Condensed-matter physics articles within Nature Physics

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  • News & Views |

    The Kondo effect — the screening of an impurity spin by conduction electrons — is a fundamental many-body effect. However, recent experiments combined with simulations have caused a long-standing model system for the single-atom Kondo effect to fail.

    • Jörg Kröger
    •  & Takashi Uchihashi

  • Comment |

    The renormalization group evolved from ad hoc procedures to cope with divergences in perturbative calculations. This Comment summarizes efforts to develop a mathematically rigorous approach to renormalization group calculations.

    • Antti Kupiainen

  • Comment |

    Renormalization began as a tool to eliminate divergences in quantum electrodynamics, but it is now the basis of our understanding of physics at different energy scales. Here, I review its evolution with an eye towards physics beyond the Wilsonian paradigm.

    • Philip W. Phillips

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Interactions between a localized magnetic moment and electrons in a metal can produce an emergent resonance that affects the metal’s properties. A realization of this Kondo effect in MoS2 provides an opportunity to study it in microscopic detail.

    • Camiel van Efferen
    • , Jeison Fischer
    •  & Wouter Jolie

  • Research Briefing |

    Neutron spectroscopy, entanglement analysis, and simulations provide evidence that KYbSe2 closely approximates a 2D quantum spin liquid. Although KYbSe2 displays magnetic ordering at low temperatures, its magnetic dynamics are dominated by fractionalized excitations that exhibit anomalously large quantum entanglement, indicating that on finite timescales KYbSe2 exhibits quantum spin liquid physics.

  • News & Views |

    A detailed understanding of phonon transport is crucial for engineering the thermal properties of materials. A particular doping strategy is now shown to lead to good thermoelectric performance with low thermal conductivity.

    • Zhilun Lu

  • Article |

    Despite the theoretical prediction of spinaron quasiparticles in artificial nanostructures, experimental evidence has not yet been seen. Now it has been observed in a hybrid system comprising Co atoms on a Cu(111) surface.

    • Felix Friedrich
    • , Artem Odobesko
    •  & Matthias Bode

  • News & Views |

    A nonlinear optical approach has now enabled picosecond control of a complex band structure, driving a non-Hermitian topological phase transition across an exceptional-point singularity.

    • Jiangbin Gong
    •  & Ching Hua Lee

  • News & Views |

    Understanding lattice-geometry-driven electronic structure and orbital character in a titanium-based superconducting kagome metal provides insights into the non-trivial topology and electronic nematicity of correlated quantum matter.

    • Bahadur Singh

  • News & Views |

    Measurements of two neighbouring silicon-based qubits show that the charge noise they each experience is correlated, suggesting a common origin. Understanding these correlations is crucial for performing error correction in these systems.

    • Łukasz Cywiński

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is evidence that K3C60 can host a photo-induced superconducting state. Now, resonant excitation at low frequencies allows this phenomenon at room temperature and low pumping fluence.

    • E. Rowe
    • , B. Yuan
    •  & A. Cavalleri

  • Comment |

    Efficient superconducting diodes can be designed according to established physics. However, emerging concepts must be united with known mechanisms in order to unlock functionality in rectification and frequency conversion.

    • P. J. W. Moll
    •  & V. B. Geshkenbein

  • News & Views |

    When a system is driven across a second-order phase transition, defects can form because it cannot respond quickly enough to the new conditions. The Kibble–Zurek mechanism explains this physics, and has now been invoked for Ising-type domains.

    • István Kézsmárki
    •  & Andrés Cano

  • Research Briefing |

    Local thermodynamic measurements of a twisted transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructure reveal competition between unconventional charge order and Hofstadter states. This results from the presence of both flat and dispersive electronic bands, whose energetic ordering can be experimentally tuned.

  • News & Views |

    A trilayer copper oxide superconductor, which exhibits the highest superconducting critical temperature as a function of the number of copper–oxygen planes, is shown to have unusual doped hole distribution and interaction between the planes.

    • Atsushi Fujimori

  • Article |

    Wrinkling of cell nuclei is associated with disease. During development, the nucleus behaves like a sheet of paper and the wrinkling amplitude can be manipulated without changing its pattern.

    • Jonathan A. Jackson
    • , Nicolas Romeo
    •  & Jasmin Imran Alsous

  • News & Views |

    Hubbard excitons are elusive quasiparticles that are predicted to form in strongly correlated insulators. Detecting their internal structure and dynamics clarifies the involvement of spin fluctuations in their binding and recombination processes.

    • Edoardo Baldini

  • Article |

    Measurements of the electronic structure of a trilayer cuprate superconductor suggest that its high critical temperature is explained by the different doping levels of the layers. The combination of underdoped inner layer and overdoped outer layers supports superconductivity.

    • Xiangyu Luo
    • , Hao Chen
    •  & X. J. Zhou

  • Article |

    Hole and particle-like quasiparticles of a Mott insulator can pair into excitonic bound states. Now, time-resolved measurements of Sr2IrO4 show signs of an excitonic fluid forming from a photo-excited population of quasiparticles.

    • Omar Mehio
    • , Xinwei Li
    •  & David Hsieh

  • Article |

    Phonons that carry a large magnetic moment may be helpful for creating spintronic devices. Now this phenomenon is observed in an antiferromagnet and is enhanced by the critical fluctuations associated with a phase transition.

    • Fangliang Wu
    • , Song Bao
    •  & Qi Zhang

  • Editorial |

    Claims of a room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconductor recently kicked up a storm on social media. As the dust settles, we take stock of what this experience can teach us.

  • Article |

    The boson peak refers to an excess in the phonon density of states seen in three-dimensional amorphous materials. Helium-atom scattering experiments have now revealed a boson peak in a two-dimensional material, too, at a frequency similar to that of the bulk material.

    • Martin Tømterud
    • , Sabrina D. Eder
    •  & Bodil Holst

  • Review Article |

    Describing interdependencies and coupling between complex systems requires tools beyond what the framework of single networks offers. This Review covers recent developments in the study and modelling of multilayer networks.

    • Manlio De Domenico

  • News & Views |

    The guiding of magnetic fields by soft ferromagnetic solids is well known and exploited in magnetic shielding applications. Now, ferroelectric nematic liquids are shown to analogously guide electric fields.

    • Alenka Mertelj

  • News & Views |

    An experimental approach enables the observation of the microscopic details of the relaxation of a highly equilibrated glass back to the liquid phase in real time. This points to a scenario where devitrification proceeds via localized seeds separated by macroscopic length scales.

    • Federico Caporaletti

  • News & Views |

    Chains of coupled superconducting islands known as Josephson junction arrays were predicted to be insulating at high impedance, but superconducting behaviour has been observed. A study of the arrays’ transport suggests thermal effects are responsible.

    • Dmitri V. Averin

  • News & Views |

    The near-zero thermal expansion of Invar alloy Fe65Ni35 is technologically important but still unexplained. Measurements show that this phenomenon can be explained by the cancellation of magnetic and phonon contributions to the alloy’s entropy.

    • Ralf Röhlsberger

  • Article |

    The behaviour of a superconductor can be altered by changing its symmetry properties. Coherently coupling two Josephson junctions breaks time-reversal and inversion symmetries, giving rise to a device with a controllable superconducting diode effect.

    • Sadashige Matsuo
    • , Takaya Imoto
    •  & Seigo Tarucha

  • Article |

    The iron–nickel alloy Invar has an extremely small coefficient of thermal expansion that has been difficult to explain theoretically. A study of Invar under pressure now suggests that there is a cancellation of phonon and spin contributions to expansion.

    • S. H. Lohaus
    • , M. Heine
    •  & B. Fultz

  • Article |

    The ferroelectric uniaxial nematic liquid-crystal phase features a freely reorientable polarization field. When confined in microchannels and subjected to electric fields, this polarization is now found to align with the channels due to a superscreening effect.

    • Federico Caimi
    • , Giovanni Nava
    •  & Tommaso Bellini

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