Review Articles

Quantum computers are expected to surpass classical computers and transform industries. This Review focuses on quantum computing for financial applications and provides a summary for physicists on potential advantages and limitations of quantum techniques, as well as challenges that physicists could help tackle.

Amyloid formation is an important class of protein self-assembly behaviour that is linked to functional processes and disease. This Review describes amyloid formation through the lens of general phase transitions, building on both classical and non-classical nucleation theories to illuminate fundamental molecular mechanisms underlying this phenomenon.

This Review overviews the application of single photons in quantum communication and quantum computation discussing specific needs and requirements and achieved milestones and outlining future improvements.

This Review overviews the application of single photons in quantum metrology, quantum biology and the foundations of quantum physics, discussing specific needs and requirements, achieved milestones and an outline for future improvements.

As one of the most important protocols in quantum information technology, quantum teleportation enables the nonlocal transmission of unknown quantum information. This Review discusses the latest developments in the quantum teleportation of complex quantum states and applications to quantum communication and computing.

Diffusion is a fundamental transport mechanism that is distinct from wave propagation. Over the past decade, many approaches to control diffusion have been developed. This Review summarizes the origin, development and future of diffusion metamaterials that manipulate heat, particles and plasmas.

Predicting atmospheric ice formation from aerosol particles for cloud and climate modelling remains challenging. This Review summarizes recent fundamental advances on the governing parameters that lead to ice nucleation from liquid droplets and solid substrates, applying experiments and computational theory.

Although the complexity of quantum systems scales exponentially with their size, classical algorithms and optimization strategies can still play an important role in the characterization of quantum states, their dynamics and the detection process.

Quantum sensors enable new possibilities in biomedical applications due to their high sensitivity. In this Review, the status of quantum sensing is presented, and the path towards real-world applications on the molecular, cellular and organism scale is evaluated.

Computer simulations may unlock crucial aspects of how a liquid transforms into a glass, but are hampered by rapidly growing relaxation times near the transition. This Review summarizes progress towards overcoming this problem and creating realistic in silico glasses, and discusses what understanding has been enabled.

Thouless pumping is a dynamical quantum effect that results in a quantized response of a many-body system. It stems from the topological properties of the band structure that emerge under a periodic drive in the adiabatic limit. This Review addresses the robustness of topology in adiabatically driven systems exploring fundamental issues regarding the roles of interactions, disorder and higher dimensions in quantum transport.

Randomized measurements provide a feasible procedure for probing properties of many-body quantum states realized in today’s quantum simulators and quantum computers. This Review covers implementation, classical post-processing and theoretical performance guarantees of randomized measurement protocols, surveying their many applications and discussing current challenges.

Magnetic resonance elastography captures multiscale mechanical information conveyed by shear waves, enabling noninvasive measurement of the physical behaviour of biological tissues—a behaviour that can change markedly with disease. This Review summarizes the basic technical concepts of magnetic resonance elastography and outlines preclinical and clinical applications.

Non-Hermitian theory consists of mathematical structures that are used to describe open systems, which can give rise to non-Hermitian topology not found in Hermitian systems. This Review provides an overview of non-Hermitian band topology and discusses recent developments, such as the non-Hermitian skin effect and non-Hermitian topological classifications.

The discovery of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos and the first hints of coincident electromagnetic and neutrino emissions opened new opportunities in multi-messenger astronomy. We review theoretical expectations of neutrino emission from transient astrophysical sources and the current and upcoming experimental landscape.

Spin–orbit coupling in non-centrosymmetric heterostructures is called the Rashba effect. This Review highlights the latest progress covering new classes of materials with a variety of ‘Rashba-like’ spin–momentum locking schemes and new trends in non-equilibrium transport leading to enhanced functionalities in spin- and optoelectronics.

Controlled dissipation can be used to protect quantum information, control dynamics and enforce constraints. This Review explains the basic principles and overviews the applications of dissipation engineering to quantum error correction, quantum sensing and quantum simulation.

Understanding the fundamental limits to photonic design is both theoretically important and critical to the development of future high-performance photonic devices. This Review surveys progress made in this area and discusses an emerging general framework for evaluating photonic design limits based on conservation principles and optimization theory.

The study of Bose–Einstein condensation in photonic systems has attracted strong interest in a variety of physical platforms, including conventional lasers and optical parametric oscillators, exciton and exciton–polariton gases, and photons in dye-filled cavities and propagating geometries. The focus of this Review is to highlight those universal phenomena that stem from the driven-dissipative, non-equilibrium nature of these systems and affect the static, dynamic, superfluid and coherence properties of the condensate.

Flat bands enhance the effect of electronic interactions and have emerged as a promising platform for superconductivity. This Review explains the quantum geometric origin of flat-band superconductivity and superfluidity, and discusses its relevance in graphene and ultracold gas moiré systems.