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Integrating high-quality-factor mechanical resonators into devices brings them close to materials, which leads to losses. Systematic studies in dielectric environments reveal that dielectrics ‘steal’ energy through charge fluctuations.
Ferroelectric materials can host robust and diverse polarization textures. This Review examines their formation mechanisms, responses to external stimuli and potential applications in next-generation electronic devices.
By making atoms tunnel together as a bound cluster, researchers have generated massive Schrödinger cat states, opening new routes toward tests of gravity in the quantum regime.
Altermagnetism, a recently identified unconventional magnetic order, might enable fast and efficient spin-based devices. This Review explores its interplay with ferroelectric and superconducting systems and its promise for scalable spintronics.
Quantum algorithms excel at simulating Hamiltonian dynamics, but they struggle with preparing the thermal equilibrium states needed for quantum simulation. Now it has been shown that a recent algorithm can efficiently prepare an important class of thermal states.
Thermal magnon fluctuations can be selectively redistributed through a process known as squeezing, a phenomenon now observed in magnetic insulators driven into a non-equilibrium state.
The microscopic origin of line tension, used in the equilibrium description of liquid drops on flat surfaces, is not well understood. Simulations of water nanodroplets show that structural transitions affect the sign and the magnitude of line tension and therefore wetting behaviour.
Models of quantum magnets have predicted many exciting phenomena that are yet to be observed. This Perspective argues that much tighter collaboration between analytical theory, numerics and experiments is needed to make progress.
The electronic structure of materials can be tailored using pulses of light, and through this so-called Floquet engineering, novel materials can be designed. Now, the technique has been used to create light-induced metallic surface states in the band gap of a semiconductor — transforming the material, transiently, into a topological insulator.
Measurements made using nuclear quadrupole resonance and nuclear magnetic resonance have revealed tiny internal magnetic fields in a kagome metal. These fields are microscopic evidence of a hidden electronic order characterized by spontaneous atomic-scale current loops, and consistent with an imaginary charge-density wave.
In recent years, many active learning methods have entered introductory physics classrooms, but their comparative effectiveness is unclear. Now a multi-institutional study examines the relative impact of four well-established active learning methods.
In rhombohedral multilayer graphene, superconductivity emerges from an unusual normal state in which electrons and holes reside on opposite surfaces of the crystal.
DNA methylation regulates cell differentiation. It is now shown that methylation dynamics in the early embryo follow a universal scaling law, suggesting that physical constraints rather than molecular specifics shape cell fate.
Phase transitions in cellular collectives are triggered by multiple control parameters. Independently tuning cell density and adhesion, both in silico and in vivo, reveals that adhesion dictates the tissue material state. Adhesion-driven solidification in unjammed pluripotent tissues is shown to drive epithelial organization — uncovering that phase transitions direct developmental programmes.
