A complete classification of a subset of so-called “fragile” topological states offers predictions for hundreds of realistic materials in which these exotic and little-understood states may appear.

A new framework for engineering quantum many-body systems uses pulsed periodic driving to tailor the system’s Hamiltonian, setting the stage for improved quantum applications such as information processing, metrology, and simulation.

A new approach to quantum sensing uses a tailored control pulse sequence to overcome sensor-sensor interactions that have plagued previous designs, setting the stage for nanoscale sensing with newfound sensitivity.

Paving the way for new tunable plasmonic THz amplifiers, experiments show the first observation of energy transfer from dc current to plasmons, leading to THz amplification.

A theory for describing heat flow in simple electronic circuits reveals limits of traditional analysis techniques, paving the way for design improvements in the design of thermal machines with electronic circuits.

A new method for controlling interactions among multiple electron spins allows for efficient information transfer between distant qubits, opening the door to many scalable quantum computing applications.

Coupled semiconductor layers of InAs and GaSb can be used to realize a Fabry-Pérot interferometer in which electrons and holes incident at all angles lead to an interference pattern.

Particle trajectories that mimic spiral stairways can reveal low-energy properties that might otherwise be missed in electronic crystals, an insight that could aid the search for new quantum materials.

Quantum systems with certain long-range interactions exhibit a hierarchy of limits on information transfer rates—a set of nested “light cones”—that set fundamental restrictions for a range of quantum-based technologies.

Quantum systems with long-range interactions have a finite speed at which information can propagate, a speed that is determined by the dimensionality of the system.

A proposed optical waveguide would take a light pulse and break it into sets of strongly correlated photons, which may give a leg up to certain quantum technologies.

Despite their complexity, microgels confined to a liquid-liquid interface can be described through relatively simple interactions that reveal the presence of intriguing behavior at high density.

Experiments reveal that unusual surface behavior at the terminations of a recently discovered magnetic topological insulator depends on the interplay between different building blocks within the material.

Tailored circuits joined to a quantum spin liquid provide a way to electrically probe the spin liquid’s fractionalized excitations, a key step toward harnessing such systems for fault-tolerant quantum computing.

Controlling the system-bath coupling in a heat engine leads to the construction of Carnot engines with greatly increased efficiency, a useful insight for the design of improved quantum-based thermal machines.

For parameters most relevant to superconductivity, a common model for describing high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates is nonsuperconducting in its ground state.

Experiments show that E. coli bacteria employ a number of strategies to explore complex environments, navigating mazes and fractals much more efficiently than would be expected for a random walk.

A new technique for extracting equations of motion from data opens the way for the application of a robust inference apparatus to a class of widely used models to describe stochastic dynamics in physics and biophysics.

In a strong magnetic field, the magnetic cores of nanoparticles grow because of the realignment of surrounding spins, challenging the commonly held assumption of a constant magnetic nanoparticle moment.

A new type of device experimentally shows full control over spin current transmission in a superconducting material, a key step for the development of superconducting spintronics.

Simulations explore how compressible forces impact turbulence in astrophysical plasmas, thus offering important insight into a range of processes such as cosmic-ray propagation and magnetic reconnection.

Laser cooling typically doesn’t work on asymmetric molecules, but a new analysis shows that it is possible for certain species, paving the way for a new era for molecular probes.

A new analysis offers a way to derive relatively simple analytical limits on quantum measurements even for complex or poorly understood systems, with applications in imaging, interferometry, and quantum-information processing.

Nonlinear optical networks can exhibit phase transitions, settling into optical states similar to ferromagnets or spin glasses, thus establishing a new class of spin models beyond those found in statistical mechanics.

Charge carriers become heavier as temperature increases in doped strontium titrate, which may help explain why its resistance exceeds the maximum value expected from a scattering-based picture.

The Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model of interacting fermions is a powerful tool for studying quantum gravity. A new analysis identifies spin-glass physics in any local version of the model, raising the question of whether quantum gravity requires fermions.

A proposal for a 2D ion trap, based on arrays of microstructured electrodes in a magnetic field, could provide a powerful platform for scalable quantum computing and quantum simulation.

Ultrafast infrared light pulses resonant to molecular vibrations induce transient superconductivity in an organic superconductor at temperatures much higher than the equilibrium transition temperature.

A new acoustic technique involving machine learning could lead to cheaper and faster high-resolution medical imaging.

A new implementation of quantum key distribution enables a cost-effective, high-rate, and secure quantum network with an untrusted relay.

For the first time, experiments show 2D spatial as well as temporal interference of pairs of entangled photons with enormous dimensionality, setting the stage for complex quantum information protocols that depend on space and time.

Experiments demonstrate a superconducting qubit that leverages nonlinearity in granular aluminum, a useful step in the development of hybrid quantum circuits that combine superconductivity with other degrees of freedom.

Experiments reveal that the iron-based superconductor FeSe has a richer electronic structure than previously known, which may further studies into its rich physical properties and superconductivity mechanism.

An usual insulating behavior in twisted bilayer graphene can be explained by a symmetry breaking that arises when cells in the superlattice are filled with an even number of electrons.

A new metasurface design strategy allows for the generation of any combination of various circularly and linearly polarized states of light simultaneously, a key step in furthering protocols for quantum cryptography and communication.

A new analysis reveals an exact analytic solution for a recently proposed model of Floquet systems (those continuously driven in a time-periodic way), which could help studies of nonequilibrium states of matter.

A study of an ultracold mixture of fermionic atoms reveals the mechanism underlying tunable interactions among those atoms, a key insight for understanding some quantum systems.

A new analysis proves that it is not possible for numerical algorithms to determine if a 1D quantum system has a spectral gap, showing that basic properties of even simple systems are, in some instances, impossible to predict.

Experiments trace variations in the energy of a laser-plasma electron beam to properties of the drive laser, establishing a technique for stabilizing compact next-generation sources of high-energy electrons.

A new modeling and computational approach allow for more complete simulations of particle and heat flow through tiny quantum devices.

Symmetry and topology can provide for self-correcting quantum codes in a 3D topologically ordered spin lattice, a key insight for building quantum memories that correct their own errors without active control.

Vortexlike patterns of liquid-crystal molecules can interact with light in a manner akin to lenses and might be useful for all-optical information processing.

Spin-orbit coupling in crystals can strongly modify the Jahn-Teller effect, in which interactions between electrons and the lattice drive the system from highly symmetric arrangements.

A network of nonlinear elastic connections can learn and remember multiple stable states as it is manipulated, a mechanical analog to the continual learning exhibited by neural networks.

An analysis of a common model used to describe glassy relaxation challenges predictions of its behavior at low temperature, showing that it relaxes to a state dependent upon the initial temperature.

Filling the wave function of a Rydberg atom with a tunable number of neutral atoms can break the high level of energy degeneracy in these systems in surprising ways.

Experiments show that evidence for a novel phase in vanadium dioxide is explainable in terms of heating differences that result from comparing different techniques.

A new analysis shows how to measure the density matrix of an ionized electron to reconstruct its wave packet and identify sources of quantum decoherence.

Tiny oil droplets levitated in optical tweezers can host several hundred light modes with similar energies, a feature that could be exploited for sensing and telecommunications.

A new proposal for how to encode quantum information in the rotational states of individual molecules could protect these qubits from losing information as a result of noise.

Experiments realize a multiterminal Josephson junction, in which superconducting phase-coherence builds up between multiple supercurrents, providing a tool for exploring novel superconductivity and fault-tolerant quantum computing.

A numerical and theoretical analysis explains the origin of non-Fermi-liquid behavior in Hund metals by studying how the spins and orbits of electrons screen local impurities.

Accounting for finite temperature properties of interacting electrons resolves apparent contradictions between computer simulations of non-Fermi-liquid metals and the theory used to describe them.

The first measurements of exchange energies among electrons within single rare-earth atoms provide a glimpse at the intra-atomic interactions, improving our fundamental understanding of magnetism at the atomic scale.

A classification of symmetry-protected topological phases in systems of interacting fermions provides a road map for discovering new types of topological phases in strongly correlated electron systems.

A new approach to analyzing systems with complex dynamics uses machine learning to extract physical parameters and predict their behavior all without knowledge of the underlying system.

Molecular vibrations in a nanocavity can act as transducers that convert infrared signals to visible light, offering a promising approach to detecting weak infrared fields.

A one-dimensional chain of hydrogen atoms displays a wide variety of many-body effects—suggesting that the chain can be a useful model system for condensed-matter physics.

A minimal model of microswimmers in a dilute suspension shows that the faster a bacterium swims, the more independent it becomes of other bacteria below the onset of collective motion.

A technique to spread the polarization of spins from an initial small group of optically excited spins drastically increases the spin and optical coherence time, a key parameter for quantum technologies.

A new technique for fabricating metallic nanowires provides a purely 1D environment for studying charge-density waves and reveals a new type of quasiparticle that underlies their behavior.

A new source of terahertz radiation offers spectral tunability and peak power more than 100 times greater than other state-of-the-art systems, enabling a new regime for terahertz-based science.

Experiments and modeling characterize often ignored effects that impact the spectral structure of high-brightness correlated pairs of light beams critical to quantum information and metrology.

A new analysis provides bounds on the size of “clique covers”—mutually commuting subsets of quantum state observables—and hence the time required for certain near-term quantum computing applications.

Gravitational-wave detectors are ultimately limited by quantum fluctuations induced by light reflecting off the interferometer mirrors. A new experiment explores one way to remove this quantum backaction and improve detector sensitivity.

Through coarse graining, a hydrodynamic theory of membranelike objects with intricate internal structure emerges from information spreading in quantum chaotic circuits.

Theoretical and numerical analysis of the interface between liquid droplets and polymeric solids shows that these soft solids exhibit intricate surface elasticity, thus resolving the debate surrounding recent wetting experiments.

A new numerical study calculates the interaction cross section between neutrinos and the carbon nucleus and finds a good match with extant data, a key step toward characterizing neutrino flavor oscillations.

Neutron-scattering studies highlight the role of hyperfine interactions in frustrated quantum magnets and exemplify how low-symmetry crystal structures can be used to increase quantum fluctuations and realize a 2D quantum spin ice.

High-energy, ultrafast pulses of light enable measurements of attosecond-scale phase differences between the quantum wave packets of electrons emitted from atoms via two photoemission processes.