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The authors propose a strategy of embedding ultra-weak polar regions in the strong polar fluctuation matrix in (Bi0.5Na0.5)TiO3-based lead-free ceramics to achieve substantial enhancements of energy storage properties.

A 3D quantum Hall effect has been reported in Dirac semimetal ZrTe₅ due to a magnetic-field-driven Fermi surface instability. Here, the authors show evidence of quasi-quantized Hall response without Fermi surface instability, but they argue that it is due to the interplay of the intrinsic properties of ZrTe₅ electronic structure and Dirac semi-metallic character.

Interfacing graphene with an antiferromagnetic insulator CrOCl enables the observation of strong interfacial coupling in the quantum Hall regime.

Detecting Majorana quasi-particles requires unambiguous and experimentally accessible fingerprints. Here, the authors demonstrate the existence of a 8π-periodic fractional Josephson effect in a Kitaev wire as a signature for Majorana quasi-particles, and propose a cold atom experiment for its detection.

Artificial atoms, quantum systems with atom-like energy structure, have been studied with frequency spectroscopic techniques. However, much information about the energy level spectrum has been hidden, as the technique is impractical for high frequencies. A complementary technique has been developed where the energy level of an artificial atom is not scanned by tuning frequency, but amplitude of the radiation, while the frequency is tuned to a specific feature in the spectrum.

Source-material purification and optimized vacuum chamber design lead to a breakthrough in GaAs sample quality.

The photoinduced hidden metallic state in 1T-TaS₂ has so far been stabilized only at cryogenic temperatures. Now it is shown that accessing an additional mixed-phase long-lived metastable state can stabilize the hidden phase at higher temperatures.

Scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a powerful tool but local control of superconductivity with the STM tip is still lacking. Here, Geet al. show the use of an STM tip to control the local pinning in a superconductor through the heating effect, allowing to manipulate single superconducting vortex at nanoscale.

Nematicity, the spontaneous breaking of lattice rotational symmetry, plays an important role in kagome metals. Here, the authors report on a nematic phase within seven Kelvin below the charge density wave transition in the bilayer kagome metal ScV₆Sn₆.

Strong electron–electron interactions in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene can fundamentally change the topology of the system’s flat bands, producing a hierarchy of strongly correlated topological insulators in modest magnetic fields.

Strong coupling of a 2D hole gas in the quantum Hall state dressed with a microcavity mode is studied, showing that tuning the strength of the magnetic field, and therefore the density of states in the system, can select specific spin-dependent light–matter coupling.

The determination of thermal and non-thermal carrier populations in plasmonic systems generally requires assumptions on the types of distributions present. Here, Heilpern et al. directly determine such populations in thin film pump-probe measurements using a double inversion procedure.

The mechanism for the enhanced piezoelectricity in (K,Na)NbO₃ based ceramics has not been fully understood. Here, the authors find that the dopants induced tetragonal phase and the accompanying high-density nanoscale heterostructures are responsible for the high dielectric and piezoelectric properties.

Domain structures influence significantly the properties of ferroelectric materials. Here, the authors use phase-field simulations to show that spatially homogeneous defect charges in BiFeO₃ may play a key role in the formation of the experimentally observed enigmatic zigzag domain structures, providing insights into pyramidal-domain formation in perovskite oxides.

Superconductivity in the iron pnictides is believed to be related to quantum critical fluctuations. Putzke et al. observe unexpected anomalies in the critical fields of BaFe₂(As_1−xP_x)₂that emerge close to its magnetic critical point, which they argue is a generic feature of quantum critical superconductivity.

The nature of unconventional charge density wave in kagome metals is currently under intense debate. Here the authors report the coexistence of the 2 × 2 × 1 charge density wave in the kagome sublattice and the Sb 5p-electron assisted 2 × 2 × 2 charge density waves in CsV₃Sb₅.

Controlling nanoscale colloidal crystallization is not straightforward. Such control is now achieved by leveraging a metastable liquid phase of charged nanocrystals.

Molecular magnets may provide fundamental building blocks for future spintronic and quantum information technologies. Here, the authors demonstrate how the Yb₄ tetrahedral components of inorganic materials Ba₃Yb₂Zn₅O₁₁behave as isolated molecular magnets.

Plasmonic enhancements of light–matter interactions are generally maximal at short emitter–surface separations. Here, the authors investigate the impact of nonlocality, spill-out, and surface-assisted Landau damping at nanoscale separations using a mesoscopic electrodynamic framework.

Group III/nitride semiconductors have been grown epitaxially on the superconductor niobium nitride, allowing the superconductor’s macroscopic quantum effects to be combined with the semiconductors’ electronic, photonic and piezoelectric properties.

Dirac fermions at ap–njunction can exhibit a wide variety of unusual properties. Here, the authors investigate the dynamics of such fermions in a graphene junction using shot noise measurements and demonstrate the crucial role of junction length.

Significant attention has been devoted to understanding the low-electric-field properties of carriers in moiré graphene, but high-electric-field transport has not been as well explored. Here, the authors find non-monotonic transport behavior at moiré minigaps due to competition between inter-band tunneling and coupling to out-of-equilibrium phonons.

Experimental systems in which non-trivial topology is driven by spontaneous symmetry breaking are rare. Now, topological gaps resulting from two excitonic condensates have been demonstrated in a three-dimensional material.

The authors present microwave emission measurements on a resistively shunted Josephson junction based on a HgTe quantum well. They demonstrate that, with significant spurious inductance in the shunt wiring, additional microwave emission peaks appear at half of the Josephson frequency, which can mimic the 4π-periodicity of topological Andreev states.

Correlated errors coming from leakage out of the computational subspace are an obstacle to fault-tolerant superconducting circuits. Here, the authors use a multi-level reset protocol to improve the performances of a bit-flip error correcting code by reducing the magnitude of correlations.

One of the advantages that it is hoped quantum computers will have over classical computers is their ability to accurately simulate quantum phenomena. Silveri et al.take a step towards this goal by simulating so-called motional averaging in an artificial atom realized by a superconducting quantum bit.

High-resolution STM/STS visualizes the fractionalization of flat moiré bands into discrete Hofstadter subbands in moiré graphene near the predicted second magic angle, and experimentally establishes several fundamental properties of the fractal Hofstadter energy spectrum.

An experiment reports the unexpected behaviour of an object in uniform motion in superfluid helium-3 above the Landau critical velocity — the limit above which it can generate excitations at no energy cost.

The ultra-quantum limit refers to the high magnetic-field regime where electrons are confined to the lowest Landau level and is most easily reached in topological semimetals due to their low carrier density. Here, the authors study this regime in the Dirac semimetal ZrTe₅ and find evidence for a Lifshitz transition at moderate field, leading to the emergence of a 1D-Weyl band structure at high field.

Searches for neutral fermionic, bosonic or anyonic excitations in unconventional insulators are discussed, and challenges in probing and using quantum insulators outlined, in this Perspective on future advancements offered by quantum materials and experimental schemes.

Biomaterials that can be non-invasively activated to promote bone growth would be useful tools to repair bone defects in patients with comorbidities like inflammation or impaired osteogenesis. Here, the authors develop a composite membrane that can be stimulated by an external magnetic field and use it to correct skull defects in rats treated to reflect such comorbidities.

The heavy fermion material URu₂Si₂ exhibits a hidden-order phase transition that remains poorly understood. Using differential elastoresistance measurements, Riggs et al. show that this phase has a nematic component and that it spontaneously breaks fourfold lattice symmetry.

Distinguishing the two models that have been proposed to explain stripe-like spin order in the iron-based superconductors is challenging. Avci et al.report an additional spin-ordered phase between this stripe phase and the superconducting state that suggests it originates from weak itinerant magnetism.

Photo-induced phase transitions triggered by an ultrafast excitation cannot be described within the quasi-equilibrium framework. Here, using time-resolved experimental probes, the authors report a transient charge-density-wave order in TbTe₃ and describe it using a model with a non-equilibrium transition temperature.

Understanding dynamics of fermionic bound states is important for their potential application in quantum devices. Here the authors study zero temperature dynamics and dissipation of fermions bound on a moving goal-post shaped wire in superfluid ³He-B.

In addition to its low-field superconducting state, UTe₂ features a re-entrant superconducting state when high magnetic fields are applied at a particular range of angles. Here, the authors demonstrate that the high-field re-entrant superconducting state survives even when the low-field superconducting state is destroyed by disorder.

The authors realize low-pressure-driven polarization switching in PbTiO₃ membranes by leveraging their structural tunability and substrate elasticity, enabling ferroelectric field-effect transistors on silicon, operatable mechanically and electrically.

Metal-oxide superlattices were found to possess coexisting phases; a ferroelectric phase and a vortex phase with electric toroidal order. Electric fields interconverted from one phase to another, potentially enabling new functionality.

Cancer evolutionary dynamics are quantitatively inferred using a method, EVOFLUx, applied to fluctuating DNA methylation.

Using the unique valley properties of a twisted MoTe₂ bilayer, measurements of the degree of circular polarization of trion photoluminescence reveal optical signatures of a zero-field composite Fermi liquid.

Quantum criticality is often found in metallic compounds that are close to being magnetic. What about insulators in which the electric moments are fluctuating? These too can be described by the same framework—over a wider temperature range than in quantum critical metals.

Mott metal-insulator transition in real materials is characterized by complex lattice and electron dynamics involving multiple length and time scales. Here, by combining time-resolved experimental probe and coarse-grained modelling, the authors elucidate the nanoscale dynamics across the Mott transition in V₂O₃.

Biological wastewater treatment is greatly challenging in cold environments as low temperatures inhibit enzyme activity in microbial metabolism. This work presents a strategy that integrates biological wastewater treatment with photothermal technology to improve its resilience to low temperatures.

Ca₂RuO₄ is a Mott insulator that becomes a metal when a current is passed through it. Now, the changes in its electronic structure are revealed as this transition takes place.

Recent experiments have found a two-fold van Hove singularity (TvHS) in the kagome metal CsV₃Sb₅. Here, the authors use perturbative renormalization group calculations to find that the leading instability in a model of TvHS is a chiral condensate of electron-hole pairs, breaking time-reversal symmetry.

Experimentalists have observed the predicted half-integer quantum Hall effect using the topological insulator BiSbTeSe₂, which exhibits topological surface states at room temperature, with each surface contributing a half quantum of Hall conductance.

Elasticity-mediated particle interaction in a hosting medium holds promise for material engineering of unusual structures. Yuan et al. show that the gold microparticles can induce elastic multipoles of different symmetries when dispersed in a nematic liquid crystal as building blocks for various crystals.