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Scanning tunnelling spectra of a graphene field-effect transistor reveal an unexpected tenfold increase in conductance as a result of phonon-mediated inelastic tunnelling.
Why are the superconducting pairs in high-temperature superconductors so resilient to the presence of disorder? The strong electronic correlations appear to be the answer.
The checkerboard pattern observed in high-temperature superconductors by scanning tunnelling microscopy is widespread, but what does it mean? And what does it say about the mysterious ’pseudogap’?
A superconducting qubit—a mesoscopic structure that behaves like a quantum two-level system—has been used to change the temperature of a resonant circuit, in close analogy to the so-called Sisyphus cooling and amplification protocols used in laser cooling of atoms.
Quantum mechanics enables distant events to be more strongly correlated than is possible classically. The proposal for a new family of experimental tests, and the implementation of one of them, provides further insight into the nature of such non-local correlations.
The pseudogap state in the high-temperature superconductors may be either a precursor state to superconductivity or a competing state. A direct probe of the Cooper pairs can address this conundrum.
A long-sought ytterbium-based heavy-fermion superconductor—a hole analogue of the cerium-based systems—has been found. Moreover, there is evidence for a quantum critical point at ambient conditions and without chemical doping.
Micrometre-scale superconducting circuits can act as quantum two-level systems, but unlike in their natural counterparts—such as atoms—the parameters of these ‘artificial qubits’ can be controlled externally. This tunability has now been used to break the symmetry of the system hamiltonian in a controlled manner.
A rich internal structure and long-range interactions between them make molecules with non-vanishing dipole moments interesting for many applications. An experiment demonstrating the efficient transfer of loosely bound heteronuclear molecules into more deeply bound energy levels indicates a route towards producing dense ensembles of cold polar molecules.
In dense colloidal suspensions, the spatial and temporal fluctuations in the dynamics of the constituent particles are closely related. But very close to the jamming transition—where the suspension becomes rigid—they are found to follow different trends.
In copper-oxide superconductors, charge carriers must be added to the insulating ‘parent’ compound before superconductivity appears. Exactly how the dopants affect the crystalline surface and evolving Fermi surface is now clear.
The use of a quantum point contact to detect the thermal motion of a nearby microcantilever demonstrates a potentially useful tool in the quest to push the sensitivity of displacement sensors to the ultimate quantum limit.
Carbon nanotube double quantum dots, whose shell-like electronic structure is reminiscent of that of a simple molecule, provide a useful system to study the interaction of just a few electrons at a time.
Emission coherence is crucial to the potential of future X-ray sources based on high-order harmonic generation from laser-driven plasmas. Contrary to expectations, coherent emission is possible, but only if the pulses driving it are temporally sharp.
The observation of spin blockade and lifetime-enhanced transport effects in Si/SiGe double quantum dots represents a promising step in the development of silicon-based quantum devices.
Infrared spectra of graphene deposited on a silicon oxide substrate suggest that many-body effects have a more significant role in determining its electronic behaviour than in free-standing graphene
Recognizing a superfluid when we see one may be more difficult than we originally thought. Simulations suggest that the sharp peaks associated with superfluidity in ultracold atoms do not provide a unique signature after all.
Accurate measurement of the phase of the high harmonics emitted from aligned CO2 molecules in a strong laser field represent an important step in the generation of shaped attosecond pulses and the coherent control of matter.
Defects in Josephson junctions are considered a nuisance when it comes to using superconducting circuits as building blocks for a quantum-information processor. But if the interaction between the circuit and defects is accurately controlled—as has been demonstrated now—the imperfections might be useful, serving as memory elements.
Like their classical counterparts, quantum computers can, in theory, cope with imperfections—provided that these are small enough. The regime of fault-tolerant quantum computing has now been reached for a system based on trapped ions, in which a gate operation for entangling qubits has been implemented with a fidelity exceeding 99%.