Pub Date : 2025-12-15DOI: 10.1038/s41567-025-03107-0
Darian Hall, Jung-Shen Benny Tai, Louis H. Kauffman, Ivan I. Smalyukh
Vortex knots have been seen decaying in many physical systems. Here we describe topologically protected vortex knots, which remain stable and undergo fusion and fission and conserve a topological invariant. The host medium, a chiral nematic liquid crystal, exhibits intrinsic chirality of molecular alignment, whereas cores of the vortex lines are structurally achiral regions in which a molecular twist cannot be defined. We can reversibly switch between fusion and fission of these vortex knots by applying electric pulses. This reveals the physical embodiments of concepts in knot theory, such as connected sums of knots and band surgeries. Our findings demonstrate the interplay of chirality effects at hierarchical levels from constituent molecules to the host medium and the energetically stable chiral vortex knots. This emergent physical behaviour may enable applications in electro-optics and photonics in which such fusion and fission processes of vortex knots can be used for controlling light.
{"title":"Fusion and fission of particle-like chiral nematic vortex knots","authors":"Darian Hall, Jung-Shen Benny Tai, Louis H. Kauffman, Ivan I. Smalyukh","doi":"10.1038/s41567-025-03107-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-025-03107-0","url":null,"abstract":"Vortex knots have been seen decaying in many physical systems. Here we describe topologically protected vortex knots, which remain stable and undergo fusion and fission and conserve a topological invariant. The host medium, a chiral nematic liquid crystal, exhibits intrinsic chirality of molecular alignment, whereas cores of the vortex lines are structurally achiral regions in which a molecular twist cannot be defined. We can reversibly switch between fusion and fission of these vortex knots by applying electric pulses. This reveals the physical embodiments of concepts in knot theory, such as connected sums of knots and band surgeries. Our findings demonstrate the interplay of chirality effects at hierarchical levels from constituent molecules to the host medium and the energetically stable chiral vortex knots. This emergent physical behaviour may enable applications in electro-optics and photonics in which such fusion and fission processes of vortex knots can be used for controlling light.","PeriodicalId":19100,"journal":{"name":"Nature Physics","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":19.6,"publicationDate":"2025-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145759430","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-12DOI: 10.1038/s41567-025-03106-1
M. Bassi, E. A. Rodríguez-Mena, B. Brun, S. Zihlmann, T. Nguyen, V. Champain, J. C. Abadillo-Uriel, B. Bertrand, H. Niebojewski, R. Maurand, Y.-M. Niquet, X. Jehl, S. De Franceschi, V. Schmitt
Hole spins in silicon or germanium quantum dots have emerged as a capable platform for scalable solid-state quantum processors. In addition to benefiting from well-established manufacturing technologies, the large spin–orbit coupling of hole spin qubits enables fast control mediated by an electric field. Unfortunately, this coupling typically makes hole spin qubits susceptible to charge noise, which usually limits qubit coherence. Here we experimentally establish the existence of so-called sweet lines in the parameter space of field orientation where the qubit becomes insensitive to charge noise. We do this by varying the direction of a magnetic field applied to a silicon metal–oxide–semiconductor hole qubit. We also find that the observed sweet lines contain the points of maximal driving efficiency, in agreement with recent theoretical predictions. Furthermore, we show that moderate adjustments in gate voltages can substantially shift the sweet lines. This tunability allows several qubits to be simultaneously made insensitive to electrical noise, making it possible to design scalable qubit architectures that feature all-electrical spin control of many qubits.
{"title":"Optimal operation of hole spin qubits","authors":"M. Bassi, E. A. Rodríguez-Mena, B. Brun, S. Zihlmann, T. Nguyen, V. Champain, J. C. Abadillo-Uriel, B. Bertrand, H. Niebojewski, R. Maurand, Y.-M. Niquet, X. Jehl, S. De Franceschi, V. Schmitt","doi":"10.1038/s41567-025-03106-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-025-03106-1","url":null,"abstract":"Hole spins in silicon or germanium quantum dots have emerged as a capable platform for scalable solid-state quantum processors. In addition to benefiting from well-established manufacturing technologies, the large spin–orbit coupling of hole spin qubits enables fast control mediated by an electric field. Unfortunately, this coupling typically makes hole spin qubits susceptible to charge noise, which usually limits qubit coherence. Here we experimentally establish the existence of so-called sweet lines in the parameter space of field orientation where the qubit becomes insensitive to charge noise. We do this by varying the direction of a magnetic field applied to a silicon metal–oxide–semiconductor hole qubit. We also find that the observed sweet lines contain the points of maximal driving efficiency, in agreement with recent theoretical predictions. Furthermore, we show that moderate adjustments in gate voltages can substantially shift the sweet lines. This tunability allows several qubits to be simultaneously made insensitive to electrical noise, making it possible to design scalable qubit architectures that feature all-electrical spin control of many qubits.","PeriodicalId":19100,"journal":{"name":"Nature Physics","volume":"170 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":19.6,"publicationDate":"2025-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145746791","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Parity–time symmetry has revolutionized wave and energy transport control in non-Hermitian systems, yet has so far been mostly explored in static phases, where a system’s behaviour is locked into a fixed-symmetric or broken-symmetry phase. The vast potential of time-domain dynamics has remained largely untapped. Here we introduce the concept of temporal anti-parity–time symmetry, a principle that allows the transport dynamics of a system to be actively shaped in real time. Rather than designing static phases, we influence the timing of non-Hermitian phase transitions, making the system’s temporal evolution itself a programmable degree of freedom. Through the dynamic control of material properties and convective flow, we dictate the exact moments these transitions occur, thereby controlling the entire transport history of the system. This temporal control achieves highly tunable field localization and realizes counterintuitive thermal transport, enabling temperature profiles to move forwards with convection, backwards against it or remain trapped at arbitrary locations. Our findings extend non-Hermitian physics into the time domain and establish a framework for on-demand wave and energy transport.
{"title":"Temporal anti-parity–time symmetry in diffusive transport","authors":"Peng Jin, Chengmeng Wang, Yuhong Zhou, Shuihua Yang, Fubao Yang, Jinrong Liu, Ya Sun, Pengfei Zhuang, Yiyang Zhang, Liujun Xu, Yi Zhou, Ghim Wei Ho, Cheng-Wei Qiu, Jiping Huang","doi":"10.1038/s41567-025-03129-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-025-03129-8","url":null,"abstract":"Parity–time symmetry has revolutionized wave and energy transport control in non-Hermitian systems, yet has so far been mostly explored in static phases, where a system’s behaviour is locked into a fixed-symmetric or broken-symmetry phase. The vast potential of time-domain dynamics has remained largely untapped. Here we introduce the concept of temporal anti-parity–time symmetry, a principle that allows the transport dynamics of a system to be actively shaped in real time. Rather than designing static phases, we influence the timing of non-Hermitian phase transitions, making the system’s temporal evolution itself a programmable degree of freedom. Through the dynamic control of material properties and convective flow, we dictate the exact moments these transitions occur, thereby controlling the entire transport history of the system. This temporal control achieves highly tunable field localization and realizes counterintuitive thermal transport, enabling temperature profiles to move forwards with convection, backwards against it or remain trapped at arbitrary locations. Our findings extend non-Hermitian physics into the time domain and establish a framework for on-demand wave and energy transport.","PeriodicalId":19100,"journal":{"name":"Nature Physics","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":19.6,"publicationDate":"2025-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145711548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-10DOI: 10.1038/s41567-025-03147-6
Social connections can unlock opportunities that are advantageous to careers in physics. However, this resource is unevenly distributed, and its benefits can’t always overcome the negative effects of societal stereotypes and biases.
{"title":"Level the slopes","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s41567-025-03147-6","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41567-025-03147-6","url":null,"abstract":"Social connections can unlock opportunities that are advantageous to careers in physics. However, this resource is unevenly distributed, and its benefits can’t always overcome the negative effects of societal stereotypes and biases.","PeriodicalId":19100,"journal":{"name":"Nature Physics","volume":"21 12","pages":"1863-1863"},"PeriodicalIF":18.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-025-03147-6.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145719859","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-10DOI: 10.1038/s41567-025-03114-1
Weihua Li, Hongwei Zheng, Aaron Clauset
Elite women in physics wait longer than men for recognition. Once elected to the US National Academy of Sciences, however, their prominence surges — evidence that their work was undervalued all along.
物理学领域的精英女性比男性等待认可的时间更长。然而，一旦入选美国国家科学院（National Academy of Sciences），他们的声望就会飙升——这证明他们的工作一直被低估了。
{"title":"The undervaluing of elite women in physics","authors":"Weihua Li, Hongwei Zheng, Aaron Clauset","doi":"10.1038/s41567-025-03114-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41567-025-03114-1","url":null,"abstract":"Elite women in physics wait longer than men for recognition. Once elected to the US National Academy of Sciences, however, their prominence surges — evidence that their work was undervalued all along.","PeriodicalId":19100,"journal":{"name":"Nature Physics","volume":"21 12","pages":"1864-1867"},"PeriodicalIF":18.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145719860","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-10DOI: 10.1038/s41567-025-03127-w
Karen Mudryk
Despite being derived from the unit of time, the hertz is a unit in its own right. It has remained a much beloved unit since its establishment almost one hundred years ago, as Karen Mudryk recounts.
{"title":"Love hertz","authors":"Karen Mudryk","doi":"10.1038/s41567-025-03127-w","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41567-025-03127-w","url":null,"abstract":"Despite being derived from the unit of time, the hertz is a unit in its own right. It has remained a much beloved unit since its establishment almost one hundred years ago, as Karen Mudryk recounts.","PeriodicalId":19100,"journal":{"name":"Nature Physics","volume":"21 12","pages":"2009-2009"},"PeriodicalIF":18.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145719858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-08DOI: 10.1038/s41567-025-03094-2
Tatsuhiro Onodera, Martin M. Stein, Benjamin A. Ash, Mandar M. Sohoni, Melissa Bosch, Ryotatsu Yanagimoto, Marc Jankowski, Timothy P. McKenna, Tianyu Wang, Gennady Shvets, Maxim R. Shcherbakov, Logan G. Wright, Peter L. McMahon
Controlled multimode wave propagation can enable more space-efficient photonic processors than architectures based on discrete components connected by single-mode waveguides. Instead of defining discrete elements, one can sculpt the continuous substrate of a photonic processor to perform computations through multimode interference in two dimensions. Here we designed and demonstrated a device with a refractive index that can be rapidly reprogrammed across space, allowing arbitrary control of wave propagation. The device, a two-dimensional programmable waveguide, uses parallel electro-optic modulation of the refractive index of a slab waveguide with about 104 programmable spatial degrees of freedom. We implemented neural network inference on benchmark tasks with up to 49-dimensional vectors in a single pass, without digital pre-processing or post-processing. Theoretical and numerical analyses further indicated that two-dimensional programmable waveguides may offer not only a constant-factor reduction in device area but also a scaling benefit, with the area required growing as N1.5 rather than N2.
{"title":"Arbitrary control over multimode wave propagation for machine learning","authors":"Tatsuhiro Onodera, Martin M. Stein, Benjamin A. Ash, Mandar M. Sohoni, Melissa Bosch, Ryotatsu Yanagimoto, Marc Jankowski, Timothy P. McKenna, Tianyu Wang, Gennady Shvets, Maxim R. Shcherbakov, Logan G. Wright, Peter L. McMahon","doi":"10.1038/s41567-025-03094-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-025-03094-2","url":null,"abstract":"Controlled multimode wave propagation can enable more space-efficient photonic processors than architectures based on discrete components connected by single-mode waveguides. Instead of defining discrete elements, one can sculpt the continuous substrate of a photonic processor to perform computations through multimode interference in two dimensions. Here we designed and demonstrated a device with a refractive index that can be rapidly reprogrammed across space, allowing arbitrary control of wave propagation. The device, a two-dimensional programmable waveguide, uses parallel electro-optic modulation of the refractive index of a slab waveguide with about 104 programmable spatial degrees of freedom. We implemented neural network inference on benchmark tasks with up to 49-dimensional vectors in a single pass, without digital pre-processing or post-processing. Theoretical and numerical analyses further indicated that two-dimensional programmable waveguides may offer not only a constant-factor reduction in device area but also a scaling benefit, with the area required growing as N1.5 rather than N2.","PeriodicalId":19100,"journal":{"name":"Nature Physics","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":19.6,"publicationDate":"2025-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145711516","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-05DOI: 10.1038/s41567-025-03126-x
Xiaomeng Liu, Zhida Liu
A fractal energy pattern known as the Hofstadter butterfly has now been observed separately for each spin in a two-dimensional semiconductor, revealing a cascade of magnetic transitions.
{"title":"Hofstadter’s butterfly turns magnetic","authors":"Xiaomeng Liu, Zhida Liu","doi":"10.1038/s41567-025-03126-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41567-025-03126-x","url":null,"abstract":"A fractal energy pattern known as the Hofstadter butterfly has now been observed separately for each spin in a two-dimensional semiconductor, revealing a cascade of magnetic transitions.","PeriodicalId":19100,"journal":{"name":"Nature Physics","volume":"21 12","pages":"1873-1874"},"PeriodicalIF":18.4,"publicationDate":"2025-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145680176","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-04DOI: 10.1038/s41567-025-03115-0
Jie Liang, Hao Zheng, Feng Jin, Ruiqi Bao, Kevin Dini, Jiahao Ren, Yuxi Liu, Mateusz Król, Elena A. Ostrovskaya, Eliezer Estrecho, Baile Zhang, Timothy C. H. Liew, Rui Su
{"title":"Twist-induced non-Hermitian topology of exciton–polaritons","authors":"Jie Liang, Hao Zheng, Feng Jin, Ruiqi Bao, Kevin Dini, Jiahao Ren, Yuxi Liu, Mateusz Król, Elena A. Ostrovskaya, Eliezer Estrecho, Baile Zhang, Timothy C. H. Liew, Rui Su","doi":"10.1038/s41567-025-03115-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-025-03115-0","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19100,"journal":{"name":"Nature Physics","volume":"201 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":19.6,"publicationDate":"2025-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145664780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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