Nature Physics

Nature Physics, Published online: 22 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01204-4

The revelation that fluid–fluid interfacial energy can drive structure formation in micropillar scaffolds offers a scalable way of synthesizing soft composites, which may have applications in building materials that mimic biological tissue.

Nature Physics, Published online: 18 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01211-5

Excitations confined by long-range interactions between Ising spins may provide a way for systems to escape thermalization. A quantum simulator made of trapped ions has now made such confinement-induced enhancement possible.

Nature Physics, Published online: 18 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01194-3

Long-range Ising interactions present in one-dimensional spin chains can induce a confining potential between pairs of domain walls, slowing down the thermalization of the system. This has now been observed in a trapped-ion quantum simulator.

Nature Physics, Published online: 18 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01202-6

Previously, injections from a conventional accelerator into a plasma-based one suffered from low coupling efficiencies. Now electron bunches are injected with an efficiency of nearly 100% into a laser wakefield accelerator without loss of charge.

Nature Physics, Published online: 11 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01191-6

Quantum systems possessing conserved quantities are expected to show quantum fluid properties governed by hydrodynamic equations. This behaviour is now evidenced in a neutron scattering study on the one-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet KCuF3.

Nature Physics, Published online: 11 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01197-0

A study of the high-field Hall coefficient in thallium- and bismuth-based single-layer cuprates demonstrates a smooth evolution of this quantity from p to 1 + p over a wide doping range.

Nature Physics, Published online: 09 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01206-2

Another twist in the tale

Nature Physics, Published online: 09 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01207-1

Slippy nitty-gritty

Nature Physics, Published online: 09 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01196-1

Surface scientists love a good vacuum. The reason for this is captured by the work of Irving Langmuir and the little-known unit bearing his name, explains Daniel Payne.

Nature Physics, Published online: 09 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01200-8

Food for thought

Nature Physics, Published online: 09 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01199-y

Algorithmic bug hunting

Nature Physics, Published online: 09 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01209-z

A year on from the last-minute cancellation of the 2020 American Physical Society March Meeting, we examine the ups and downs of the online conference experience that has become the new normal during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nature Physics, Published online: 08 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01190-7

Passing a supercurrent through a topological material can highlight the existence of higher-order boundary states, and may lead to applications in topological superconductivity.

Nature Physics, Published online: 05 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01212-4

Author Correction: Topological limits to the parallel processing capability of network architectures

Nature Physics, Published online: 04 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01167-6

The virtual photons that are exchanged when a free-electron vortex beam interacts with a nanoscopic target unlock an explicit connection between polarized optical spectroscopy and the inelastic scattering of scalar electron waves.

Nature Physics, Published online: 04 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01163-w

The functionality of electron energy loss spectroscopy can be extended to include a polarization analogue constructed via the dipole transition vector between two electronic states, bringing it closer to its optical counterpart.

Nature Physics, Published online: 04 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01182-7

When strain is applied to strontium ruthenate, superconductivity emerges at a different temperature to the breaking of time-reversal symmetry. This indicates that the superconductivity could have a chiral d-wave order parameter.

Nature Physics, Published online: 02 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01205-3

Publisher Correction: Nanoscale mechanics of antiferromagnetic domain walls

Nature Physics, Published online: 01 March 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01186-3

In magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene, topological Chern bands that are driven by electron–electron interactions appear at all the integer fillings of the moiré unit cell. The Rashba-like higher-energy bands also show Landau-level crossings.

Nature Physics, Published online: 25 February 2021; doi:10.1038/s41567-021-01189-0

Multiplexing increases the capacity of optical communication, but it is limited by the number of modes and their orbital angular momentum. A robust vortex laser now solves this problem by emitting several beams, all carrying large topological charges.