The thousands of nuclear spins surrounding gallium arsenide quantum dots can interface with electron spin qubits and photons. With quantum engineering, this nuclear spin ensemble becomes a robust register for quantum information storage.

Quantum error correction is essential for reliable quantum computing, but no single code supports all required fault-tolerant gates. The demonstration of switching between two codes now enables universal quantum computation with reduced overhead.

Searches for metastable states with properties not found in thermal equilibrium have been restricted to either ultrafast or slow timescales. A metastable state in an intermediate time window has now been identified in a photo-doped Mott insulator.

Quantum simulations of chemistry and materials are challenging due to the complexity of correlated systems. A framework based on reconfigurable qubit architectures and digital–analogue simulations provides a hardware-efficient path forwards.

Periodic laser light can modify the electronic properties of solids and offers a path to create new material phases. In a topological antiferromagnet, periodic driving with opposite light helicities is now shown to produce distinct Dirac mass gaps.

Competition between different possible ground states of strongly correlated electron systems can lead to the emergence of mixed states called microemulsions. Now this phenomenon is reported at the melting transition of a Wigner crystal.

Long-range interactions have been predicted to enable a phase transition in one-dimensional systems. An experiment now validates this hypothesis in a trapped-ion quantum simulator by observing a finite-energy phase transition in one dimension.

The ALPHA Collaboration reports measurements of the hyperfine components of the 1S–2S transition in trapped antihydrogen. They interpret the results as a test of the invariance of charge–parity–time-reversal symmetry.

Thermal agitation of charge carriers, known as Johnson noise, is the dominant noise in electronic circuits. Now it has also been observed as a key noise source in integrated electro-optic photonic circuits, posing challenges for future applications.

A large nuclear spin has been successfully placed in a Schrödinger cat state, a superposition of its two most widely separated spin coherent states. This can be used as an error-correctable qubit.

An optical thermodynamic framework can describe the complex dynamics in highly multimodal systems. Now, the observation of all-optical Joule–Thompson expansion in an optical gas further validates this thermodynamic approach.

In classical hydrodynamics, Kelvin waves refer to helically vibrating normal modes. Experiments now show that quantum analogues of Kelvin waves can be excited in superfluid helium-4.

Gauge theories host important phenomena such as confinement that are difficult to study theoretically. Advances in quantum computers have now made it possible to perform digital quantum simulations of confinement dynamics in a gauge theory.

The viscoelastic response of emulsions shows an anomalous loss. This effect is now shown to be related to the boson peak, a universal vibrational feature of amorphous solids.

The effect of strong interactions on the physics hosted by flat bands remains largely unexplored in atomic systems. An experiment in a synthetic flat-band lattice now demonstrates an interaction-driven transition from localization to delocalization.

Coherent control of chemical reactions is a central theme in quantum chemistry. Now, a cold atom experiment demonstrates a method for steering the outcome of three-body recombination processes using a tunable Feshbach resonance.

Resetting qubits in a quantum computer requires significant hardware resources. Now, an experiment demonstrates an on-chip quantum refrigerator that uses a thermal gradient to reset a superconducting qubit more effectively than conventional methods.

Counterflow superfluidity is a quantum phase in which two fluid components flow in opposite directions without resistance, cancelling out their overall combined motion. This phase has now been observed in an optical lattice system hosting Bose mixtures.

Phase tuning of propagating spin waves is a crucial step in the development of devices based on magnons, which are the quanta of spin waves. Now, this has been demonstrated in a device comprising two spin Hall nano-oscillators.

Tissues eliminate unwanted cells through cell extrusion, but the factors determining whether these extuded cells live or die are not fully understood. Now force transmission across adherens junctions is shown to have a role in shaping their fate.