Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Phase transitions and critical phenomena are the changes of a system from one regime or state to another exhibiting very different properties, and the unusual effects that occur on the boundary between them. A change in the state of matter, such as from a solid to a liquid, is a classic example.
The study of defects and boundaries in the context of conformal field theory is important but challenging in dimensions higher than two. Here the authors use the recently developed fuzzy sphere regularization approach to perform non-perturbative analysis of defect conformal field theory in 3D
The thermalization of acoustic phonons after photoexcitation is traced by electron pulses in TiSe2, and the excitonic contribution to the structural order parameter of the material’s charge density wave phase is quantified.
Previous studies of the effects of strain on charge density waves have mostly focused on uniaxial strain. Here the authors use a biaxial-strain device to demonstrate switching of the charge density wave orientation, as well as a strong linear increase of the transition temperature while the gap seems to saturate.
Toroidic phases and their phase transitions are notoriously hard to study in natural materials. Now, a direct-kagome spin ice provides access to two low-temperature toroidal phases, ferrotoroidicity and paratoroidicity, as well as to toroidic phase transitions.
The electronic correlation-driven Mott metal-insulator transition has been predicted in a 2D metal-organic framework with a kagome structure. Here the authors synthesize such a system in experiment and demonstrate an electrostatically controlled Mott transition.
Commercial adiabatic demagnetisation refrigerators are typically based on hydrated salts that are subject to corrosion and have poor thermal conductivity and low entropy at sub-Kelvin temperatures. Here, YbNi1.6Sn is identified as a metallic magnetocaloric which retains high entropy into the 100 mK regime, providing an economical and durable alternative to magnetic refrigeration.
Electrocaloric effects have not hitherto been experimentally studied at a phase transition created by strain. It is now shown that the continuous transition created by epitaxial strain in strontium titanate films greatly enhances electrocaloric effects over a wide range of temperatures, including room temperature.
Ageing is a non-linear, irreversible process that defines many properties of glassy materials. Now, it is shown that the so-called material-time formalism can describe ageing in terms of equilibrium-like properties.
The integration of theory and experiment makes possible tracking the slow evolution of a photodoped Mott insulator to a distinct non-equilibrium metallic phase under the influence of electron-lattice coupling.
Quasicrystals are ordered but not periodic, which makes them fascinating objects at the interface between order and disorder. Experiments with ultracold atoms zoom in on this interface by driving a quasicrystal and exploring its fractal properties.