Quantum physics articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article |

    The absence of a bandgap and competing phonon-induced electron-hole recombination makes extraction of charge carriers difficult in graphene. Here, the authors show theoretically that a tunable bandgap can be introduced in graphene via Landau quantization, allowing for significant carrier multiplication.

    • Florian Wendler
    • , Andreas Knorr
    •  & Ermin Malic

  • Article |

    Phase estimation is an important element of quantum metrology, but the influence of noise cannot always be well characterized. Vidrighin et al.analyse and experimentally demonstrate methods providing simultaneous estimation of a phase shift and the amplitude of phase diffusion at the quantum limit.

    • Mihai D. Vidrighin
    • , Gaia Donati
    •  & Ian A. Walmsley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recently, a sharp resonance was observed in the spectrum of a flux-qubit nitrogen-vacancy-centre hybrid quantum system that is much narrower than that of either the flux qubit or the spin ensemble. Zhu et al.investigate this resonance and find evidence of a coherently driven collective dark state.

    • Xiaobo Zhu
    • , Yuichiro Matsuzaki
    •  & Shiro Saito

  • Article |

    Rapid optical modulation is vital to many optoelectronic applications, like communications or imaging technologies. Here, the authors study the optical modulation of atomically thin gold nanodisks and find they have similar absorption cross-sections to spherical particles of the same width.

    • A. Manjavacas
    •  & F.J. García de Abajo

  • Article |

    The emergence of macroscopic irreversibility from reversible microscopic processes is an area of intense research. Here the authors experimentally probe this phenomenon, showing that in periodically driven systems self-organization can protect macroscopic reversibility.

    • Raphaël Jeanneret
    •  & Denis Bartolo

  • Article |

    Efimov trimers are bound states of three bosons, which exist even if their attraction is too weak to form a pair state. Here, the authors explore the phase diagram of a unitary Bose gas and find a transition from a normal gas to a superfluid Efimov liquid, held together by the same effects as Efimov trimers.

    • Swann Piatecki
    •  & Werner Krauth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Light carries momentum and therefore can be used to push small particles forward. Here, Wang and Chan demonstrate that under the right conditions a light beam can also exert sideway forces on chiral particles.

    • S. B. Wang
    •  & C. T. Chan

  • Article |

    The momentum and spin of a propagating photon are given by its wave vector and circular polarization, respectively. Bliokh et al.here show that evanescent electromagnetic waves possess a polarization-dependent momentum component and a polarization-independent spin component, which are both orthogonal to the wave vector.

    • Konstantin Y. Bliokh
    • , Aleksandr Y. Bekshaev
    •  & Franco Nori

  • Article |

    Spin excitations are implicated in the emergence of high-temperature superconductivity in the cuprates but the details are unclear. Calculations performed by Jia et al.resolve a seeming contradiction presented by recent X-ray measurements and suggest that the role played by high-energy spin excitations is nominal for pairing.

    • C. J. Jia
    • , E. A. Nowadnick
    •  & T. P. Devereaux

  • Article |

    Precise control of quantum systems is important for numerous quantum information tasks, but becomes harder as the system size grows. Dolde et al.use dynamical decoupling techniques to obtain high-fidelity entangled states between electron spins in a nitrogen-vacancy-centre qubit system, with low cross-talk.

    • Florian Dolde
    • , Ville Bergholm
    •  & Jörg Wrachtrup

  • Article |

    Two-dimensional electron gases in SrTiO3 offer new insights into the physics of complex oxides and offer the potential for applications in electronics. Here, King et al. show how orbital ordering, spin–orbit coupling and many-body interactions collectively shape the complex properties of these confined electron systems.

    • P. D. C. King
    • , S. McKeown Walker
    •  & F. Baumberger

  • Article |

    Functional magnetic materials with large anisotropy and coercivity, which are not based on scarce rare earth elements, are much sought after. Here, the authors show that the material Li2(Li1–xFex)N, which has similar properties as single-molecular magnets, shows those interesting properties.

    • A. Jesche
    • , R.W. McCallum
    •  & P.C. Canfield

  • Article |

    Conventional Josephson junctions have a dominant first harmonic in the current-phase relation. Here, the authors use a ferromagnetic insulator to create a spin-filter Josephson junction and show that the second harmonic is dominant, pointing to unconventional cooper pair transport.

    • Avradeep Pal
    • , Z.H. Barber
    •  & M.G. Blamire

  • Article |

    Quantum annealing is a quantum computational approach exploiting ground-state dynamics of a system to find optimal solutions. Pudenz et al.present an error correction scheme for quantum annealing and show that it provides improved performance on a quantum annealer with up to 344 superconducting flux qubits.

    • Kristen L. Pudenz
    • , Tameem Albash
    •  & Daniel A. Lidar

  • Article |

    Entanglement between photons is easily destroyed by losses in optical systems as light propagates through it. For entanglement of orbital angular momentum, McLaren et al.show that losses caused by obstructions in the beam path can be overcome if measurements are made in the Bessel basis.

    • Melanie McLaren
    • , Thandeka Mhlanga
    •  & Andrew Forbes

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The peculiar supersolid phase of matter was predicted several decades ago, yet a physical system where it exists remains to be found. Cinti et al.investigate the zero-temperature phase diagram of bosons interacting by soft-core potentials and find that defects in it can give rise to a supersolid phase.

    • F. Cinti
    • , T. Macrì
    •  & T. Pohl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While a quantum system is always disturbed by any observation, one can exploit the back action of measurements and strong couplings to tailor the system evolution via quantum Zeno dynamics. Schäfer et al. demonstrate quantum Zeno dynamics in a five-level Hilbert space using a 87Rb Bose–Einstein condensate.

    • F. Schäfer
    • , I. Herrera
    •  & A. Smerzi

  • Article |

    The coupling of particles with physical waves is a generic phenomenon observed in various systems, but its differentiation from quantum effect is still unclear. Perrard et al.address this issue using a bouncing liquid drop confined in a magnetic potential well, where quantized motions are obtained.

    • Stéphane Perrard
    • , Matthieu Labousse
    •  & Yves Couder

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Interferometers play a key role in precision measurements and metrology. Here, the authors demonstrate a new type of interferometer that replaces the standard beam splitter elements with parametric amplifiers, which provides enhanced performance compared with a Mach–Zehnder interferometer.

    • F. Hudelist
    • , Jia Kong
    •  & Weiping Zhang

  • Article |

    Practical quantum computers will require protocols to carry out computation on encrypted data, just like their classical counterparts. Here, the authors present such a protocol that allows an untrusted server to implement universal quantum gates on encrypted qubits without learning about the inputs.

    • K. A. G. Fisher
    • , A. Broadbent
    •  & K. J. Resch

  • Article |

    Characterizing quantum states is vital for quantum information or metrology tasks, but it remains challenging. Here, by a combination of weak and strong measurements, the authors directly measure the probability amplitudes of a pure state in the orbital angular momentum basis with dimensionality of 27.

    • Mehul Malik
    • , Mohammad Mirhosseini
    •  & Robert W. Boyd

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the possible role of quantum effects in biological systems requires identification of their non-classical features. Here, the authors study prototype dimers in photosynthetic antennae and find that vibration-assisted processes benefit from non-classical fluctuations of their collective motions.

    • Edward J. O’Reilly
    •  & Alexandra Olaya-Castro

  • Article |

    Ginzburg–Landau theory provides a powerful framework for describing the behaviour of conventional superconductors without detailed microscopic information about them. Bao et al.construct a similar framework for describing spin superconductivity, a recently proposed analogue of conventional superconductivity.

    • Zhi-qiang Bao
    • , X.C. Xie
    •  & Qing-feng Sun

  • Article |

    The energy alignment at organic-metal interface has a strong influence on the performance of organic-based electronic devices. Lin et al.show this alignment can be tuned by varying the thickness of a uniform metallic thin film, which is confined between organic active layers and the substrate.

    • Meng-Kai Lin
    • , Yasuo Nakayama
    •  & S.-J. Tang

  • Article |

    The quantum no-cloning theorem forbids the creation of perfect copies of an unknown quantum state. Even so, Chiribella et al.show the existence of physical processes that replicate quantum information at high rates and vanishing error, and are constrained only by the precision limits of quantum metrology.

    • Giulio Chiribella
    • , Yuxiang Yang
    •  & Andrew Chi-Chih Yao

  • Article |

    Quantum teleportation enables the transfer of information between different systems, and will be important for building quantum computing networks. Here, the authors show teleportation of photons between two different sources with greatly differing bandwidths, with an average fidelity of 0.77.

    • R. M. Stevenson
    • , J. Nilsson
    •  & A. J. Shields

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In quantum systems, information can flow back and forth between the system and its environment, leading to revivals of quantum correlations. Using a simple model, Xu et al.experimentally show how revivals can occur with a classical environment despite the absence of back-action from the environment.

    • Jin-Shi Xu
    • , Kai Sun
    •  & Giuseppe Compagno

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Practical implementations of quantum communication need to securely deliver information over long distances without line-of-sight. Towards this goal, Cuevas et al.use an actively stabilized interferometer to close the geometry loophole for a Bell inequality violation over 1 km of optical fibre.

    • A. Cuevas
    • , G. Carvacho
    •  & G.B. Xavier

  • Article |

    The realization of the fractional quantum Hall effect with ultracold atoms in optical lattices is much sought after. Here, the authors propose a new way of obtaining fractional quantum Hall states in lattice systems by transforming a nonlocal abstract model into an implementable scheme.

    • Anne E. B. Nielsen
    • , Germán Sierra
    •  & J. Ignacio Cirac

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Measurement-based one-way quantum computation with cluster states is an efficient route to processing quantum information, yet gate sequences for large states remain elusive. Su et al. present a continuous variable squeezed gate and controlled-phase gate sequence using a six-mode cluster state.

    • Xiaolong Su
    • , Shuhong Hao
    •  & Kunchi Peng

  • Article |

    Future quantum technologies will require interfaces between photons transmitting information and solid-state devices storing and manipulating it. Towards this aim, Gao et al.show the transfer of information from a single photon to a semiconductor quantum dot through quantum teleportation protocols.

    • W.B. Gao
    • , P. Fallahi
    •  & A. Imamoğlu

  • Article |

    Classical physics says it should be impossible to generate a string of truly random numbers using any process that isn't completely random. However, Gallego et al. show that using quantum non-locality it should be possible to amplify the indeterminism of an imperfectly random source to do exactly this.

    • Rodrigo Gallego
    • , Lluis Masanes
    •  & Antonio Acín

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum mechanics dictates that the interference pattern cast by particles after passing through a double slit depends on how much information it is possible to know about which slit they went through. Banaszek et al. show how this behaviour extends to a system’s internal degrees of freedom.

    • Konrad Banaszek
    • , Paweł Horodecki
    •  & Czesław Radzewicz

  • Article |

    Arrays of interacting atoms held in optical lattices provide a potentially powerful platform for simulating and studying complex physical phenomena. Tagliacozzo et al. propose a means to explore computationally challenging non-Abelian lattice gauge theories in a lattice of Rydberg atoms.

    • L. Tagliacozzo
    • , A. Celi
    •  & M. Lewenstein

  • Article |

    Plutonium has unusual physical properties due to strong electronic correlation, but its α-phase has not been studied much in this respect. Using sophisticated numerical methods, Zhu et al. show that in this phase different atomic sites have different degrees of electronic correlation.

    • Jian-Xin Zhu
    • , R. C. Albers
    •  & J. M. Wills

  • Article |

    Neural interactions taking place in the brain seemingly occur at criticality, but little is known about how this state is achieved. Moretti and Muñoz identify the signatures of so-called Griffiths phases stemming from the hierarchical topology of brain networks, which could point to an explanation.

    • Paolo Moretti
    •  & Miguel A. Muñoz

  • Article |

    As quantum information technologies develop into practical computational engines, many technical issues must be considered. Devittet al.estimate the resources needed to perform prime factorization with Shor’s algorithm on an atom-optics quantum computer and show how to optimize the computer's performance.

    • Simon J. Devitt
    • , Ashley M. Stephens
    •  & Kae Nemoto

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The quantum phase of a magnetic spin carrier can be electrically controlled via the Aharonov–Casher effect. Here, the authors isolate and handle the geometric-phase component independently from the dynamical one, allowing geometric manipulation of electron spins in a semiconductor ring array.

    • Fumiya Nagasawa
    • , Diego Frustaglia
    •  & Junsaku Nitta

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electronic spins in Si are potentially useful in the development of solid-state quantum devices, but its degenerate valley states limits this potential. Zhang et al.use a genetic algorithm to identify a Ge/Si-multilayer-clad Si quantum structure whose valley splitting is increased by an order of magnitude.

    • Lijun Zhang
    • , Jun-Wei Luo
    •  & Alex Zunger

  • Article |

    Quantum key distribution allows for the generation of secure secret keys between two parties, although its success rate falls as the keys get shorter and in the presence of noise. Baccoet al.demonstrate that secure keys can be extracted with finite numbers of qubits under realistic conditions.

    • Davide Bacco
    • , Matteo Canale
    •  & Paolo Villoresi

  • Article |

    The correlations exhibited by multipartite quantum systems composed of more than two entangled subsystems are more difficult to describe than those of bipartite quantum systems. Fritzet al.propose a principle of 'local orthogonality' as a key element to describing multipartite quantum correlations.

    • T. Fritz
    • , A.B. Sainz
    •  & A. Acín

  • Article |

    Controlling quantum systems requires measurements that do not blur their delicate quantum features. Vanner et al. use optical pulses to measure the position and reconstruct the state of a mechanical oscillator without back-action, paving the way to observing non-classical motional states.

    • M. R. Vanner
    • , J. Hofer
    •  & M. Aspelmeyer

  • Article |

    The quantum transport properties of disordered systems like light-harvesting complexes or atomic clouds strongly depend on the system's geometry. Combining complex network analysis with quantum dynamics, the authors identify structural motifs that exhibit particularly robust quantum transport.

    • Stefano Mostarda
    • , Federico Levi
    •  & Francesco Rao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Realistic quantum computers require a high degree of qubit control and must also be resilient to noise. Using dynamical decoupling control techniques, Liuet al.implement a self-protected controlled-NOT gate for electron and nuclear spins that retains a high final state fidelity.

    • Gang-Qin Liu
    • , Hoi Chun Po
    •  & Xin-Yu Pan

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