Pub Date : 2026-01-16DOI: 10.1038/s41567-025-03159-2
Andreas Neophytou
Suspensions of colloidal hard spheres are excellent model systems for studying glass dynamics. Adding tracer particles enables a hydrodynamic approach for probing the glass transition.
{"title":"Tracing dynamic arrest","authors":"Andreas Neophytou","doi":"10.1038/s41567-025-03159-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41567-025-03159-2","url":null,"abstract":"Suspensions of colloidal hard spheres are excellent model systems for studying glass dynamics. Adding tracer particles enables a hydrodynamic approach for probing the glass transition.","PeriodicalId":19100,"journal":{"name":"Nature Physics","volume":"22 2","pages":"180-181"},"PeriodicalIF":18.4,"publicationDate":"2026-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146176687","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 : 2026-01-16DOI: 10.1038/s41567-025-03146-7
Junho Seo, Chunyu Mark Guo, Carsten Putzke, Xiangwei Huang, Berit H. Goodge, Yip Chun Wong, Mark H. Fischer, Titus Neupert, Philip J. W. Moll
Strong magnetic fields applied to metals confine electrons into Landau orbits, except at the boundaries at which frequent surface collisions disrupt their cyclotron motion. In two-dimensional systems, these boundary states form dissipationless chiral edge channels in the quantum Hall regime. By contrast, the quantum limit of three-dimensional (3D) metals is traditionally thought to differ fundamentally and instead contains gapless Landau bands, lacking quantized Hall conductance or dissipationless transport. Here we demonstrate enhanced surface conduction in the quantum limit of the 3D semimetal bismuth, characterized by the counterintuitive increase in conductivity as material is removed by micropatterning. The conductance of the 3D chiral boundary states—3D analogues of quantum Hall states in two dimensions—naturally accounts for this behaviour and for the highly non-local transport observed in micrometre-sized crystalline bismuth structures. These findings introduce an approach for engineering and exploiting chiral conduction on the surfaces of 3D materials, offering a design space for geometries beyond the simple one-dimensional boundary modes of two-dimensional systems. The properties of electronic transport through edge states of three-dimensional quantum Hall-like states are not yet resolved. Now, increasing the surface area of the edges is shown to produce increased conductance, suggesting that chiral surface states are present.
{"title":"Transport evidence for chiral surface states from three-dimensional Landau bands","authors":"Junho Seo, Chunyu Mark Guo, Carsten Putzke, Xiangwei Huang, Berit H. Goodge, Yip Chun Wong, Mark H. Fischer, Titus Neupert, Philip J. W. Moll","doi":"10.1038/s41567-025-03146-7","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41567-025-03146-7","url":null,"abstract":"Strong magnetic fields applied to metals confine electrons into Landau orbits, except at the boundaries at which frequent surface collisions disrupt their cyclotron motion. In two-dimensional systems, these boundary states form dissipationless chiral edge channels in the quantum Hall regime. By contrast, the quantum limit of three-dimensional (3D) metals is traditionally thought to differ fundamentally and instead contains gapless Landau bands, lacking quantized Hall conductance or dissipationless transport. Here we demonstrate enhanced surface conduction in the quantum limit of the 3D semimetal bismuth, characterized by the counterintuitive increase in conductivity as material is removed by micropatterning. The conductance of the 3D chiral boundary states—3D analogues of quantum Hall states in two dimensions—naturally accounts for this behaviour and for the highly non-local transport observed in micrometre-sized crystalline bismuth structures. These findings introduce an approach for engineering and exploiting chiral conduction on the surfaces of 3D materials, offering a design space for geometries beyond the simple one-dimensional boundary modes of two-dimensional systems. The properties of electronic transport through edge states of three-dimensional quantum Hall-like states are not yet resolved. Now, increasing the surface area of the edges is shown to produce increased conductance, suggesting that chiral surface states are present.","PeriodicalId":19100,"journal":{"name":"Nature Physics","volume":"22 2","pages":"232-238"},"PeriodicalIF":18.4,"publicationDate":"2026-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-025-03146-7.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145993483","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 : 2026-01-16DOI: 10.1038/s41567-025-03140-z
Patrick Laermann, Haim Diamant, Yael Roichman, Ivo Buttinoni, Manuel A. Escobedo-Sánchez, Stefan U. Egelhaaf
At the glass transition, a liquid transforms into an amorphous solid. Despite minimal structural rearrangements, this transition is accompanied by a dramatic dynamical slowdown. These features render the transition’s experimental determination and theoretical understanding challenging. Here we introduce a new framework that uses two-particle correlations and a model-free theoretical description to investigate the dynamics of glass-forming colloidal suspensions indirectly. Using the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, we relate equilibrium thermal fluctuations of pairs of tracer particles to the underlying response properties of the system. We measure the correlated motion of tracer particles caused by the solvent at short timescales and find three distinct signatures signalling the onset of the glass transition. The correlations in the thermal motions of tracer pairs exhibit a changing decay behaviour with their relative distance; a length scale related to this decay steeply increases; and a notable sign reversal is observed in specific correlations. Our findings establish a connection between the colloidal glass transition and the breaking of the translational symmetry in the dispersion medium, thereby revealing fundamental aspects of the glass transitions. Colloidal suspensions are known to display a glass transition. Now, insights into this transition, via its effect on the solvent, are gained by probing the correlated motion of tracer particles in such systems.
{"title":"Emergent signatures of the glass transition in colloidal suspensions","authors":"Patrick Laermann, Haim Diamant, Yael Roichman, Ivo Buttinoni, Manuel A. Escobedo-Sánchez, Stefan U. Egelhaaf","doi":"10.1038/s41567-025-03140-z","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41567-025-03140-z","url":null,"abstract":"At the glass transition, a liquid transforms into an amorphous solid. Despite minimal structural rearrangements, this transition is accompanied by a dramatic dynamical slowdown. These features render the transition’s experimental determination and theoretical understanding challenging. Here we introduce a new framework that uses two-particle correlations and a model-free theoretical description to investigate the dynamics of glass-forming colloidal suspensions indirectly. Using the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, we relate equilibrium thermal fluctuations of pairs of tracer particles to the underlying response properties of the system. We measure the correlated motion of tracer particles caused by the solvent at short timescales and find three distinct signatures signalling the onset of the glass transition. The correlations in the thermal motions of tracer pairs exhibit a changing decay behaviour with their relative distance; a length scale related to this decay steeply increases; and a notable sign reversal is observed in specific correlations. Our findings establish a connection between the colloidal glass transition and the breaking of the translational symmetry in the dispersion medium, thereby revealing fundamental aspects of the glass transitions. Colloidal suspensions are known to display a glass transition. Now, insights into this transition, via its effect on the solvent, are gained by probing the correlated motion of tracer particles in such systems.","PeriodicalId":19100,"journal":{"name":"Nature Physics","volume":"22 2","pages":"265-274"},"PeriodicalIF":18.4,"publicationDate":"2026-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-025-03140-z.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145993493","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 : 2026-01-15DOI: 10.1038/s41567-025-03149-4
A recently proposed class of magnets, so-called altermagnets, combine features of ferromagnets and antiferromagnets. We discuss the scientific appeal of altermagnets, current controversies and challenges for their practical use.
{"title":"An alternate chapter in magnetism","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s41567-025-03149-4","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41567-025-03149-4","url":null,"abstract":"A recently proposed class of magnets, so-called altermagnets, combine features of ferromagnets and antiferromagnets. We discuss the scientific appeal of altermagnets, current controversies and challenges for their practical use.","PeriodicalId":19100,"journal":{"name":"Nature Physics","volume":"22 1","pages":"1-1"},"PeriodicalIF":18.4,"publicationDate":"2026-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-025-03149-4.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145984093","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 : 2026-01-15DOI: 10.1038/s41567-025-03151-w
Mark Buchanan
{"title":"A star of contradictions","authors":"Mark Buchanan","doi":"10.1038/s41567-025-03151-w","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41567-025-03151-w","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19100,"journal":{"name":"Nature Physics","volume":"22 1","pages":"5-5"},"PeriodicalIF":18.4,"publicationDate":"2026-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145984098","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 : 2026-01-15DOI: 10.1038/s41567-025-03124-z
Rinsuke Yamada, Daichi Kurebayashi, Yukako Fujishiro, Shun Okumura, Daisuke Nakamura, Fehmi S. Yasin, Taro Nakajima, Tomoyuki Yokouchi, Akiko Kikkawa, Yasujiro Taguchi, Yoshinori Tokura, Oleg A. Tretiakov, Max Hirschberger
The dynamic motion of topological defects in magnets induces an emergent electric field, as exemplified by the continuous flow of skyrmion vortices. However, the electrodynamics underlying this emergent field remains poorly understood. In this context, magnetic domain walls—one-dimensional topological defects with two collective modes, sliding and spin-tilt—offer a promising platform for exploration. Here we demonstrate that the dissipative motion of domain walls under oscillatory current excitation generates an emergent electric field. We image domain patterns and quantify the domain-wall length under applied magnetic fields in mesoscopic devices based on the magnetic Weyl semimetal NdAlSi. These devices exhibit exceptionally strong domain-wall scattering and a pronounced emergent electric field, as observed in the imaginary component of the complex impedance. Spin dynamics simulations reveal that domain-wall sliding dominates over spin-tilting, in which the phase delay of the domain-wall motion with respect to the driving force impacts the emergent electric field. Our findings establish domain-wall dynamics as a platform for studying emergent electromagnetic fields and motivate further investigations of the coupled motion of magnetic solitons and conduction electrons. The emergent electric field induced by pinned magnetic solitons remains poorly understood. Now the dissipative motion of magnetic domain walls under an alternating current in Weyl magnet NdAlSi devices is shown to induce a large emergent electric field.
{"title":"Emergent electric field induced by dissipative sliding dynamics of domain walls in a Weyl magnet","authors":"Rinsuke Yamada, Daichi Kurebayashi, Yukako Fujishiro, Shun Okumura, Daisuke Nakamura, Fehmi S. Yasin, Taro Nakajima, Tomoyuki Yokouchi, Akiko Kikkawa, Yasujiro Taguchi, Yoshinori Tokura, Oleg A. Tretiakov, Max Hirschberger","doi":"10.1038/s41567-025-03124-z","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41567-025-03124-z","url":null,"abstract":"The dynamic motion of topological defects in magnets induces an emergent electric field, as exemplified by the continuous flow of skyrmion vortices. However, the electrodynamics underlying this emergent field remains poorly understood. In this context, magnetic domain walls—one-dimensional topological defects with two collective modes, sliding and spin-tilt—offer a promising platform for exploration. Here we demonstrate that the dissipative motion of domain walls under oscillatory current excitation generates an emergent electric field. We image domain patterns and quantify the domain-wall length under applied magnetic fields in mesoscopic devices based on the magnetic Weyl semimetal NdAlSi. These devices exhibit exceptionally strong domain-wall scattering and a pronounced emergent electric field, as observed in the imaginary component of the complex impedance. Spin dynamics simulations reveal that domain-wall sliding dominates over spin-tilting, in which the phase delay of the domain-wall motion with respect to the driving force impacts the emergent electric field. Our findings establish domain-wall dynamics as a platform for studying emergent electromagnetic fields and motivate further investigations of the coupled motion of magnetic solitons and conduction electrons. The emergent electric field induced by pinned magnetic solitons remains poorly understood. Now the dissipative motion of magnetic domain walls under an alternating current in Weyl magnet NdAlSi devices is shown to induce a large emergent electric field.","PeriodicalId":19100,"journal":{"name":"Nature Physics","volume":"22 2","pages":"239-244"},"PeriodicalIF":18.4,"publicationDate":"2026-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145968745","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}
{"title":"An anniversary annum","authors":"Stefanie Reichert","doi":"10.1038/s41567-025-03152-9","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41567-025-03152-9","url":null,"abstract":"As our metrology column turns ten years, there is no better way to celebrate than to look at the definitions of a year, finds Stefanie Reichert.","PeriodicalId":19100,"journal":{"name":"Nature Physics","volume":"22 1","pages":"172-172"},"PeriodicalIF":18.4,"publicationDate":"2026-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145984095","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}
How proteins — sequences of amino acids — fold determines their function. We discuss efforts towards the establishment of metrics traceable to the International System of Units that link the sequence of a protein to its structure and function.
{"title":"Traceability for protein sequence to function","authors":"Amandine Boeuf, Gustavo Martos, Claudia Swart, Liqing Wu, Maxim G. Ryadnov","doi":"10.1038/s41567-025-03130-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41567-025-03130-1","url":null,"abstract":"How proteins — sequences of amino acids — fold determines their function. We discuss efforts towards the establishment of metrics traceable to the International System of Units that link the sequence of a protein to its structure and function.","PeriodicalId":19100,"journal":{"name":"Nature Physics","volume":"22 1","pages":"2-4"},"PeriodicalIF":18.4,"publicationDate":"2026-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145984096","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 : 2026-01-14DOI: 10.1038/s41567-025-03135-w
D. M. Kirschbaum, L. Chen, D. A. Zocco, H. Hu, F. Mazza, M. Karlich, M. Lužnik, D. H. Nguyen, J. Larrea Jiménez, A. M. Strydom, D. Adroja, X. Yan, A. Prokofiev, Q. Si, S. Paschen
The electronic topology of a material is generally described by its Bloch states and the associated band structure, and can be altered by electron–electron interactions. In metallic systems, the interactions are usually treated through the concept of quasiparticles. Here we investigate what happens if no well-defined quasiparticles are present and show that a topological semimetal phase can emerge from the material’s quantum critical state. Using the non-centrosymmetric heavy-fermion compound CeRu4Sn6, which is intrinsically quantum critical, we show that the topological phase exhibits a dome structure as a function of the magnetic field and pressure. To understand these results, we study a Weyl–Kondo semimetal model at a Kondo destruction quantum critical point. Indeed, it exhibits features in the spectral function that can define topological crossings beyond the quasiparticle picture. Our results outline the importance of the interplay of quantum critical fluctuations and symmetry to search for other emergent topological phases. Examples of materials with non-trivial band topology in the presence of strong electron correlations are rare. Now it is shown that quantum fluctuations near a quantum phase transition can promote topological phases in a heavy-fermion compound.
{"title":"Emergent topological semimetal from quantum criticality","authors":"D. M. Kirschbaum, L. Chen, D. A. Zocco, H. Hu, F. Mazza, M. Karlich, M. Lužnik, D. H. Nguyen, J. Larrea Jiménez, A. M. Strydom, D. Adroja, X. Yan, A. Prokofiev, Q. Si, S. Paschen","doi":"10.1038/s41567-025-03135-w","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41567-025-03135-w","url":null,"abstract":"The electronic topology of a material is generally described by its Bloch states and the associated band structure, and can be altered by electron–electron interactions. In metallic systems, the interactions are usually treated through the concept of quasiparticles. Here we investigate what happens if no well-defined quasiparticles are present and show that a topological semimetal phase can emerge from the material’s quantum critical state. Using the non-centrosymmetric heavy-fermion compound CeRu4Sn6, which is intrinsically quantum critical, we show that the topological phase exhibits a dome structure as a function of the magnetic field and pressure. To understand these results, we study a Weyl–Kondo semimetal model at a Kondo destruction quantum critical point. Indeed, it exhibits features in the spectral function that can define topological crossings beyond the quasiparticle picture. Our results outline the importance of the interplay of quantum critical fluctuations and symmetry to search for other emergent topological phases. Examples of materials with non-trivial band topology in the presence of strong electron correlations are rare. Now it is shown that quantum fluctuations near a quantum phase transition can promote topological phases in a heavy-fermion compound.","PeriodicalId":19100,"journal":{"name":"Nature Physics","volume":"22 2","pages":"218-224"},"PeriodicalIF":18.4,"publicationDate":"2026-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.comhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-025-03135-w.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145968744","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}
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