Communications Physics

Georgios Koutentakis is our outstanding reviewer of the month. He is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, where he develops theoretical frameworks for interacting ultracold atoms and molecules.

Strain-tuning for superconductivity in La3Ni2O7 thin films Communications Physics - The discovery of superconductivity in the nickelates not only offers a new family of materials to explore but the opportunity to gain further insight into the mechanisms of...

The discovery of superconductivity in the nickelates offers the opportunity to gain further insight into the mechanisms of unconventional superconductivity. Here, the authors employ epitaxial strain to investigate superconductivity in La₃Ni₂O₇ thin films.
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Computational modelling of the semi-classical quantum vacuum in 3D Communications Physics - The rise of multi-Petawatt lasers opens new frontiers in exploring the quantum vacuum. This study presents real-time 3D simulations of vacuum birefringence and four-wave...

The rise of multi-Petawatt lasers opens new frontiers in exploring the quantum vacuum. This study presents real-time 3D simulations of vacuum birefringence and four-wave mixing, based on a semi-classical numerical solver integrated into a Particle-In-Cell code OSIRIS.
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Harnessing quantum: progress towards real world applications of quantum technologies This collection highlights significant steps towards practical applications of quantum technologies in the last few years across various platforms and domains ...

www.nature.com/collections/...

Optical chiral microrobot for out-of-plane rotation Communications Physics - Optically actuated microrobots enable precise microscale manipulation, yet achieving multiple degrees of freedom remains challenging. This work presents a chiral microrobot...

Optically actuated microrobots enable precise microscale manipulation, yet achieving multiple degrees of freedom remains challenging. This work presents a chiral microrobot driven by optical tweezers that achieves controlled out-of-plane rotation and exhibits versatile actuation modes.
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Evidence of equilibrium dynamics in human social networks evolving in time Communications Physics - Describing human social behaviour through simple mathematical models remains an open challenge. Here, the authors analyse a dataset tracking the evolution of social...

Analysis of a dataset tracking the evolution of social relationships among 900 individuals over four years reveals evidence of equilibrium dynamics in human social networks.
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A century of Bose-Einstein condensation Communications Physics - Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC), a remarkable manifestation of quantum mechanics in systems with many particles, has over the past century reshaped our understanding of...

A century of Bose–Einstein condensation: a testament to how curiosity-driven research can shape the course of scientific innovation in unexpected and exciting ways.
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Lachlan Lindoy is our outstanding reviewer of this month. He is a Senior Scientist at the National Physical Laboratory in the UK. He develops theoretical techniques for the simulation of non-Markovian open quantum system dynamics with applications to condensed phase chemical and materials systems.

High-Energy Light Sources - From Tabletop to Large Facilities This cross-journal collection born in collaboration between Communications Physics, Nature Communications and Scientific Reports explores recent progress in ...

This cross-journal collection explores recent progress in high-energy light sources. We invite contributions of original research aimed at improving energy scaling, beam quality control, and stability for both well-established and emerging sources. www.nature.com/collections/...

Pleats, folds and wrinkles: Geometry and patterns in soft matter physics With this focus Collection, Communications Physics invite contributions reporting significant original research, perspective, and review articles focusing on geometry of soft systems.

Designing materials that adapt to their surroundings and change shape on command requires understanding the rules of statistical physics. In this collection, we invite significant original research, perspectives, and review articles on the geometry of soft systems.
www.nature.com/collections/...

Event-guided temporally super-resolved synchrotron X-ray imaging Communications Physics - The time resolution for X-ray imaging with synchrotron sources is limited by the speed of the detectors and a large amount of data to process. The authors implemented an...

Our featured article, May 2025
The time resolution for X-ray imaging with synchrotron sources is limited by the speed of the detectors and large data sets to process. The authors implemented an inline dual-camera setup achieving temporal super-resolution for synchrotron X-ray imaging.
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Symmetry-driven embedding of networks in hyperbolic space Communications Physics - Networks can be mapped onto hyperbolic spaces to reveal their structure, but previous methods only provided single “best" coordinates. This paper introduces a...

Our featured article, May 2025
Networks can be mapped onto hyperbolic spaces to reveal their structure, but previous methods only provided single "best" coordinates. Is it possible to detect multiple valid arrangements and provide confidence ranges that improve predictions?
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A coherent approach to quantum-classical optimization - Communications Physics Hybrid quantum-classical techniques such as the quantum approximate optimisation algorithm can be useful for solving binary optimisation problems. The authors propose an improved initialisation strate...

Our featured article, May 2025
Hybrid quantum-classical algorithms can be useful for solving binary optimisation problems. The authors propose an improved initialisation strategy for the quantum part of the algorithm while requiring few classical computational resources.
doi.org/10.1038/s420...

Challenging common notions on how eggs break and the role of strength versus toughness Communications Physics - Common assumption dictates that an egg exhibits greater structural resistance when dropped on its end rather than on its side. To test this supposition, the authors perform...

Our featured article, May 2025
Common assumption dictates that an egg exhibits greater structural resistance when dropped on it’s end rather than on its side. The authors test this by performing static and dynamic loading on hundreds of eggs, supported with finite element simulations.
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Jennifer Sears is our outstanding reviewer of this month. Jennifer is an assistant scientist in the Condensed Matter Physics group at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Her research uses neutron scattering to study unconventional magnetism and charge order. www.nature.com/commsphys/re...

Hilbert space fragmentation at the origin of disorder-free localization in the lattice Schwinger model Communications Physics - Quantum electrodynamics on a one-dimensional lattice can lead to the localization of charges, in contrast to the thermalizing dynamics ubiquitous in nature. In this work...

Our featured article for April 2025
Quantum electrodynamics on a 1D lattice can lead to localization of charges, in contrast to the thermalizing dynamics. This study identifies the origin of such non-thermal signatures and attribute it to the fracturing of the underlying Hilbert space.
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Influence of topology on the critical behavior of hierarchical modular neuronal networks Communications Physics - Critical brain hypothesis states that neuronal networks in the brain operate close to criticality. This study demonstrates the importance of the hierarchical and modular...

Our featured article for April 2025
Critical brain hypothesis states that neuronal networks in the brain operate close to criticality. This study demonstrates the importance of the hierarchical and modular structure of neuron connections in maintaining criticality.
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Monolithic silicon nitride electro-optic modulator enabled by optically-assisted poling Communications Physics - The high-speed manipulation of light using the Pockels effect is a missing building block in photonic integrated chips based on amorphous materials. This work demonstrates...

Our featured article for April 2025:
This work demonstrates a process for inducing a longlasting inscribed electric field responsible for an effective Pockels effect in amorphous silicon nitride electro-optic modulators at room temperature.
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Logo Reviewer of the Month. Communications physics.

Yuto Ashida is our outstanding reviewer of May. Yuto is an Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo, Japan. His research interests span various areas of physics, including quantum many-body physics, quantum optics/information, and nonequilibrium open systems.

www.nature.com/commsphys/re...

Challenging common notions on how eggs break and the role of strength versus toughness - Communications Physics Common assumption dictates that an egg exhibits greater structural resistance when dropped on its end rather than on its side. To test this supposition, the authors perform static and dynamic loading ...

You may think that an egg is stronger in their ends, but it seems that this is not entirely true, and eggs are actually tougher on their side, as demonstrated by Tal Cohen and colleagues in www.nature.com/articles/s42...
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Special relativity made visible! Dominik Hornof and colleagues used femtosecond laser pulses and ultrafast photography, and, by virtually reducing the speed of light, demonstrated the Terrell-Penrose effect. www.nature.com/articles/s42...

How a thirty-year-old quantum tale of two photons became ghost imaging - Communications Physics Three decades have passed since the first demonstration of Ghost Imaging by Pittman and collaborators. This comment reflects on the initial intellectual challenges that emerged at the time of the expe...

Communications Physics celebrates the 30 years of Ghost Imaging with this inspiring comment by Andrew Forbes and Fazilah Nothlawala.

The comment conveys how the enthusiasm of a community developed the first experiment from a conundrum to a cornerstone of imaging.
www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Controlling colloidal flow through a microfluidic Y-junction Communications Physics - The Y-junction is an essential element in synthetic and biological microfluidic networks. This study investigates how the flow behavior of colloidal particles through a...

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Synergistic effects of confinement size and interface on anomalous ultrafast transport in nanofluidics - Communications Physics Nano fluidics is highly sensitive to interfacial effects and confinement size, resulting in non-classical hydrodynamic behavior. This work theoretically reveals the synergistic effects of interface an...

doi.org/10.1038/s420...

Influence of topology on the critical behavior of hierarchical modular neuronal networks - Communications Physics Critical brain hypothesis states that neuronal networks in the brain operate close to criticality. This study demonstrates the importance of the hierarchical and modular structure of neuron connection...

doi.org/10.1038/s420...

Uncooled thermal infrared detection near the fundamental limit using a silicon nitride nanomechanical resonator with a broadband absorber - Communications Physics Broadband absorption in thermal IR detectors typically comes at the cost of reduced power responsivity, and overall sensitivity is often limited by various sources of noise. The authors present a nano...

doi.org/10.1038/s420...

Generating surrogate temporal networks from mesoscale building blocks Communications Physics - Surrogate networks can constitute suitable replacements for real networks when only incomplete or limited datasets are available, especially to study dynamical processes...

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Multi-parameter molecular MRI quantification using physics-informed self-supervised learning Communications Physics - Quantitative molecular imaging extracts biophysical parameter maps by solving physics-based inverse problems. This work develops AI-driven methods to accelerate and...

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Triple equivalence for the emergence of biological intelligence Communications Physics - Characterizing the intelligence of biological organisms is challenging yet crucial. This paper demonstrates the capacity of canonical neural networks to autonomously...

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Optoelectronic generative adversarial networks Communications Physics - Recent advances in artificial intelligence require massive resources, and optical computing is emerging as a fast and energy-efficient alternative for AI tasks. In this...

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