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Photonic crystals can control the flow of light but they are extremely sensitive to structural disorder. Although this often degrades performance, disorder can actually be used to enhance light collimation.
Photons immediately spring to mind when we talk about long-distance entanglement. But the spins at the ends of one-dimensional magnetic chains can be entangled over large distances too — providing a solid-state alternative for quantum communication protocols.
The valley index of an electron is a magnetic moment that can be initialized optically and probed electrically. Now, experiments reveal how magnetic fields can break the degeneracy for states with different valley indices.
The Higgs mechanism is normally associated with high energy physics, but its roots lie in superconductivity. And now there is evidence for a Higgs mode in disordered superconductors near the superconductor–insulator transition.
Even simple periodic mechanical lattices can exhibit exotic topologically protected modes. Incorporating defects into the mix makes things more interesting — revealing modes whose characteristics depend on properties of both the lattice and the defect.
The successful formation of self-generated magnetic fields in the lab using large-scale, high-power lasers opens the door to a better understanding of some of the most extreme astrophysical processes taking place in the Universe.
