Articles in 2025

In recent years, notable theoretical and experimental progress has been made in understanding both the classical and quantum versions of the Mpemba effect, in which a hotter system freezes faster than a cooler one. This Perspective discusses this phenomenon in open and isolated quantum systems.

Topological rainbow trapping combines slow-wave effects with topological robustness to spatially separate wave frequencies. This Review highlights its physical principles, implementation in different waves-based systems and potential technological impacts.

Quantum solutions are typically evaluated in terms of performance, efficiency, speedup or the number of qubits — but not energy consumption. Yet quantum computing comes at a high energy cost. To make sure quantum computing is developed energy-efficiently, it is essential to optimize the design of the circuit, and pay attention to aspects such as the circuit layout and how the execution is done on the quantum computer.

Against a backdrop of global energy demands, it would be helpful to accelerate the transition of fusion energy from laboratory experiments to working power plants. This Perspective discusses areas of fusion energy research that are benefitting from supercomputing, such as simulations of complex plasma behaviour and materials under extreme conditions.

As we launch Journal Clubs and reintroduce Tools of the Trade, we invite research students and postdocs to write for Nature Reviews Physics.

Avi Schneider discusses how Janus-like magnetic particles can help to study spin-related effects in biomolecules.

Excitonic condensation occurs when electrons and holes in closely placed bilayers form bound pairs and condense into a coherent quantum state. This Perspective highlights recent experimental breakthroughs and emerging directions in the rapidly evolving field of excitonic condensation in van der Waals bilayer systems.

Like everyone else, scientists often know how to work in a more sustainable way — but choose not to. How can art help bridge the gap between knowledge and motivation?

In the 100 years since Knut Lundmark established supernovae as a separate class, they have helped to expand our knowledge of the Universe.

Shaurya Aarav introduces a quantum imaging method that uses a high-resolution camera to speed up imaging acquisition while retaining correlation information.

This Perspective provides a brief, opinionated review of the past, present and future of the convergence between supercomputing and fusion simulations. We discuss the progress that has been made, the challenges that have been overcome and those that remain as we move into the post-exascale era.

Amorphous materials yield through complex, history-dependent mechanisms involving localized defects and avalanche dynamics. This Review unifies theoretical advances across glasses, foams, biological tissues and active matter, revealing universal features and critical behaviour that govern the transition from elasticity to plastic flow and macroscopic failure.

Nonlocality has gained increasing attention in metamaterial and metasurface design. This Review discusses recent advances, focusing on the physical mechanisms of nonlocality that lead to intriguing properties and functions.

Programmable metasurfaces may offer a transformative approach to scalable photonic neural networks by overcoming key hardware limitations. This Perspective explores their potential to enhance energy efficiency, computation speed, and adaptability, positioning them as a promising alternative to traditional digital artificial intelligence hardware.

Neutrinos have a crucial role in explosive transients, influencing the source dynamics and element synthesis. This Review summarizes our understanding of sources linked to collapsing massive stars and neutron-star mergers, emphasizing multi-messenger detection strategies.

Yertay Zhiyenbayev recounts how a 2020 paper that demonstrated isolated colour centres in siilicon for use in quantum optics inspired him to pursue this area of research.

This International Workers’ Day, we reflect on the role of scientists as workers and call on our readers to collaborate in their communities to improve working conditions for scientists.

Non-centrosymmetric ferroelectric and piezoelectric halide perovskites are an ideal model system to explore the photogalvanic effects. This Perspective discusses the opportunities and challenges of designing and harnessing photogalvanic effects in these materials towards unconventional devices for spin computing, sensing and solar energy applications.

The strong electro-optic interaction, low optical loss and high microwave bandwidth of thin-film lithium niobate have enabled applications from computing to quantum information. This Review explores the fundamental principles, recent advances and the future potential of integrated lithium niobate technologies.

The exascale era, driven by GPU-dominated architectures, demands a shift in quantum simulation software. This Perspective examines algorithm adaptation, software fragmentation, and the need for efficient GPU-optimized methods, standardized libraries and scalable programming models for high-performance quantum simulations.