Volume 3 Issue 8, August 2021

Anecdotal but elusive reports suggest that hot water quenched in a cold container can sometimes begin to freeze sooner than warm water under similar initial conditions. John Bechhoefer and colleagues discuss recent experiments that show how this ‘Mpemba effect’ can be reliably reproduced and quantitatively understood.

Eliezer Estrecho provides tips on using lasers to trap and manipulate quantum fluids

Tom Vincent explains how scanning near-field infrared microscopy can be combined with other techniques to probe nanomaterials.

Benjamin Nachman discusses the OmniFold algorithm, which combines detector simulations with machine learning to correct detector distortions.

Sergey Borisenko reflects on 99 years of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), a technique widely used today to understand the electronic structure of materials.

A paper in Nature Machine Intelligence reports a deep-learning-based approach for measuring fluid flows using particle image velocimetry.

Majorana zero modes are non-Abelian anyons that hold promise for realizing topologically protected quantum computation. This Review discusses how scanning tunnelling microscopy can identify Majorana zero modes and investigate their properties, and outlines future research direction of the field.

Phonon heat conduction at the microscale and the nanoscale exhibits rich phenomena beyond the predictions of Fourier’s law, rivalling the phenomena of electrons. This Review discusses phonon heat conduction regimes, including the Casimir–Knudsen size effect, hydrodynamic transport, coherent transport (from quantization and localization) and divergence.

Quantitative magnetic resonance imaging and in vivo histology go beyond standard magnetic resonance imaging, aiming at characterizing tissue microstructure of the living brain. This Technical Review discusses advances in concepts, instrumentation, biophysical models and validation approaches facilitating this rapidly developing field.

The rotations of levitated particles can show pronounced quantum effects, enabling tests of quantum physics and torque measurements with unprecedented sensitivity. Breakthroughs in cooling and controlling nanorotors set the stage for such experiments.