Articles in 2025

Event generators are used to simulate and describe hadronic collisions in accelerator experiments, but often struggle to describe data from astroparticle experiments that probe hadronic collisions at extreme energies. This Review highlights the complementarity between accelerator and astroparticle experiments that can be exploited, to gain new insights into the nature of hadronic collisions and increase model accuracy across both domains.

Quantum education in the UK is fragmented and poorly advertised. Raising awareness of available training and career pathways will expand and strengthen the quantum workforce and is essential to meeting national quantum ambitions.

Nickelates have recently joined the cuprates and iron pnictides as unconventional superconductors with transition temperatures above 80 K. This Review looks for their shared superconducting mechanisms for building a coherent theoretical framework.

This Technical Review highlights advances in cryo-electron microscopy for materials science, covering sample preparation, low-dose imaging and analytical scanning transmission electron microscopy techniques. It discusses strategies to mitigate electron-beam damage and enable high-resolution 2D and 3D imaging of beam-sensitive energy materials.

Omokhuwele Umoru explains how generative adversarial networks can help to predict the phases of high-entropy alloys.

Over its 350 years of history, the establishment and evolution of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, reflects the history of scientific institutions in Britain.

As we close our seventh volume, we reflect on some of the highlights of the year.

Warm dense matter — the peculiar state between condensed matter and hot plasma — can be studied with exceptional detail at X-ray free-electron laser facilities. This Review summarizes pioneering experiments and discusses the perspectives for the near and mid-term future.

A paper in Optica shows how sound can be used to determine properties of an optical pulse.

A paper in PNAS shows how ideas from the physics of active matter can help explain the workings of a rare carnivorous plant.

An article in Physical Review Letters reports evidence that Cooper pairs exist in an anomalous metallic state.

Although sensing is one of the more established quantum technologies, translating quantum science into real-world biomedical impact requires further effort to overcome technical hurdles as well as structural and societal challenges.

Traditional approaches in complexity science struggle to capture emergent phenomena, but abductive reasoning — now computationally feasible through artificial intelligence — offers a new pathway for discovery.

Spatiotemporal structuring of optical fields offers opportunities to probe and control electron motions in light–matter interactions. This Review discusses the recent advances in both fundamental physics and practical applications in ultrafast physics that involve structured light.

Our understanding of how heavy elements form within stars is incomplete. This Review highlights the emerging role of the intermediate neutron-capture process (i process) — between the slow and rapid processes — backed by stellar observations in tandem with advances in nuclear physics experiments and modelling.

Youngro Lee explains how a 2001 paper reframed his perspective on resistivity and inspired a new way of approaching his research.

Single-molecule junctions, which exist at the intersection of quantum physics and molecular electronics, are a rapidly advancing topic of research. This Review examines quantum correlation phenomena in these systems.