In a new paper, scientists seeking better methods for controlling the quantum interactions between light and matter demonstrated a novel way to use light to give electrons a spinning kick. They reported the results of their experiment, which shows that a light beam can reliably transfer orbital angular momentum to itinerant electrons in graphene, on Nov. 26, 2024, in the journal Nature Photonics.

Infineon Technologies AG, a global leader in semiconductor solutions, and Quantinuum, a global leader in integrated, full-stack quantum computing, today announced a strategic partnership to develop the future generation of ion traps. This partnership will drive the acceleration of quantum computing and enable progress in fields such as generative chemistry, material science, and artificial intelligence.

MIT physicists have taken a key step toward solving the puzzle of what leads electrons to split into fractions of themselves. Their solution sheds light on the conditions that give rise to exotic electronic states in graphene and other two-dimensional systems. The new work is an effort to make sense of a discovery that was reported earlier this year by a different group of physicists at MIT, led by Assistant Professor Long Ju. Ju’s team found that electrons appear to exhibit “fractional charge” in pentalayer graphene — a configuration of five graphene layers that are stacked atop a similarly structured sheet of boron nitride.

A team led by Prof. LU Zhengtian and Researcher XIA Tian from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) realized Schrödinger-cat state with minute-scale lifetime using optically trapped cold atoms, significantly enhancing the sensitivity of quantum metrology measurement. The study was published in Nature Photonics.

The best compact emitters of light are quantum dots—semiconductor nanocrystals with quantum mechanical behaviours thanks to their small size (2–10 nanometres). The emitted light goes in all directions and has poor polarisation, but placing it next to nanostructures enables directional emission or circular polarisation. Simultaneous control of both direction and polarisation, however, has never been achieved. In their paper “Unidirectional chiral emission via twisted bi-layer metasurfaces”, Associate Prof Wu and her team set out to bridge this gap.

One new study, conducted by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Princeton University, investigated ways to reliably grow diamond at lower temperatures than those currently used. Diamond has properties that make it attractive to the semiconductor industry. With its particular crystal lattice structure, diamond can withstand high electrical voltages. It’s also very good at dissipating heat.

Researchers at Aalto University’s Department of Applied Physics found a new way to create tiny hurricanes of light — known to scientists as vortices — that can carry information. The method is based on manipulating metallic nanoparticles that interact with an electric field. The design method, belonging to a class of geometries known as quasicrystals, was thought up by Doctoral Researcher Kristian Arjas and experimentally realised by Doctoral Researcher Jani Taskinen, both from Professor Päivi Törmä’s Quantum Dynamics group. The discovery represents a fundamental step forward in physics and carries the potential for entirely new ways of transmitting information.

The Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) has, for the first time in the world, generated and controlled skyrmions at room temperature in a two-dimensional (2D) materials. This achievement reduces power consumption compared to traditional three-dimensional (3D) systems while maximizing quantum effects, making it a core technology for the development of room-temperature quantum computers and AI semiconductors.

Supersolids are a new form of quantum matter that has only recently been demonstrated. The state of matter can be produced artificially in ultracold, dipolar quantum gases. A team led by Innsbruck physicist Francesca Ferlaino has now demonstrated a missing hallmark of superfluidity, namely the existence of quantized vortices as system’s response to rotation. They have observed tiny quantum vortices in the supersolid, which also behave differently than previously assumed.

Using muon spin rotation at the Swiss Muon Source SμS, researchers at PSI have discovered that a quantum phenomenon known as time-reversal symmetry breaking occurs at the surface of the Kagome superconductor RbV₃Sb₅ at temperatures as high as 175 K. This sets a new record for the temperature at which time-reversal symmetry breaking is observed among Kagome systems.