Layer stacking in two-dimensional materials can strongly impact electronic phases. In graphene, for instance, the metastable rhombohedral stacking arrangement hosts correlated and topological electronic phases, which are absent in conventional Bernal stacking. Here we use the sliding-induced first-order structural phase transition between Bernal and rhombohedral tetralayer graphene driven by gate voltages to manipulate the magnetic phase of the sample. Through transport measurement on marginally twisted double-bilayer graphene samples, we observe bistable switching between a Bernal-dominant state and a rhombohedral–Bernal mixed state across a wide space of the gate-voltage phase diagram. The structural phase transition induces a non-volatile switching between a non-magnetic and a ferromagnetic phase. We characterize the latter phase via low-temperature electric transport measurements and observe an anomalous Hall effect. The sign reversal of the anomalous Hall signal under opposite displacement fields suggests that the Hall signal may originate from domain boundaries between Bernal and rhombohedral regions. Our experiments showcase how gating-induced sliding phase transitions of two-dimensional materials can provide on-demand toggle switching between complex phases and offer insights on the effect of stacking domain boundaries on the global response of the system. Gate-voltage sweeps drive a first-order sliding transition between Bernal-dominant and rhombohedral–Bernal mixed stacking in marginally twisted double-bilayer graphene, which allows for non-volatile on/off switching of the low-temperature ferromagnetic phase.
Using local probes and impurities on Ta2Pd3Te5 two experimental groups prove and characterize the presence of an excitonic gap via the impurity-induced breaking of excitonic pairing.
Wafer-scale growth of a metastable rhombohedral boron nitride polytype takes sliding ferroelectricity from handcrafted structures in the laboratory towards integrated devices.
Two decades on from the first atomic-scale devices, atom-based silicon quantum computers have progressed from proof of concept to scalable quantum processors that are rapidly gaining commercial traction. What remains is largely a matter of industrial-scale engineering and 3D integration.
Nanopore protein sequencing has advanced from a theoretical ambition to a practical technology, overcoming major challenges in protein unfolding, transport and signal detection to achieve single-amino-acid and post-translational modification sensitivity. With both full-length and peptide-based approaches progressing towards commercialization, the field is now focused on scaling throughput and refining analysis tools to unlock a new generation of single-molecule proteomics.
