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The aim of this page is to provide a snapshot of some of the most exciting work published in the area of condensed-matter physics at Nature Communications. We cover a wide variety of topics; from the most fundamental aspects of many-body phenomena and exotic matter to experimental investigations with an applied and engineering emphasis.
3He behaves like a Fermi liquid but only at very low temperatures. Here the authors re-examine thermal transport data, arguing that the breakdown of the Fermi liquid occurs when the scattering time falls below the Planckian time and suggesting that heat is partially carried by a collective hydrodynamic sound mode.
An altermagnet has highly anisotropic spin splitting but zero net magnetization. Here, S.-B. Zhang et al. theoretically study the behavior of s-wave superconductor/altermagnet hybrid structures, finding that Cooper pairs in the proximitized altermagnet have an anisotropic non-zero momentum.
I. Silber et al. discover a two-fold symmetry of the superconducting upper critical field in hexagonal 4Hb-TaS2 just below Tc, a clear signature of nematic, two-component superconductivity. They further suggest a theoretical model that reconciles the nematic superconductivity with the previously-observed time-reversal-symmetry-breaking in this material.
P. Rout et al. study Josephson junctions where the weak link is WSe2-encapsulated bilayer graphene, which features helical edge modes. They argue that the supercurrent channels along opposite edges of the weak link are coupled by a circulating helical mode.
Gate-defined superconducting moiré devices offer high tunability for probing the nature of superconducting and correlated insulating states. Here, the authors report the Little–Parks and Aharonov–Bohm effects in a single gate-defined magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene device.
The thermal Hall effect has been reported in several materials, but it is not expected in triangular lattice systems due to chirality cancellation. Kim et al. report the thermal Hall effect attributed to topological spin fluctuations in the supposedly paramagnetic phase of YMnO3 with a trimerized triangular lattice.
Hyperbolic exciton polaritons (HEPs) are anisotropic light-matter excitations with promising applications, but their steady-state observation is challenging. Here, the authors report experimental evidence of HEPs in a van der Waals magnet, CrSBr, via cryogenic infrared near-field microscopy.
Doping a Mott insulator can lead to novel electronic states. Wildman et al. observe a novel quantum insulating state in electron-doped Mott insulator CeMnAsO and propose a tentative interpretation in terms of many-body localization, which has not been observed in a solid-state material.
The presence of excitonic instability and its relationship with a structural transition in Ta2NiSe5 has been debated. Chen et al. map out the electronic bands and lattice distortion across the semimetal-to-semiconductor transition with sulfur doping, revealing the crucial role of electron-phonon coupling.
The authors report two anomalies in the specific heat of (Ba,K)Fe2As2, providing thermodynamic confirmation of the separation of superconducting Tc and the onset of time-reversal symmetry breaking (TRSB). Further, they argue that the TRSB is associated with a four-fermion condensate induced by phase fluctuations.
The authors study Andreev bound states (ABSs) in 3-terminal InAs/Al Josephson-junction devices. They find signatures of hybridization between two ABSs, with band structure tunable by electric currents that generate magnetic fluxes threading superconducting loops in the device.
The authors study interface superconductivity in over-doped La2-xSrxCuO4/La2CuO4 heterostructures. As x increases, the superconductivity is killed at x = 0.8 but fully recovers at x = 1.0, a “re-entrant” superconductivity.
The authors study Josephson junctions where the superconductors are Fe(Te,Se) flakes and the weak link is just a 0.36 nm van-der-Waals gap between the two stacked flakes. They report global device-level transport signatures of interfacial ferromagnetism.
Magnetization reversal in magnetic topological insulators drives quantum phase transitions between quantum anomalous Hall, axion insulator, and normal insulator states. Using novel analysis protocol, the authors investigate critical behaviours of these transitions and establish their electronic origin.
Many-body localization is observed in synthetic systems, but experiments on real materials with Coulomb interactions are vital for insights in higher dimensions. Stanley et al. report a prethermal regime in the dynamics of a 2D disordered electron system in Si MOSFETs and explore the effects of interaction range.
Quantum oscillations serve as an important probe of electronic structure of quantum materials. Yang et al. study quantum oscillations in the electronic specific heat of natural graphite, unveiling a double-peak structure absent in commonly used theory, and show its utility in determining the Landé g-factors.
A Weyl semimetal formally requires either broken time reversal symmetry or inversion symmetry. One class of Weyl semimetals-the crystal family of NdAlSi-exhibits both. Here, Li et al perform angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measurements on NdAlSi, and observe the formation of an additional Weyl fermion as the material becomes ferrimagnetic.
Two-dimensional metal-organic frameworks (2D MOFs) are ideal platforms to realize exotic theoretical lattice models. Here, the authors experimentally realize second-order topological corner states in the 2D MOF Ni3(HITP)2, which features a star-lattice configuration.
Magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (MATBG) hosts flat electronic bands allowing for a rich variety of correlated electronic states. Here, using a scanning single electron transistor, Yu et al find thermodynamically gapped ground states in MATBG at several filling factors, with spin-skyrmion charge excitations.
Recent experiments have shown the formation of ferroelectric domains in twisted van der Waals bilayers. Here, the authors report near-field infrared nano-imaging and nano-photocurrent measurements to investigate ferroelectricity in minimally twisted WSe2 by visualizing the plasmonic and photo-thermoelectric response of an adjacent graphene monolayer.
2D materials with Kagome lattices have attracted significant interest due to their exotic electronic properties. Here, the authors report the synthesis and characterization of a 2D MoTe2 phase characterized by a colouring-triangular lattice (a Kagome variant), showing evidence of Dirac-like and flat electronic bands.
Here, the authors demonstrate that a layered anisotropic dielectric material, SiP2, can break the rotational symmetry of 2D MoS2, leading to linearly polarized photoluminescence emission and conductance anisotropy ratios up to 1000 in gated SiP2/MoS2 heterostructures.
Superconductivity was recently reported experimentally in nitrogen-doped lutetium hydride with Tc = 294 K at a pressure of 1 GPa. Here, via theoretical calculations, the authors find no structures capable of supporting conventional superconductivity in the Lu-N-H system at ambient pressure.
Recent experiments on the dynamical charge response of strange metals reveal unusual features such as momentum-independent continuum of excitations and unconventional plasmon decay. Here the authors present a phenomenological theory based on the analogy to classical fluids near a jamming-like transition.
A long-standing puzzle in the quantum critical behavior of cuprate superconductors has been the observed sub-linear power-law dependence of optical conductivity. Here, the authors present measurements of the optical spectra and resistivity of La2−xSrxCuO4, and develop a theoretical framework that yields a unified description of the optical spectra, resistivity and specific heat.
Majorana bound states are an elusive but promising platform for future topological quantum computation. Here, the authors use local shot noise spectroscopy to determine the nature of charge transfer into zero-energy bound states in superconducting vortices and rule out the presence of impurity states.
Topological transport in thermal diffusion is governed by physical principles that are distinct from those encountered in solid-state or photonic topological systems. Here, the authors demonstrate an experimental strategy for engineering topological thermal phases with bulk, edge and corner modes.
Recent photo-emission experiments reported a strong nearest-neighbour attraction in a 1D cuprate, possibly originating from long-range electron-phonon coupling. By using state-of-the-art numerical methods, the authors show that a Hubbard model with extended electron-phonon terms reproduces experimental features.
Here, the authors report evidence of unconventional correlated insulating states in bilayer graphene/CrOCl heterostructures over wide doping ranges and demonstrate their application for the realization of low-temperature logic inverters.
Spin chains on superconductors have been studied as a possible venue for zero-energy Majorana bound states at the ends of the chain. Here, the authors observe localized end states in antiferromagnetic chains, but rule out a Majorana origin of these states by perturbing them with local defects.
Correlated electronic states in moiré matter are of great fundamental and technological interest. Here, the authors demonstrate a Josephson junction in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene with a correlated insulator weak link, showing magnetism and programmable superconducting diode behaviour.
Two-dimensional charge density waves in layered semiconductors may exhibit chirality. Here, the authors utilize thermal annealing to reversibly switch the in-plane chirality of charge density waves in 1T-TaS2 and demonstrate a vertical chirality-locking effect between the van der Waals-stacked layers.
A linear Hall response in isolated systems with time reversal symmetry is forbidden by Onsager relations. Here the authors show that this restriction is lifted by interlayer hopping in twisted bilayers, leading to a linear charge Hall effect under time reversal symmetry.
Sliding and twisting of van der Waals layers can produce fascinating physical phenomena. Here, authors show that moiré polar domains in bilayer hBN give rise to a topologically non-trivial winding of the polarization field, forming networks of merons and antimerons.
Spin ice compounds are typically insulating and introducing carriers can destroy the spin ice state, making integration into electronic devices problematic. Here the authors report a transport response to an ice-rule-breaking transition in a heterostructure of a pyrochlore spin ice and a nonmagnetic metal.
Twisted 2D materials have recently emerged as a controllable quantum simulator platform. Here, the authors apply the same approach to tune the edge states of zigzag graphene nanoribbons, showing a unique degree of freedom represented by the lateral stacking offset of the 1D nanostructures.
Quantum anomalous Hall junctions show great promise for advancing next-generation electronic circuits. Here, the authors demonstrate a scalable method for synthesizing heterostructures of magnetic topological insulators with regions of distinct Chern numbers and characterize the chiral interface modes that emerge at the interface.
Kondo systems offer a rich platform to study the interplay between strong correlations and topology. Here the authors observe a large anomalous Hall conductivity in a Kondo ferromagnet USbTe, which they attribute to the Berry curvature originating from flat bands induced by the Kondo hybridization.
Spin qubits in Si/SiGe quantum dots suffer from variability in the valley splitting which will hinder device scalability. Here, by using 3D atomic characterization, the authors explain this variability by random Si and Ge atomic fluctuations and propose a strategy to statistically enhance the valley splitting
Quantum-dot spin qubits in Si/SiGe quantum wells require a large and uniform valley splitting for robust operation and scalability. Here the authors introduce and characterize a new heterostructure with periodic oscillations of Ge atoms in the quantum well, which could enhance the valley splitting.
Valleytronic devices employ the electronic valley degree of freedom to realize potential low-power electronic applications. Here, the authors utilize a topological semiconductor to engineer valley polarization transistors with long lifetimes and demonstrate low-power neuromorphic functionality at room temperature.
It was recently predicted that, in addition to well-known spinon excitations, a 1D spin-trimer chain with periodic exchange couplings hosts novel composite excitations. Bera et al. experimentally demonstrate and characterize such excitations, termed doublons and quartons, in a spin-trimer compound Na2Cu3Ge4O12.
Twisted double bilayer graphene (tDBG) comprises two Bernal-stacked bilayer graphene sheets with a twist between them. Here, the authors report a strong anomalous Hall effect in the correlated-metal regime of tDBG, indicating time reversal symmetry breaking from orbital ferromagnetism, likely associated with valley polarization.
Recent experiments on a WSe2/WS2 hetero-bilayer detected incompressible charge ordered states considered to be generalized Wigner crystals. Here, by performing Monte Carlo simulations of a triangular moiré lattice, the authors study the phases which emerge on melting such charge-ordered states in partially filled moiré bands, finding two distinct nematic states and a hexagonal domain wall state.
Selective attention is an efficient processing strategy to allocate computational resources for pivotal optical information. Here, the authors propose a bionic vision hardware to emulate the behavior, showing a potential in image classification.
The application of electric fields >1 V/nm in solid state devices could provide access to unexplored phenomena, but it is currently difficult to implement. Here, the authors develop a double-sided ionic liquid gating technique to generate electric fields as large as 4 V/nm across few-layer WSe2, leading to field-induced semiconductor-to-metal transitions.
The famous Fulde–Ferrell–Larkin– Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state is a spatially-modulated superconducting state with a predicted spatial anisotropy, but this anisotropy has never been experimentally verified. Here, the authors present ultrasound evidence for anisotropy of the sound velocity in the FFLO state of a 2D organic superconductor.
Previous work exploring the robustness of topological surface states to perturbations has mostly focused on surfaces with the same atomic structure as the bulk. Here the authors demonstrate the effect of surface reconstruction on the topological surfaces on the (100) surface of SmB6.
Studies of twisted bilayer transition metal dichalcogenides have so far focused only on those containing group-VI metals. Here, the authors predict that twisted bilayers of ZrS2, with the group-IV metal Zr, form an emergent moiré Kagome lattice with a uniquely strong spin-orbit coupling, leading to quantum-anomalous-Hall and fractional-Chern-insulating states.