Research articles

Coexistence of a spin-glass phase with antiferromagnetism in an intercalated crystal produces a large exchange bias effect. This is due to the interplay of disorder and frustration.

The combination of disorder and strong interactions makes it hard to understand the nature of doped silicon’s insulating phase. State-of-the-art spectroscopy measurements show marginal electronic behaviour reminiscent of what is seen in the cuprates.

Starting from a strongly correlated state, with highly non-Gaussian correlations, a Gaussian state can emerge dynamically over time. Experiments with ultracold atoms show how the mixing between phase and density fluctuations plays the crucial role.

Characterizing the epithelial tissue of a shape-shifting marine animal as an integrated composite material reveals a ductile-to-brittle phase transition that captures how the tissue responds to failure.

Self-referenced attosecond streaking enables in situ measurements of Auger emission in atomic neon excited by femtosecond pulses from an X-ray free-electron laser with subfemtosecond time resolution and despite the jitter inherent to X-ray free-electron lasers.

In twisted bilayer graphene, the moiré potential, strong electron–electron interactions and a magnetic field conspire to split the flat band into topologically non-trivial subbands.

Resonant excitation of phonons by a laser pulse switches the magnetization of a thin yttrium iron garnet film. This particular combination of longitudinal optical phonons results in a quadrupolar pattern, but this could be tailored in the future.

Biomolecules in the cell nucleus form condensates at a rate slower than that predicted by the theory of droplet growth. Experiments on living cells attribute this anomalous coarsening behaviour to subdiffusive dynamics in the crowded nucleus.

In an analogue black hole in an atomic Bose–Einstein condensate, spontaneous Hawking radiation is confirmed to be stationary and the time evolution of Hawking radiation is reported.

Molluscs assemble layers of material in the shells around them with a high level of control. Here the authors observe the structural evolution of layer formation and propose a mechanism reminiscent of topological defect dynamics in liquid crystals.

Measurements of a superconducting infinite-layer nickelate show that its upper critical field is largely isotropic despite its quasi-two-dimensional structure. This indicates that, unusually for layered oxides, the superconductivity is Pauli-limited.

Strong quadratic coupling between the motion of a membrane and the energy states of a qubit enables the creation of a non-classical energy-squeezed state in the mechanical oscillator.

In a beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerator, the energy spread of an electron bunch is reduced with respect to the plasma entrance, which is achieved through setting a positive energy chirp that rotates the bunches’ longitudinal phase space.

Momentum-space transport behaviour studied in a quench-cooled isolated atomic Bose gas shows a self-similar scaling character, implying the existence of a far-from-equilibrium universality class.

Neutron-scattering measurements on the magnetically ordered triangular-lattice compound FeI₂ reveal a dispersive band of mixed dipolar–quadrupolar fluctuations just above its ground state—a quantum excitation without a classical counterpart.

In principle skyrmions are topologically protected, but the crystal lattice interferes with this protection so that they should be unstable to switching of their winding number. Here this process is understood via scanning tunnelling microscopy.

A periodically driven Floquet quantum many-body system initially prepared in a far-from-equilibrium state may exhibit prethermalization: that is, before reaching its thermal equilibrium the system first relaxes to a long-lived quasistationary state.

Strong electron–electron interactions create a charge-density wave that modifies the topological state of the Weyl semimetal (TaSe₄)₂I. This implies the possibility of experimentally simulating axion electrodynamics in a solid-state material.

Finding expectation values is a key step in variational quantum algorithms that are hoped to provide a near-term quantum advantage. Bravyi et al. show that a classical approximation is possible when the quantum circuits are limited to constant depth.

Majorana bound states should appear at both ends of a nanowire if it is in the topological regime. This paper reports that, in many cases, zero-bias conduction peaks only occur on one end of the wire, which casts doubt on whether they are Majoranas.