei
    • , Jiaqi Dai
    •  & Wei Ji

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