Research articles

An interferometer device is used to detect the quantum-mechanical phase that is gained when two anyons are braided around each other. The fractional value of the phase proves that these quasiparticles are neither bosons nor fermions.

The non-zero geometric phase acquired by the braiding of vortex modes in photonic waveguide lattices demonstrates their potential to serve as a platform for the study of both Abelian and non-Abelian braiding in bosonic systems.

Ultracold alkaline-earth fermionic atoms with large number of nuclear spin states possess SU(N) symmetry. That deeply affects their interaction properties, and allows a Fermi gas of these atoms to be cooled quickly to the quantum degenerate regime.

X-ray scattering experiments show that the quantum fluctuations associated with charge order take a form that is incompatible with the idea of competition between charge order and superconductivity.

The authors investigate out-of-equilibrium crystallization of a binary mixture of sphere-like nanoparticles in small droplets. They observe the spontaneous formation of an icosahedral structure with stable MgCu₂ phases, which are promising for photonic applications.

The unpredictability of evolution makes it difficult to deal with drug resistance because over the course of a treatment there may be mutations that we cannot predict. The authors propose to use quantum methods to control the speed and distribution of potential evolutionary outcomes.

The authors engineer Escherichia coli into two distinct strains with tunable motility. The induced control of motility leads to the formation of patterns through a self-organizing mechanism that is specific to multi-component active systems.

High-quality WSe₂–MoSe₂ heterostructures support strong coupling between the two layers, which is associated with tight hybridization and effective charge separation. In these structures, the bands of the interlayer excitons can be pressure-engineered.

Electrons and holes in doped quantum wells cannot form bound states from usual Coulomb interaction. However, when the system is embedded in a cavity, the exchange of photons provides an effective attraction, leading to the creation of bound excitons.

The presence of axion-like dark matter candidates is expected to induce an oscillating magnetic field, enhanced by a ferromagnet. Limits on the electromagnetic coupling strength of axion-like particles are reported over a mass range spanning three decades.

Composite fermions can be tuned to very low effective density in a clean two-dimensional electron gas, which allows the formation of a Bloch ferromagnet.

A three-dimensional topological magnetic superlattice structure exhibits the quantum anomalous Hall effect when the Fermi energy is tuned into the correct energy window.

For a scenario of two separated but entangled observers, inequalities are derived from three fundamental assumptions. An experiment shows that these inequalities can be violated if quantum evolution is controllable on the scale of an observer.

The strange metal phase in unconventional superconductors is probed by Hall measurements. This reveals that quantum criticality drives the Hall effect, which also correlates with the superconductivity. This indicates that all three may be linked.

Magnons are collective excitations that dictate many of a magnet’s low-temperature properties. By means of Raman scattering, the magnon spectra of CrI₃ are measured in the monolayer limit.

A protocol for the reliable, efficient and precise characterization of quantum noise is reported and implemented in an architecture consisting of 14 superconducting qubits. Correlated noise within arbitrary sets of qubits can be easily detected.

Using doped BaFe₂As₂, the authors test whether nematicity is linked to superconductivity in the iron pnictides by applying the conjugate field to nematicity—a specific form of strain—and observe that the critical temperature decreases.

The flow of fluid, such as mucus in the human respiratory tract, can affect biological function. Here the authors show that the hydrodynamic interactions mediated by mucus are essential for the directional coordination of ciliary beating in the lungs.

Analogous to the radiation-pressure coupling known in optomechanics, photon-pressure interaction between superconducting circuits can reach the strong coupling regime, which allows flexible control of the electromagnetic resonator’s quantum state.

The authors investigate the relationship between the volume of malignant tumours and their metabolic processes using a large dataset of patients with cancer. They find that cancers follow a superlinear metabolic scaling law, which implies that the proliferation of cancer cells accelerates with increasing volume.