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Scanning dielectric microscopy of nanocapillaries filled with water reveals that interfacial and strongly confined water exhibits a large in-plane dielectric constant and an in-plane conductivity approaching superionic values. 

Digital quantum simulations of Kitaev’s honeycomb model are realized for two-dimensional fermionic systems using a reconfigurable atom-array processor and used to study the Fermi–Hubbard model on a square lattice.

Screening by a graphite gate placed at 1 nm proximity to graphene produces transformative improvement in its electronic quality, reducing charge inhomogeneity by two orders of magnitude.

Authors show that water trapped between 2D MXene sheets forms amorphous ice clusters at low temperatures, which cause a hysteresis of electrical conductivity. This structural rearrangement of water is affected by the presence of solvated cations, allowing reversible switching of the electronic properties of MXene films.

The interactions of quasiparticles can be described by renormalizing their masses, such that some materials have a vanishingly small effective mass, whereas others have a very high effective mass. The observation by Vyalikh and colleagues of both extremes occurring on the surface and interior of the same material offers a new view of many-body interactions.

The unoccupied electronic levels of graphene are modified by corrugation, doping and presence of impurities. Here, the authors map discrete electronic domains within a single graphene sheet using scanning transmission X-ray microscopy and provide insight into the modification of unoccupied levels.

Defect-free monolayers of graphene and hexagonal boron nitride are highly permeable to thermal protons, but are impenetrable to gases. Here the authors show that mechanically exfoliated crystals exhibit perfect proton selectivity, corroborating proton transport through the bulk without atomic-scale defects.

High-entropy nanocarbides (HENCs) containing 5–22 metal elements are synthesized through a nanoconfined impulse synthetic strategy enabled by Joule heating-induced in situ reactions in carbon nanotube films. These HENCs exhibit multi-element effects and enhanced electrocatalytic activities due to their nanoscale size and modified catalytic sites.

Magneto-oscillations have revealed many interesting phenomena in graphene and quantum Hall systems, but they are typically measured at low currents and in equilibrium. Here, the authors report several non-equilibrium quantum effects observed in magneto-oscillations in graphene at high currents.

Here, the authors show that Brown-Zak fermions in graphene-on-boron-nitride superlattices exhibit mobilities above 10⁶ cm²/V s and micrometer scale ballistic transport.

Magic state distillation is achieved with logical qubits on a neutral-atom quantum computer using a dynamically reconfigurable architecture for parallel quantum operations.

Increasing the size of mesoscopic devices based on van der Waals heterostructures triggers additional quantum effects. Here, the authors observe distinct magnetoresistance oscillations in graphene/h-BN Hall bars only in devices wider than 10 μm due to resonant scattering of charge carriers by transverse acoustic phonons in graphene.

For small twist angles, electrons can resonantly tunnel between graphene layers in a van der Waals heterostructure. It is now shown that the tunnelling not only preserves energy and momentum, but also the chirality of electronic states.

The absence of a bandgap in the electronic spectrum of graphene can be overcome by breaking its lattice symmetry. The authors show that the insulating state of gapped graphene is electrically shorted by narrow edge channels exhibiting high conductivity.

The conductivity of marginally-twisted bilayer graphene is predicted to persist in presence of a bandgap-opening interlayer bias, owing to a network of 1D conductive states at domain boundaries. Here, the authors report Aharonov–Bohm oscillations up to 100 K, whereas at liquid helium temperatures another kind of oscillation appears, due to progressive population of the narrow minibands formed by the 2D network of 1D states inside the gap.

Multilayer stacks of graphene and related two-dimensional crystals can be tailored to create new classes of functional materials. Britnell et al. report resonant tunnelling of Dirac fermions and tunable negative differential conductance in a graphene-boron nitride-graphene transistor.

Two closely spaced two-dimensional systems can remain strongly coupled by electron–electron interactions even though they cannot physically exchange particles. Coulomb drag is a manifestation of this interaction—in which an electric current passed through one layer causes frictional charge flow in the other—now experimentally observed in bilayer graphene

Indirect excitons, composed of a spatially separated electron and hole, could find applications in excitonic devices for signal processing and communication, however they are normally detected at low temperatures. Here, the authors observe room-temperature indirect excitons in van der Waals transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructures.

Molecules trapped between the layers of two-dimensional materials are thought to experience high pressure. Here, the authors report measurements of this interfacial pressure by capturing pressure-sensitive molecules and studying their structural changes, and show that it can also induce chemical reaction.

The physics of charge transport in graphene becomes particularly interesting near the Dirac point. Here, the authors demonstrate a negative minority carrier mobility due to drag between majority and minority carriers in graphene at the charge neutrality point.

Thousands of tons of water are processed every year for hydrogen isotope separation, using extremely costly technology. Here the authors demonstrate a fully-scalable graphene electrochemical pump, which promises to dramatically reduce the energy and capital costs.

Photodetection is believed to be among the most promising potential applications for graphene. Here, by combining graphene with plasmonic nanostructures, the efficiency of graphene-based photodetectors is increased by up to two orders of magnitude.

Local magnetic properties that can be controlled by an applied electric field are desirable for spintronics applications. Nair et al.show that tuning carrier concentration by molecular doping or electric field can be used to control adatoms magnetism on graphene, enabling magnetic moments to be switched on and off.

A Dirac plasma in high-mobility graphene shows anomalous magnetotransport and giant magnetoresistance that reaches more than 100 per cent in a low magnetic field at room temperature.

Precise control of the relative orientation of two two-dimensional layers enables reproducible fabrication of heterostructure devices. Here, the authors show that graphene rotates towards the crystallographic direction of a boron-nitride substrate due to the interplay between van der Waals and elastic energies.

A single layer of graphene on top of a hexagonal boron-nitride sheet can stretch to form a commensurate structure, or not — depending on the rotation angle between the two layers. In the case of commensurability, strain gets concentrated in domain walls, resulting in soliton-like structures.

Here, the authors explore spatially indirect excitons in van der Waals heterostructures and observe long-distance spin transport. The mechanism of protection against the spin relaxation is based on the suppression of scattering.

Graphene on boron nitride gives rise to a moiré superlattice displaying the Hofstadter butterfly: a fractal dependence of energy bands on external magnetic fields. Now, by means of capacitance spectroscopy, further aspects of this system are revealed—most notably, suppression of quantum Hall antiferromagnetism at particular commensurate magnetic fluxes.

Although defect-free graphene is a promising membrane that is impermeable to all gases and liquids, it is difficult to produce large area films for practical applications. Su et al.show that multilayer graphitic films based on reduced graphene oxide can achieve the same goal but on larger scales.

Spatial distribution of the photoluminescence of interlayer excitons in van der Waals heterostructures comprising MoSe₂ and WSe₂ monolayers and encapsulated in rather thick hexagonal boron nitride is investigated, revealing interlayer exciton long-range transport with 1/e decay distances reaching and exceeding 100 μm.

The methanol oxidation reaction is crucial for direct methanol fuel cells but is hindered by CO poisoning of Pt-based catalysts. Here, the authors report high-entropy alloyed single-atom Pt catalysts that resist CO poisoning, achieving a mass activity of 35.3 A mg^-1 and maintaining high durability.

A programmable quantum simulator based on Rydberg atom arrays is used to study the collective dynamics of a quantum phase transition and observe the phenomenon of quantum coarsening.

The integration of ultraflexible energy harvesters and energy storage devices to form flexible power systems remains a significant challenge. Here, the authors report a system consisting of organic solar cells and zinc-ion batteries, exhibiting high power output for wearable sensors and gadgets.

Insulating hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is theoretically expected to undergo a crossover to a direct bandgap in the monolayer limit. Here, the authors perform optical spectroscopy measurements on atomically thin epitaxial hBN providing indications of the presence of a direct gap of energy 6.1 eV in the single atomic layer.

A combination of scanning transmission electron microscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy has been used to produce and analyse images of free-standing graphene sheets with atomic resolution. The influence of microstructural peculiarities on the stability of the sheets and the evolution and interaction of point defects were also explored.

We show that domain walls in minimally twisted bilayer graphene support exceptionally robust proximity superconductivity in the quantum Hall regime.

High extraction capacity with precise selectivity to trace amounts of gold over a wide range of co-existing elements remains a challenge for effective e-waste recycling. Here, authors demonstrate the excellent performance of rGO for gold extraction from e-waste leachate, even at minute concentrations.

Nanometre-scale graphitic capillaries with atomically flat walls are engineered and studied, revealing unexpectedly fast transport of liquid water through channels that accommodate only a few layers of water.

Experimental control of electron-electron interactions in materials is challenging. Here, the authors control the interactions by proximity screening with gate dielectrics of nanometer thickness, revealing qualitative changes in concentration and temperature dependences, and validating their analysis using electron hydrodynamics and umklapp scattering approaches.

Graphene is shown to be impermeable to helium and several other gases, except for hydrogen, which is attributed to the strong catalytic activity of ripples in the graphene sheet.

Two-dimensional membranes with angstrom-sized pores are predicted to combine high permeability with exceptional selectivity, but experimental demonstration has been challenging. Here the authors realize angstrom-sized pores in monolayer graphene and demonstrate gas transport with activation barriers increasing quadratically with the molecular kinetic diameter.

Owing to the fact that graphene is just one atom thick, it has been suggested that it might be possible to control its properties by subjecting it to mechanical strain. New analysis indicates not only this, but that pseudomagnetic behaviour and even zero-field quantum Hall effects could be induced in graphene under realistic amounts of strain.

In the tiniest of capillaries, barely larger than a water molecule, condensation is surprisingly predictable from the macroscopic Kelvin condensation equation, a coincidence partially owing to elastic deformation of the capillary walls.

Mechanical deformations in graphene have been shown to be associated with ‘fictitious’ magnetic fields. Theoretical work now suggests that these fields can give rise to an analogue of the Aharonov–Bohm effect, a phenomenon that might be used to sensitively detect small deformations of the graphene sheet.