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Valleytronics — exploiting a system’s pseudospin degree of freedom — is being increasingly explored in sonic crystals. Now, valley transport of sound is reported for a macroscopic triangular-lattice array of rod-like scatterers in a 2D air waveguide.
Photoemission is usually driven by the energy of the illuminating laser pulses, but in the strong-field regime, the photoemission from an array of plasmonic nanoparticles is shown to be controlled by the light’s electric field.
Larval starfish use an outer layer of cilia to generate vortices in the fluid around their bodies. Spectacular imaging and mathematical modelling are combined to reveal that these dynamics are alternately optimized for swimming and feeding.
Resonances in the tunnelling spectra of a two-dimensional electron system provide strong evidence that the electrons arrange themselves into a Wigner crystal lattice with long-range ordering.
An optical second-harmonic generation study of a series of transition metal monopnictide Weyl semimetals reveals a giant, anisotropic nonlinear optical response in these systems.
Collections of rolling colloids are shown to pinch off into motile clusters resembling droplets sliding down a windshield. These stable dynamic structures are formed through a fingering instability that relies on hydrodynamic interactions alone.
A detailed and systematic neutron-scattering study uncovers a continuum of magnetic excitations down to 0.06 K in the triangular quantum magnet YbMgGaO4 — an observation consistent with quantum spin liquid behaviour.
Engineering moiré superlattices by stacking two-dimensional crystals could enable lateral superstructures to be formed where the local topological phase is periodically modulated, creating topological mosaics that are electrically switchable.
Adiabatic processes are useful in quantum control, but they are slow. A way around this is to exploit shortcuts to adiabaticity, which can speed things up — for instance, by boosting stimulated Raman adiabatic passage.
High-harmonic generation in a solid turns out to be sensitive to the interatomic bonding — a very useful feature that could enable the all-optical imaging of the interatomic potential.
When deforming snow slowly, it resists. But when applying a deformation rapidly, it gives in more easily. Experiments now reveal propagating deformation bands and the localization of strain in compressed snow — both natural and artificial.
Observations of high-harmonic generation from a single layer of a transition metal dichalcogenide opens the door to studying strong-field and attosecond phenomena in two-dimensional materials.
The strength of optical trapping of a nanodiamond can be increased by cooperative effects between its numerous colour centres — or artificial atoms: an observation that brings together ideas from atom and nanoparticle trapping.
Observations show that, like light solar-mass stars, heavy stars also form through episodic disk-accretion; but faster, more energetic and emitting more light.
Confinement plays an important role in many-body physics from high energy to condensed matter. New results show that it strongly affects the non-equilibrium dynamics after a quantum quench with possible implications from ultracold atoms to QCD.
The success with which the parasite Schistosoma mansoni infects humans is due largely to its efficient motility. Experiments, modelling and robotics suggest that it swims via an elastohydrodynamic mechanism, rather than using active muscle control.
The emergence of optically silent phonons show that strong interlayer electron–phonon coupling can arise in van der Waals heterostructures, with the vibrational modes in one layer coupling to the electronic states in a neighbouring layer.
Light can be used to directly excite phonon modes in condensed matter. Simultaneously exciting several modes in an antiferromagnetic rare-earth orthoferrite drives behaviour that mimics the application of a magnetic field.