Phase transitions and critical phenomena articles from across Nature Portfolio

After 30 years of extensive research, the nature of the unconventional superconductivity in Sr₂RuO₄ is still not fully understood. This Perspective summarizes the controversies surrounding this and discusses future research.

Discrete-time crystal (DTC) is a special phase of matter that exhibits a spontaneous breaking of the discrete time translational symmetry. Here, Bang Liu et al. demonstrate an experimental approach to observe higher-order and fractional DTCs in Floquet-driven Rydberg atomic gases.

Recently, clathrate superhydride superconductors have garnered significant attention. Here the authors measure the electron-phonon coupling strength and superconducting gap of an ultrahigh pressure superconductor LaH_10±δ by ultrafast spectroscopy, revealing a strong coupling nature of the superconductivity.

Resistive switching is crucial for applications in advanced computing technologies, but its microscopic mechanism is not fully understood. Here the authors use operando X-ray nanoimaging to study early-stage insulator-to-metal transition in V₂O₃, revealing resistive switching seeded by topological defects.

This study shows that liquid-liquid phase separation enhances the catalytic efficiency of peptides by up to 15,000-fold through the formation of peptide coacervates. These microreactors can also selectively recruit phosphorylated proteins, providing insights into the evolution of enzymatic activity.

A fractal material exhibits self-similarity at different length scales across the system size. Theorists now show that an interacting one-dimensional quasiperiodic material can host a multifractal charge-density-wave phase.

Error-corrected quantum computers require access to so-called magic states to outperform classical devices. Now, a study has shown that coherent errors can drive error-correcting codes into high-magic states that could be a resource for universal quantum computing.

Dimensionality tuning can control fluctuations and induce complex phase diagrams with multiple orders and transitions among them. Now, experiments demonstrate intertwined vestigial order in the two- to three-dimensional crossover region in a van der Waals magnet.

The Kibble–Zurek mechanism is a key framework for describing the dynamics of continuous phase transitions. Recent experiments with ultracold gases, employing alternative methods to create a superfluid, highlight its universality.

The final structure of nanoparticle self-assembly intimately depends on the assembly pathway, which has remained obscure due to a lack of sufficiently high-spatiotemporal-resolution direct imaging approaches. Now, combining liquid-cell transmission electron microscopy with molecular dynamics simulations uncovers the complete dynamics of solvent-dependent assembly and phase transitions of nanocube superlattices.

A new ferroic-like phase has been discovered in highly doped superconducting cuprates. The existence of a well-defined order parameter on the supposedly disordered side of the phase diagram challenges the accepted theoretical framework.