Electronics, photonics and device physics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Manipulation at the atomic scale comes with a trade-off between simplicity and thermal stability. Here, Achal et al. demonstrate improved automated hydrogen lithography and repassivation, enabling error-corrected atomic writing of large-scale structures/memories that are stable at room temperature.

    • Roshan Achal
    • , Mohammad Rashidi
    •  & Robert A. Wolkow

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Countering the optical network ‘capacity crunch’ requires developments in optical fibres. Here, the authors report a hollow-core fibre with conjoined tubes in the cladding and a negative-curvature core shape. It exhibits a transmission loss of 2 dB/km at 1512 nm and less than 16 dB/km bandwidth in the 1302–1637 nm range.

    • Shou-fei Gao
    • , Ying-ying Wang
    •  & Pu Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Layered van der Waals compounds offer opportunities to visit new physical phenomena in two dimensional materials. Here the authors report large tunneling magnetoresistance through exfoliated CrI3 crystals and attribute its evolution to the multiple transitions to different magnetic states.

    • Zhe Wang
    • , Ignacio Gutiérrez-Lezama
    •  & Alberto F. Morpurgo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum transport in superconductors remains difficult to study due to the typically small Fermi wavelength. Here, Thierschmann et al. demonstrate a superconducting quantum point contact with split gate technology at the superconducting LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface and, due to its two-dimensionality, identify three regimes of quantum transport.

    • Holger Thierschmann
    • , Emre Mulazimoglu
    •  & Andrea D. Caviglia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The study of parity-time (PT) symmetric optical systems has recently attracted much attention. Here, the authors experimentally study an anti-PT symmetric circuit system and observe an exceptional point with an inverse PT symmetry breaking transition and energy-difference conserving dynamics.

    • Youngsun Choi
    • , Choloong Hahn
    •  & Seok Ho Song

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Antimony selenide possess several advantages for solar cell applications but state-of-the-art vapor transport deposition methods suffer from poor film quality. Here Wen et al. develop a fast and cheap method to reduce the defect density by 10 times and achieve a certified power conversion efficiency of 7.6%.

    • Xixing Wen
    • , Chao Chen
    •  & Jiang Tang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Solution-processed two-dimensional perovskite quantum-well-based optoelectronic devices have attracted great research interest but their electrical transport is poorly understood. Tsai et al. reveal that the potential barriers of the quantum wells dominate the transport properties in solar cell devices.

    • Hsinhan Tsai
    • , Reza Asadpour
    •  & Wanyi Nie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The microstructure of organic semiconductors affects their transport properties, but directly probing this relationship is challenging. He et al. show that step edges act as electron traps on the surfaces of n-type single crystals, resulting in a field effect transistor mobility that depends on step density.

    • Tao He
    • , Yanfei Wu
    •  & C. Daniel Frisbie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Strong non-resonant few-cycle laser pulses can be used to induce ultrafast phase-controllable currents along nanojunctions but the microscopic origin is unclear. Here, the authors present time-dependent quantum transport simulations that recover the experimental observations and offer an intuitive picture of the effect.

    • Liping Chen
    • , Yu Zhang
    •  & Ignacio Franco

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Integrating optical and electrical components for communication systems is challenging due to the differences of scale. The authors have developed an on-chip light-to-electrical wireless link between a nanoantenna and an optical rectifier, envisioned as a solution for future integrated wireless interconnects.

    • Arindam Dasgupta
    • , Marie-Maxime Mennemanteuil
    •  & Alexandre Bouhelier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Information leaked by a quantum system into its environment causes decoherence but if it is recorded then it can be used to infer the quantum state. Ficheux et al. monitor the relaxation and dephasing of a qubit and show that this allows all three components of the qubit to be probed simultaneously.

    • Q. Ficheux
    • , S. Jezouin
    •  & B. Huard

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Upconversion nanoparticles, which convert lower-energy light into higher-energy light, have many potential applications including sensing and imaging. Here, Wen et al. review recent advances that have addressed concentration quenching and enabled increasingly bright nanoparticles, opening up their full potential.

    • Zhen Shen
    • , Yan-Lei Zhang
    •  & Chun-Hua Dong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nonreciprocal optical elements mostly rely on magnetic fields to break time-reversal symmetry, an approach that is difficult to integrate on-chip. Here, Ruesink et al. describe and demonstrate 4-port circulation at telecom wavelengths using a magnetic-field-free optomechanical resonator.

    • Freek Ruesink
    • , John P. Mathew
    •  & Ewold Verhagen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Josephson effect is at the core of superconducting devices. Here, the authors demonstrate control of spatial confinement, amplitude, and density profile of supercurrents in one-dimensional nanoscale constrictions within graphene bilayers.

    • Rainer Kraft
    • , Jens Mohrmann
    •  & Romain Danneau

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Exploring the magnetism in the van der Waals materials facilitates two dimensional spintronic devices. Here the authors demonstrate the evolution of magnetic behavior, strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and existence of magnetic coupling between atomic layers in Fe3GeTe2 nanoflakes by varying the layer thickness.

    • Cheng Tan
    • , Jinhwan Lee
    •  & Changgu Lee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In absence of dangling bonds, van der Waals layered crystals are expected to have inert surfaces. In contrast, here the authors show presence of surface electron accumulation in MoS2, with a surface electron concentration nearly four orders of magnitude higher than that of MoS2 inner bulk.

    • M. D. Siao
    • , W. C. Shen
    •  & C.-M. Cheng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the dynamics of nanomechanical probes is important for improving high-sensitivity force field sensing. Here, the authors study the vibrations of a suspended nanowire in the presence of a rotational optical force field which breaks the orthogonality of the nanoresonator eigenmodes.

    • Laure Mercier de Lépinay
    • , Benjamin Pigeau
    •  & Olivier Arcizet

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Phonon transport control is important for thermal and non-reciprocal devices. Here, Seif et al. combine heat transport in nanostructures and optomechanics into a platform for manipulating phonons with which they design an acoustic isolator and a thermal diode.

    • Alireza Seif
    • , Wade DeGottardi
    •  & Mohammad Hafezi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Perpendicular magnetic tunnel junctions with large tunnel magnetoresistance and low junction resistance are promising for the magnetic random access memories. Here the authors achieve the spin-transfer-torque switching in perpendicular magnetic tunnel junctions with 249% tunnel magnetoresistance and low resistance-area product.

    • Mengxing Wang
    • , Wenlong Cai
    •  & Weisheng Zhao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optomechanics has recently moved into the quantum regime. Here, Tavernarakis et al. demonstrate that a hybrid optomechanical device made up of a carbon nanotube with a metal nanoparticle at its tip can push force measurements towards the quantum regime at room temperature.

    • A. Tavernarakis
    • , A. Stavrinadis
    •  & P. Verlot

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum computing platforms allowing quantum error correction usually rely on complex redundant encoding within multiple two-level systems. Here, instead, the authors realize a CNOT gate between two qubits encoded in the multiphoton states of two microwave cavities nonlinearly coupled by a transmon.

    • S. Rosenblum
    • , Y. Y. Gao
    •  & R. J. Schoelkopf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Polymer monolayer field-effect transistors hold promise for faster circuits, but their performance is currently limited by the polymer packing disorder. Li et al. pre-aggregate polymers in a solution to achieve high carrier mobility of 3 cm2 V−1s−1 in monolayers and utilize them in integrated circuits.

    • Mengmeng Li
    • , Deepthi Kamath Mangalore
    •  & Kamal Asadi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Light in biological media is known as freely diffusing because interference is negligible. Here, the authors demonstrate Anderson localization of light from quasi-two-dimensional nanostructures in silk fibres.

    • Seung Ho Choi
    • , Seong-Wan Kim
    •  & Young L. Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Silicon is an important material in spintronics but its inefficiency in light emission limits the optical probes for spin transport. Here Chiodi et al. develop ultra-doped silicon light-emitting devices and show that electroluminescence can be used to probe spin phenomena in silicon even at room temperature.

    • F. Chiodi
    • , S. L. Bayliss
    •  & A. D. Chepelianskii

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Subwavelength photon sorting in photodetection systems with a narrow spectral bandwidth has remained elusive. The authors spectrally sort and detect photons by suppressing the near-field interaction and maximizing the far-field interactions between photodetector elements, achieving a spectral separation of 30 nm.

    • Soo Jin Kim
    • , Ju-Hyung Kang
    •  & Mark L. Brongersma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors demonstrate an array of superconducting qubits embedded into a microwave transmission line. They show that the transmission through the metamaterial periodically depends on externally applied magnetic field and suppression of the transmission is achieved through field-induced transitions.

    • K. V. Shulga
    • , E. Il’ichev
    •  & A. V. Ustinov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Unidirectional spin Hall magnetoresistance enables the new spintronic devices but is limited by the low amplitude or working temperature. Here, the authors report the large unidirectional spin Hall magnetoresistance in a topological insulator and ferromagnetic metal bilayer system at relatively higher temperature.

    • Yang Lv
    • , James Kally
    •  & Jian-Ping Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fully integratable spectrometers have trade-offs between size and resolution. Here, the authors present a nano-opto-electro-mechanical system where the functionalities of transduction, actuation and detection are fully integrated, resulting in an ultra-compact high-resolution spectrometer with a micrometer-scale footprint.

    • Žarko Zobenica
    • , Rob W. van der Heijden
    •  & Andrea Fiore

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nonlocal resistances in graphene Hall bars attributed to neutral current Hall effects have been mainly measured at the microscale. Here, the authors observe consistently strong nonlocal signals in Hall bars with channel length ranging from the micrometer up to the millimeter scale, and explain them by field-induced spin-split edge states.

    • Mário Ribeiro
    • , Stephen R. Power
    •  & Fèlix Casanova

  • Article
    | Open Access

    2D materials can be doped with magnetic atoms in order to boost their potential applications in spintronics. Here, the authors fabricate Fe-doped SnS2 monolayers and show that Fe0.021Sn0.979S2 exhibits ferromagnetic behaviour with perpendicular anisotropy at 2 K, and a Curie temperature of 31 K.

    • Bo Li
    • , Tao Xing
    •  & Zhongming Wei

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite their versatility, superconducting qubits such as transmons still have limited coherence times compared to resonators. Here, the authors show how to use a single transmon to implement universal one-qubit and two-qubit operations among nine qubits encoded in superconducting resonators’ eigenmodes.

    • R. K. Naik
    • , N. Leung
    •  & D. I. Schuster

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nematic electronic order is rare and its onset often indicates a phase transition. Here, Li et al. report a nematic superconducting state in Ba0.5K0.5Fe2As2 by measuring the angular dependence of the in-plane and out-of-plane magnetoresistivity.

    • Jun Li
    • , Paulo J. Pereira
    •  & Victor V. Moshchalkov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Small-area mesa structures made of layered Bi-2212 cuprates should have many advantages as terahertz oscillators but experimental realization of such oscillators has proven difficult. Here the authors report Josephson emission from small-but-high mesas, achieving a broad frequency span of 1–11 THz.

    • E. A. Borodianskyi
    •  & V. M. Krasnov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Realising deep-strong coupling phenomena for interacting light-matter systems remains an experimental challenge. Here, Langford et al. employ a circuit quantum electrodynamics chip with moderate coupling between a resonator and transmon qubit to realise digital quantum simulation of deep-strong coupling dynamics.

    • N. K. Langford
    • , R. Sagastizabal
    •  & L. DiCarlo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Knowledge of the electron-gas dynamics in nanometric hot spots is of importance for hot-carrier technologies. Here Lozan et al. present a theoretical and experimental analysis of the spatio-temporal dynamics of hot electrons in a nano-focusing surface-plasmon polariton taper.

    • Olga Lozan
    • , Ravishankar Sundararaman
    •  & Philippe Lalanne

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Achieving fast, sensitive and room temperature detection of terahertz waves remains a formidable scientific and technological challenge. Here, the authors propose a compact terahertz device combining concepts from metamaterial resonators, optomechanics and semiconductor nanotechnology.

    • Cherif Belacel
    • , Yanko Todorov
    •  & Carlo Sirtori

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Although optomechanics enables precision metrology, measurements beyond mechanical properties often require hybrid devices. Here, Kim et al. demonstrate that a ferromagnetic needle integrated with a torsional resonator can determine the magnetic properties and amplify or cool the resonator motion.

    • P. H. Kim
    • , B. D. Hauer
    •  & J. P. Davis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Devices based on periodic architectures are intrinsically limited in terms of spectral response. Using an interference-based model, the authors design and fabricate plasmonic aperiodic groove array devices which function as light filters and colour sorters with flexible, multi-spectral optical response.

    • Matthew S. Davis
    • , Wenqi Zhu
    •  & Amit Agrawal

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Computing approaches in the optical domain would allow for ultra-fast signaling and ultra-high bandwidth capabilities. Here, Feldmann et al. demonstrate a photonic abacus, which provides multistate compute-and store operation by integrating phase-change materials with nanophotonic chips.

    • J. Feldmann
    • , M. Stegmaier
    •  & W. H. P. Pernice

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The signalling scheme used in access networks require electrical bandwidths many times greater than subscribers can utilise. Here, the authors describe a promising approach to achieve bidirectional transmission with bandwidth-efficient yet low-complexity coherent optical network unit transceiver.

    • M. S. Erkılınç
    • , D. Lavery
    •  & P. Bayvel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Control of the directional photocurrent by polarized light in topological insulators may enable topological spintronics but is not yet well understood. Here the authors demonstrate that the directional photocurrent is due to the asymmetric optical transitions between topological surface states and bulk states.

    • Yu Pan
    • , Qing-Ze Wang
    •  & Nitin Samarth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    One of technological challenges building organic electronics is efficient injection of electrons at metal-semiconductor interfaces compared to that of holes. The authors show an air-stable electrode design with induced gap states, which support Fermi level pinning and thus ambipolar carrier injection.

    • Thangavel Kanagasekaran
    • , Hidekazu Shimotani
    •  & Katsumi Tanigaki

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