Articles in 2024

This Perspective explores attosecond physics in solids, focussing on high harmonic generation and attosecond transient absorption and reflection spectroscopy. Combining physical realizations and theoretical concepts is a challenge for future progress.

A paper in Nature Physics puts forward a statistical mechanics theory to explain the risks of not having enough slack in a time-sensitive system.

A paper in Physical Review Letters sheds new light on a 40-year-old puzzle, and provides new insights into fluid mechanics.

An article in Nature reports an on-chip titanium:sapphire laser.

A paper in Science Advances provides a mechanics-based explanation for why flightless birds run the way they do.

As we close our sixth volume, we reflect on some of our highlights from this year.

This article reviews the exotic structures and dynamics that emerge in weakly bound unstable nuclei, highlighting their deep impacts on several key interdisciplinary fields. Additionally, it outlines prospects for future exploration of the heavier neutron-rich region.

van der Waals polytypes are a class of periodic crystals that differ in their stacking configurations and can transform from one to another by discrete interlayer shifts. This Perspective discusses recent reports of the properties, structural stabilities and switching responses of polytypes and highlights challenges towards multiferroic opportunities.

With its capability to observe faint objects from the distant past, JWST is discovering objects that were thought to be rare; for example, compact objects that appear as little red dots are more than they seem.

Trained as a particle physicist, Yangyang Cheng now works as a researcher on the history of science in China and US–China relations. She contextualizes the current tensions between the two superpowers.

On the centenary of the founding of the Electrical Association for Women, three historians of science and technology reflect on the impact of bringing physics literacy into our daily lives.

Nitrogen vacancy centre quantum sensors are quantitative, non-invasive and physically robust probes of condensed matter systems that offer nanoscale resolution across a wide range of temperatures. This Technical Review discusses the connections between NV measurements and important physical characteristics in condensed matter.

Artificial intelligence techniques, specifically machine learning, are being increasingly applied to climate physics owing to the growing availability of big data and increasing computational power. This Review focuses on key results obtained with machine learning in reconstruction, sub-grid-scale parameterization, and weather or climate prediction.

Three-dimensional, quantum mixtures of ultracold gases of neutral atoms are ideal platforms for probing the physics of many-body systems because the interparticle interactions can be fine-tuned externally. This Review introduces a range of active topics under investigation: topological defects, the interplay of superconductivity and magnetism, novel few-body states and more.

Many physicists are sceptical of hype, but there are also benefits to envisioning the future possibilities enabled by science. We explore the need for scientists to engage with visionary rhetoric.

This Review discusses quantum optimization, focusing on the potential of exact, approximate and heuristic methods, core algorithmic building blocks, problem classes and benchmarking metrics. The challenges for quantum optimization are considered, and next steps are suggested for progress towards achieving quantum advantage.

This Perspective surveys the role of thermal nonlinearity in figures of merit through a multiscale physical understanding to advance heat harvesting technologies beyond linear processes, focusing on ‘nonlinear heat harvesting’, which potentially contributes to sustainable energy transition and decarbonization goals.