Nanoscience and technology articles within Nature Physics

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  • Perspective |

    Optical near-field microscopy has facilitated our understanding of nanophotonics. This Perspective explores the opportunities that near-field studies of terahertz fields provide for ultrafast phase transitions in condensed matter systems.

    • Michael Yannai
    • , Matan Haller
    •  & Ido Kaminer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    For solid-state qubits, the material environment hosts sources of errors that vary in time and space. This systematic analysis of errors affecting high-fidelity two-qubit gates in silicon can inform the design of large-scale quantum computers.

    • Tuomo Tanttu
    • , Wee Han Lim
    •  & Andrew S. Dzurak

  • Research Briefing |

    Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measurements identify dark electron states in palladium diselenide, cuprate superconductors, and lead halide perovskites. These dark states are attributed to the two pairs of sublattices in each of the solids, which leads to a double two-level quantum system in which double destructive interference can occur.

  • Article |

    The identification of dark states—quantum states that do not interact with photons—in real materials may help to address many unsolved issues in condensed-matter physics. Now, they have been identified in palladium diselenide.

    • Yoonah Chung
    • , Minsu Kim
    •  & Keun Su Kim

  • Research Briefing |

    Many 2D or 1D materials feature fascinating collective behaviour of electrons that competes with highly localized interactions at atomic defects. By combining terahertz spectroscopy with scanning tunnelling microscopy, the ultrafast motion of these collective states can be captured with atomic spatial resolution, enabling the observation of electron dynamics at their intrinsic length and time scale.

  • Review Article |

    Plasmonic excitations can enhance the interaction between a metal and molecules adsorbed onto its surface. This Review summarizes the different effects involved in this process and places them into a framework based on electron scattering.

    • Andrei Stefancu
    • , Naomi J. Halas
    •  & Emiliano Cortes

  • Research Briefing |

    Rhombohedral graphene is an emerging material with a rich correlated-electron phenomenology, including superconductivity. The magnetism of symmetry-broken trilayer graphene has now been explored, revealing important details of the physics and providing a roadmap for broader explorations of rhombohedral graphene.

  • News & Views |

    The rotation of holes jumping between quantum dots in silicon quantum computers creates additional complexity for two-qubit operations. Understanding the rules of this somersaulting movement is key to the progress of hole-based qubit technology.

    • Andre Saraiva
    •  & Dimitrie Culcer

  • Article |

    The mechanism by which two-dimensional materials remain stable at a finite temperature is still under debate. Now, numerical calculations suggest that rotational symmetry is crucial in suppressing anharmonic effects that lead to structural instability.

    • Unai Aseginolaza
    • , Josu Diego
    •  & Ion Errea

  • Research Briefing |

    Rotational symmetry is shown to protect the quadratic dispersion of out-of-plane flexural vibrations in graphene and other two-dimensional materials against phonon–phonon interactions, making the bending rigidity of these materials non-divergent. The quadratic dispersion is then consistent with the propagation of sound in the graphene plane.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A successful silicon spin qubit design should be rapidly scalable by benefiting from industrial transistor technology. This investigation of exchange interactions between two FinFET qubits provides a guide to implementing two-qubit gates for hole spins.

    • Simon Geyer
    • , Bence Hetényi
    •  & Andreas V. Kuhlmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Leggett modes can occur when superconductivity arises in more than one band in a material and represent oscillation of the relative phases of the two superconducting condensates. Now, this mode is observed in Cd3As2, a Dirac semimetal.

    • Joseph J. Cuozzo
    • , W. Yu
    •  & Enrico Rossi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using the valley degree of freedom in analogy to spin to encode qubits could be advantageous as many of the known decoherence mechanisms do not apply. Now long relaxation times are demonstrated for valley qubits in bilayer graphene quantum dots.

    • Rebekka Garreis
    • , Chuyao Tong
    •  & Wei Wister Huang

  • Research Briefing |

    Subwavelength photonic gratings can host long-lived, negative-effective-mass photonic modes that couple strongly to electron transitions in constituent active materials. The resulting bosonic hybrid light–matter modes, or exciton-polaritons, can be optically configured to accumulate into various macroscopic artificial complexes and lattices of coherent quantum fluids.

  • Article |

    Bound states in the continuum are topological states with useful symmetry protection properties. An experiment now shows how to use them to form macroscopically coherent complexes of polariton condensates.

    • Antonio Gianfrate
    • , Helgi Sigurðsson
    •  & Daniele Sanvitto

  • News & Views |

    Semiconducting dipolar excitons — bound states of electrons and holes — in artificial moiré lattices constitute a promising condensed matter system to explore the phase diagram of strongly interacting bosonic particles.

    • Nadine Leisgang

  • Article |

    Despite the theoretical prediction of spinaron quasiparticles in artificial nanostructures, experimental evidence has not yet been seen. Now it has been observed in a hybrid system comprising Co atoms on a Cu(111) surface.

    • Felix Friedrich
    • , Artem Odobesko
    •  & Matthias Bode

  • News & Views |

    Measurements of two neighbouring silicon-based qubits show that the charge noise they each experience is correlated, suggesting a common origin. Understanding these correlations is crucial for performing error correction in these systems.

    • Łukasz Cywiński

  • Article |

    Errors in a quantum computer that are correlated between different qubits pose a considerable challenge for correction schemes. Measurements of noise in silicon spin qubits show that electric field fluctuations can create strongly correlated errors.

    • J. Yoneda
    • , J. S. Rojas-Arias
    •  & S. Tarucha

  • News & Views |

    A milestone for the coherence time of a macroscopic mechanical oscillator may be a crucial advance for enabling the development of quantum technologies based on optomechanical architectures and for fundamental tests of quantum mechanics.

    • A. Metelmann

  • Article |

    Achieving low decoherence is challenging in hybrid quantum systems. A superconducting-circuit-based optomechanical platform realizes millisecond-scale quantum state lifetime, which allows tracking of the free evolution of a squeezed mechanical state.

    • Amir Youssefi
    • , Shingo Kono
    •  & Tobias J. Kippenberg

  • Article |

    The behaviour of a superconductor can be altered by changing its symmetry properties. Coherently coupling two Josephson junctions breaks time-reversal and inversion symmetries, giving rise to a device with a controllable superconducting diode effect.

    • Sadashige Matsuo
    • , Takaya Imoto
    •  & Seigo Tarucha

  • Research Briefing |

    A coherent interface between a mechanical oscillator and superconducting electrical circuits would enable the control of quantum states of mechanical motion, but such interfaces often result in excess mechanical energy loss. A new material-agnostic approach is shown to achieve strong electromechanical coupling while preserving a long phonon lifetime.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Coulomb interactions in free-electron beams are usually seen as an adverse effect. The creation of distinctive number states with one, two, three and four electrons now reveals unexpected opportunities for electron microscopy and lithography from Coulomb correlations.

    • Rudolf Haindl
    • , Armin Feist
    •  & Claus Ropers

  • Article |

    Electrical control of quantum mechanical oscillators is normally performed using piezoelectrics, but incorporating these additional materials can severely reduce performance. Electrostatic control has now been demonstrated in a silicon device.

    • Alkim Bozkurt
    • , Han Zhao
    •  & Mohammad Mirhosseini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Although mechanical resonators are routinely cooled to their quantum ground state, it has remained unclear if sizable nonlinearities could persist there. Experiments in the ultrastrong-coupling regime now show that this is possible.

    • C. Samanta
    • , S. L. De Bonis
    •  & A. Bachtold

  • News & Views |

    Generating and controlling noncollinear spin textures is a promising route towards developing next-generation logic architectures beyond CMOS. Now, these spin textures can be engineered in twisted magnetic two-dimensional materials.

    • Bevin Huang

  • Article |

    A moiré potential may play a role in determining the magnetic properties of a two-dimensional homo or heterostructure. Now, non-collinear spin structures are observed in twisted double bilayer CrI3, providing a platform to engineer unusual magnetic textures.

    • Hongchao Xie
    • , Xiangpeng Luo
    •  & Liuyan Zhao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    So far, a continuous time crystal has only been implemented on a quantum system. Optically driven many-body interactions in a nanomechanical photonic metamaterial now allow the realization of a classical continuous time crystal.

    • Tongjun Liu
    • , Jun-Yu Ou
    •  & Nikolay I. Zheludev

  • News & Views |

    Two superconductors connected by a weak link form a Josephson junction, a nonlinear circuit element at the heart of many quantum devices. Quantized electrical current steps that were predicted decades ago have now been observed experimentally.

    • Gianluca Rastelli
    •  & Ioan M. Pop

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ultrafast photon–electron spectroscopy commonly requires a driving laser. Now, an inverse approach based on cathodoluminescence spectroscopy has allowed a compact solution to spectral interferometry inside an electron microscope, without a laser.

    • Masoud Taleb
    • , Mario Hentschel
    •  & Nahid Talebi

  • News & Views |

    Quantum mechanical fluctuations of the electromagnetic field in a vacuum between two close together objects result in an attractive force. Now, it has been experimentally shown that by exploiting a similar repulsive interaction, attraction between objects can be modulated simply by tuning temperature.

    • Victoria Esteso Carrizo

  • Research Briefing |

    Coherent multidimensional spectroscopy with nanoscale spatial resolution was used to directly probe a plasmon polariton quantum wave packet. To reproduce these results an improved quantum model of photoemission was required, in which the coherent coupling between plasmons and electrons is accounted for with the plasmon excitations extending beyond a two-level model.

  • Letter |

    Plasmonics allows precise engineering of light–matter interactions and is the driver behind many optical devices. The local observation of a plasmonic quantum wave packet is a step towards bringing these functionalities to the quantum regime.

    • Sebastian Pres
    • , Bernhard Huber
    •  & Tobias Brixner

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