condensed-matter-physics

Adventures in Flatland In everyday life we think of most objects as having three dimensions. But what would life be like in a two-dimensional world? For one thing, it would be harder to move around. We could no longer step over things but would have to move around them. In 1884 Edwin Abbott published Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions , under the pseudonym, A. Square, a satirical novella abou…

Nature Physics, Published online: 15 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41567-026-03334-z The role of disorder in orbital angular momentum transport induced by electric fields is not well understood. Now orbital Hall conductivity and orbital relaxation are shown to be robust even in strongly disordered thin films.

Nature Physics, Published online: 15 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41567-026-03331-2 Time-reversal symmetry breaking in kagome metals remains an open problem. Now, a circulating phase called the loop-current order is shown to break time-reversal symmetry at a temperature well above the charge order transition in CsV3Sb5.

Scientists have observed an extraordinary quantum phenomenon inside tiny semiconductor crystals, revealing a synchronized “dance” between two different quantum particles. The discovery provides new insight into how quantum systems behave and could help pave the way for future quantum technologies. The international research team reported the findings in Nature Communications, where they described…

Nature Communications, Published online: 13 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74143-4 Researchers report a breakthrough in ultra-broadband magnonic frequency combs by driving a nonlinear YIG resonator far off-resonance, yielding over 350 comb lines across 450 MHz with continuously tunable spacing.

Nature Communications, Published online: 13 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74219-1 This work demonstrates field-driven annealing of skyrmion lattices in van der Waals Fe3GaTe2. Magnetic-field oscillations and current pulses transform disordered skyrmions into distinct ordered states through a shared defect-mediated collective mechanism.

Many natural processes, ranging from magnetism to chemical reactions, entail the movement and rotation of particles at very small scales. In quantum mechanics, particles exhibit both particle-like and wave-like behaviors, and their states can be described mathematically using representations known as wavefunctions. The reliable manipulation of wave-like properties of particles as small as atoms o…

Scientists have finally captured a hidden state of matter, revealing a long-predicted phase with intriguing quantum potential. Researchers from Brown University and the University of Michigan College of Engineering have succeeded in stabilizing a previously elusive state of matter that had existed only in theoretical models. Using carefully engineered nanoparticles as building blocks, the team [.…

Professor Eva Andrei and two other physicists — Pablo Jarillo-Herrero from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Allan H. MacDonald from the University of Texas at Austin — will share a $1 million prize for their work discovering how twisting ultrathin sheets of carbon at precise... Read more

On Brownian loop soups and 2D conformal field theory: Amin Moharramipour, Dan Sehayek, Thomas Scaffidi, Solvable models for 2+1D quantum critical points: Loop soups of 1+1D conformal field theories [arXiv:2310.00037] Rongvoram Nivesvivat, Sylvain Ribault, Jesper L. Jacobsen, Critical loop models are exactly solvable, SciPost Phys. 17 029 (2024) [arXiv:2311.17558, doi:10.21468/SciPostPhys.17.2.029…

Nature, Published online: 10 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10636-y Macroscopic quantum coherence arises in two-component exciton Bose–Einstein condensates within MoSe2/hBN/WSe2 electron–hole bilayers, exhibiting distinct spin–valley polarized phases, quantum phase transitions under magnetic fields and stable condensate behaviour up to approximately 1.8 K.

Nature, Published online: 10 June 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-01701-7 Water-suspended carbon nanotubes move more slowly in green light, suggesting that excited electrons in the tubes couple to the water through ‘quantum friction’.

Nature Communications, Published online: 10 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-74178-7 Recently field-free spin-orbit torque switching has been demonstrated in van der Waals magnetic materials. Here, taking advantage of the quantum sensing properties of spin defects in hexagonal Boron Nitride, Zhang, Zhou, and coauthors image the current-induced spin-orbit torque switching in the van der Waals mag…

A topological state of matter governed by a kind of -gauge theory and thought to exhibit topological order. The state was originally conceived under the name resonating valence bond states in: 8 2 (1973) 153-160 [doi:10.1016/0025-5408(73)90167-0] Further early discussion: Textbook account: Further review: Lucile Savary, Leon Balents, Quantum Spin Liquids, Rep. Prog. Phys. 80 016502 (2017) [arXiv:…

Nature Communications, Published online: 09 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41467-026-71570-1 Charge density waves typically occur in metallic systems. Here, the authors show evidence of a charge density wave state in a band insulator state in α-Bi4Br4.

Pre-submission and post-decision guide for Physical Review B (PRB) authors writing a reply to the referee, grounded in pre-submission review work on condensed-matter and materials manuscripts.