Volume 22 Issue 5, May 2026

There are theoretical predictions that topologically non-trivial states in materials leave tell-tale signs in the spatial structure of their wave functions. These have now been observed in monolayer materials.

Specialized quantum memories will be required to achieve quantum speedups for data-intensive problems. Now, a proof-of-principle demonstration of such a quantum memory has been performed with a superconducting processor.

A wire of motorized hinges learns, forgets, and relearns automatic responses on demand, uncovering the physical principles necessary to emulate autonomous learning of living matter.

Wetting is well understood for equilibrium conditions. Simulations probing wetting by active matter now demonstrate the emergence of stabilizing particle currents and provide the basis for a formalism describing wetting for non-equilibrium systems.

Helicity-resolved Raman spectroscopy reveals dynamical coupling between charge-density-wave amplitude fluctuations and symmetry-distinct phonons in a ferroaxial van der Waals crystal. This resonant dressing amplifies the material’s planar chiral lattice response through the underlying electronic order.

Charge-transfer excitations, which define the optical bandgap in many insulators, also contribute to magnetic exchange in antiferromagnets. Femtosecond optical pumping of these transitions in canted antiferromagnet DyFeO₃ reshapes the spin-wave spectrum — the set of collective spin excitations that define the dynamics of the antiferromagnet — without destroying the long-range order.

A method applied to a single trapped ion combines two linear spin-dependent interactions to generate nonlinear couplings in the ion’s motion: squeezing, trisqueezing and quadsqueezing interactions are demonstrated. The approach can be applied to any spin–oscillator system, produces stronger unitary interactions with the flexibility to switch quickly between orders, and scales seamlessly to higher orders and multiple oscillators.

Argon-42 is a background in experiments that search for dark matter or neutrinoless double-beta decay. Now, the isotope’s abundance is measured by combining a laser-based atom trapping technique with isotope pre-enrichment.

Synchrotron experiments show that the anomalous hyper-diffusive atomic motion in metallic glasses corresponds to a regime of medium-length-scale order, resulting from internal stresses developed throughout the glass transition.

Two distinct types of atomic insulator can be distinguished by the distribution of charges within the unit cell. Now, real-space imaging of WSe₂ shows that it is a so-called obstructed insulator.

Atomic insulators come in two varieties: so-called unobstructed and obstructed types. The former are common and now scanning tunnelling microscopy experiments provide evidence for the latter.

It is unclear whether the superconducting pairing in moiré graphene is driven primarily by electronic interactions. Now, by tuning the electrostatic environment, the authors show that these interactions may play a crucial role in both mediating the pairing and screening it.

Defects in quantum materials can reveal hidden electronic behaviour. Now a hidden chiral current state intertwined with a charge density wave has been observed in a kagome superconductor doped with magnetic impurities.

In a kagome superconductor, sublattice degrees of freedom are shown to govern a distinct density wave phase featuring chiral textures and symmetry properties that align with one of the fundamental frieze symmetry groups.

Odd-parity spin-triplet superconductivity remains difficult to establish experimentally. Now, several distinct magnetic-field-tuned superconducting states—including a possible topological helical phase—have been identified in YbRh₂Si₂.

Symmetry rules usually prevent interactions between distinct vibrational modes. Now it is shown that charge order fluctuations can mix modes, enhancing the chiral lattice response in a ferroaxial electronic crystal.

Controlling the dynamics of magnons at terahertz frequencies is important for fast and efficient information processing devices. Now optical excitation is shown to enable ultrafast manipulation of magnon spectra in an insulating antiferromagnet.

The creation of stable and isolated magnetic hopfions—three-dimensional topological solitons—has remained experimentally challenging. Now the laser-induced nucleation of hopfions has been achieved in a chiral magnet.

Random access memory has multiple data registers and uses addresses to specify which register should be read or modified. Now a quantum random access memory has been demonstrated that uses quantum addresses to return data in superposition.

Calculations on near-term quantum computers will be limited by the effects of noise. It has now been shown how different kinds of noise limit the achievable computational advantage of many proposed quantum algorithms.

Higher-order interactions in quantum harmonic oscillator systems can result in useful effects, but they are hard to engineer. An experiment on a single trapped ion now demonstrates how spin can mediate higher-order nonlinear bosonic interactions.

Entanglement between particles offers insights into quantum behaviour, but methods for studying it in free-electron systems are lacking. Now a two-electron quantum walk is used to probe decoherence of free electrons inside an electron microscope.

The mechanical stability of proteins affects their import into the nucleus. Now it is shown that protein transport in and out of the nucleus depends on the local mechanostability of the protein cargo.

Physical networks can learn to accomplish tasks on the fly by adjusting their internal parameters. Now it is shown that such physical learning can be achieved in metamaterials that can learn to change shape.

If a surface is hot enough, a liquid droplet can develop an insulating vapour layer that makes it levitate above the surface, which is known as the Leidenfrost effect. A solid structure of liquid-filled capillaries is now shown to display this levitating effect at much lower temperatures.

Airy beams are promising for applications requiring sharp focusing but have so far been realized in only two dimensions. Now their extension to three dimensions exhibits superior spatiotemporal focusing dynamics than Gaussian beams.

Theoretical descriptions of surface wetting so far cover only equilibrium situations and therefore do not describe active matter. Now a formalism for the description of the wetting of a surface by self-propelled particles is presented.

Max Planck introduced units of length, time and mass defined solely in terms of fundamental constants. As Saurya Das explains, these units define a system in which quantum mechanics, relativity, gravity and thermodynamics meet on equal footing.