编译 | 冯维维

Nature, 16 October 2025, Volume 646 Issue 8085

《自然》2025年10月16日，第646卷，8085期

  ?

物理学Physics

Efficient quantum thermal simulation

高效量子热模拟

▲ 作者：HChi-Fang Chen, Michael Kastoryano, Fernando G. S. L. Brand?o & András Gilyén

▲链接：

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09583-x

▲ 摘要：量子计算机有望解决经典计算机难以处理的量子模拟问题。尽管目前已开发出多种用于模拟量子动力学的量子算法，但适用于模拟低温量子现象的通用方法仍属空白。在经典计算领域，从热分布中采样的类似任务已主要通过马尔可夫链蒙特卡洛（MCMC）方法得到解决。

研究者提出了一种高效的量子热模拟算法——该算法类似MCMC方法，具有细致平衡特性，遵循局域性原理，可作为开放量子系统中热化过程的理想模型。MCMC方法的持久影响力预示着我们提出的新架构将在量子计算及其在物理科学等领域的应用中发挥同等重要的作用。

▲ Abstract：Quantum computers promise to tackle quantum simulation problems that are classically intractable. Although a lot of quantum algorithms have been developed for simulating quantum dynamics, a general-purpose method for simulating low-temperature quantum phenomena remains unknown. In classical settings, the analogous task of sampling from thermal distributions has been largely addressed by Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. Here we propose an efficient quantum algorithm for thermal simulation that—akin to MCMC methods—exhibits detailed balance, respects locality and serves as a toy model for thermalization in open quantum systems. The enduring impact of MCMC methods suggests that our new construction may play an equally important part in quantum computing and applications in the physical sciences and beyond.

In-plane dielectric constant and conductivity of confined water

受限水的面内介电常数与导电性

▲ 作者：R. Wang, M. Souilamas, A. Esfandiar, R. Fabregas, S. Benaglia, H. Nevison-Andrews, Q. Yang, J. Normansell, P. Ares, G. Ferrari, A. Principi, A. K. Geim & L. Fumagalli 

▲链接：

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09558-y

▲摘要：水是地球上几乎所有生命活动不可或缺的物质，其性质已被深入研究。然而对于界面水和强受限水的电学特性人们仍知之甚少——这类水的分子结构会偏离体相水，形成明显的分层特征。

这种结构变化预计将影响水的导电性，尤其会改变其极化率，进而调控在众多物理化学过程中起关键作用的分子间作用力。本研究采用扫描介电显微技术，探测了在间距小至1纳米的原子级平整表面间受限水的面内电学性质。

当受限尺度超过数纳米时，水面内介电常数接近体相水，质子电导率显著增强，且随水层厚度减小持续上升。但当受限水仅剩数个分子层厚度时，该趋势发生突变：其面内介电常数达到约1000的铁电体级高值，电导率则在数Sm-1处达到峰值，接近超离子液体的特征值。

研究者将这种增强效应归因于少分子层受限诱导的强烈氢键无序化，这种无序化既促进了分子偶极子的面内极化，也加速了质子交换过程。对纳米受限水电学特性的这一深刻认识，对于理解水界面和纳米孔道中发生的诸多现象具有重要意义。

▲ Abstract：Water is essential for almost every aspect of life on our planet and, unsurprisingly, its properties have been studied in great detail. However, disproportionately little remains known about the electrical properties of interfacial and strongly confined water, in which the structure deviates from that of bulk water, becoming distinctly layered. The structural change is expected to affect the conductivity of water and particularly its polarizability, which in turn modifies intermolecular forces that play a crucial role in many physical and chemical processes. Here we use scanning dielectric microscopy (SDM)10 to probe the in-plane electrical properties of water confined between atomically flat surfaces separated by distances down to 1 nm. For confinement exceeding several nanometres, water exhibits an in-plane dielectric constant close to that of bulk water and its proton conductivity is notably enhanced, gradually increasing with decreasing water thickness. This trend abruptly changes when the confined water becomes only a few molecules thick. Its in-plane dielectric constant reaches large, ferroelectric-like values of about 1,000, whereas the conductivity peaks at several Sm^-1, close to values characteristic of superionic liquids. We attribute the enhancement to strongly disordered hydrogen bonding induced by the few-layer confinement, which facilitates both easier in-plane polarization of molecular dipoles and faster proton exchange. This insight into the electrical properties of nanoconfined water is important for understanding many phenomena that occur at aqueous interfaces and in nanoscale pores.

Long-distance remote epitaxy

远距离远程外延

▲ 作者：Ru Jia, Yan Xin, Mark Potter, Jie Jiang, Zixu Wang, Hanxue Ma, Zhihao Zhang, Zhizhuo Liang, Lifu Zhang, Zonghuan Lu, Ruizhe Yang, Saloni Pendse, Yang Hu, Kai Peng, Yilin Meng, Wei Bao, Jun Liu, Gwo-Ching Wang, Toh-Ming Lu, Yunfeng Shi, Hanwei Gao & Jian Shi 

▲链接：

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09484-z

▲摘要：远程外延通过远程相互作用在薄膜与衬底之间建立外延关系，使得高质量单晶外延层能够被转移并与其他关键技术衬底集成。学界普遍认为，在远程外延过程中，由于原子级波动的电势在几个原子距离后便会迅速衰减至可忽略的数值，远程相互作用在外延过程中起主导作用的有效距离应小于1纳米。

研究者首次实现了2-7纳米大间距条件下的远程外延。他们通过实验演示了CsPbBr3薄膜在NaCl衬底、KCl薄膜在KCl衬底以及ZnO微米棒在GaN衬底上的远距离远程外延，发现每个远程外延的ZnO微米棒下方均存在GaN衬底的位错。

这些发现表明，通过利用缺陷介导的远距离远程相互作用，可以对远程外延进行定向设计与工程化调控。

▲ Abstract：Remote epitaxy, in which an epitaxial relation is established between a film and a substrate through remote interactions, enables the development of high-quality single crystalline epilayers and their transfer to and integration with other technologically crucial substates. It is commonly believed that in remote epitaxy, the distance within which the remote interaction can play a leading part in the epitaxial process is less than 1 nm, as the atomically resolved fluctuating electric potential decays very rapidly to a negligible value after a few atomic distances. Here we show that it is possible to achieve remote epitaxy when the epilayer–substrate distance is as large as 2–7 nm. We experimentally demonstrate long-distance remote epitaxy of CsPbBr₃ film on an NaCl substrate, KCl film on a KCl substrate and ZnO microrods on GaN, and show that a dislocation in the GaN substrate exists immediately below every remotely epitaxial ZnO microrod. These findings indicate that remote epitaxy could be designed and engineered by means of harnessing defect-mediated long-distance remote interactions.

Integrated lithium niobate photonics for sub-?ngstr?m snapshot spectroscopy

实现亚埃级瞬时光谱测量的集成铌酸锂光子平台

▲ 作者：Zhiyang Yao, Shuyang Liu, Yingce Wang, Xiaoyun Yuan & Lu Fang 

▲链接：

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09591-x

▲ 摘要：光谱学作为判定物质结构与化学成分的关键技术，已广泛应用于众多科学领域。传统光谱技术受限于窄缝或光栅结构，必须在光谱分辨率与光学透射率之间进行权衡，因而无法同时实现高灵敏度与高效率测量。研究者提出名为RAFAEL的亚埃级超高通量瞬时光谱技术，该技术基于铌酸锂集成可重构光子器件，成功突破了上述局限。

其核心设计采用体块铌酸锂作为干涉掩模，具备像素级电控光谱响应能力，在保持高光学透射率的同时实现了皮米级光谱调制。该技术可在400-1000纳米波段实现0.5埃光谱分辨率（R=12,000）、2048×2048空间分辨率及73.2%总透射率，并以88赫兹速率完成瞬时光谱采集。经大量实验验证，相较于前沿光谱成像技术，RAFAEL在总透射率上提升两倍，光谱分辨率更是实现近两个数量级的突破。

特别值得关注的是，RAFAEL在单次采集中即可捕获包含所有原子吸收峰的亚埃级光谱数据，同步获取多达5600颗恒星的光谱信息，相较世界顶级天文光谱仪将观测效率提升100至10,000倍。这种高性能且易于集成的瞬时光谱测量方法，有望推动从材料科学到天体物理等领域的跨越式发展。

▲ Abstract：Spectroscopy is a pivotal tool for determining the physical structures and chemical compositions of materials and environments, and it is commonly used across diverse scientific fields. Conventionally, spectroscopic techniques rely on narrow slits or gratings, which impose a trade-off between spectral resolution and optical transmittance, thus precluding measurements with simultaneous high sensitivity and high efficiency. Here we introduce RAFAEL, a sub-?ngstr?mm ultra-high-transmittance snapshot spectroscopic technique, which targets this trade-off with integrated and reconfigurable photonics based on lithium niobate. Its design comprises bulk lithium niobate as an interference mask with a pixel-wise electrically tunable spectral response and delivers picometre-scale modulation with a high optical transmittance. Our approach achieves 88-Hz snapshot spectroscopy with a spectral resolution of approximately 0.5?  at 400–1,000 nm (R = 12,000), spatial resolution of 2,048 × 2,048 and 73.2% total optical transmittance. Compared with state-of-the-art spectroscopic imagers RAFAEL offers double the total transmittance and a nearly two orders of magnitude improvement in spectral resolving power, as verified by extensive experiments. In particular, RAFAEL captured sub-?ngstr?m spectra, including all atomic absorption peaks, of up to 5,600 stars in a single snapshot, indicating ×100–10,000 improvement in observational efficiency compared with world-class astronomical spectrometers. This high-performing yet easily integrated snapshot spectroscopic method could drive advances in fields ranging from material science to astrophysics.

航空装备Aviation equipment

Proximal cooperative aerial manipulation with vertically stacked drones

近距协作式空中操控系统实现垂直堆叠无人机作业

▲ 作者：Huazi Cao, Jiahao Shen, Yin Zhang, Zheng Fu, Cunjia Liu, Sihao Sun & Shiyu Zhao 

▲链接：

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09575-x

▲摘要：实现多旋翼飞行机器人的垂直堆叠近距协作，将有助于执行复杂空中操控任务。然而由于飞行器间持续存在的强烈下洗流干扰，垂直堆叠近距飞行通常被视为需要规避的危险工况。研究者提出名为“飞行工具箱”的协作空中操控系统，可在垂直堆叠飞行条件下以亚厘米级对接精度稳定工作。

该系统由工具箱微型飞行器与机械臂微型飞行器组成。在高达13.18ms^-1的下洗气流环境中，机械臂飞行器的机器人手臂能与工具箱飞行器携带的工具实现自主对接，对接精度达0.80±0.33厘米。通过实现近距空中工具交换，飞行工具箱系统成功化解飞行距离与操控精度之间的矛盾，为多领域应用中的异构交互式飞行机器人协作提供了全新范式。

▲ Abstract：Enabling vertical-stack proximal cooperation between multirotor flying robots can facilitate the execution of complex aerial manipulation tasks. However, vertical-stack proximal flight is commonly regarded as a dangerous condition that should be avoided because of persistent and intense downwash interference generated between flying robots. Here we propose a cooperative aerial manipulation system, called FlyingToolbox, that can work stably with sub-centimetre-level docking accuracy under vertical-stack flight conditions. The system consists of a toolbox micro-aerial vehicle (MAV) and a manipulator MAV. The robotic arm of the manipulator MAV can autonomously dock with a tool carried by the toolbox MAV, in which the docking accuracy reaches 0.80 ± 0.33 cm in the presence of downwash airflow of up to 13.18 m s^-1. By enabling midair tool exchange in proximity, FlyingToolbox resolves the paradox between flight proximity and manipulation accuracy, suggesting a new model for heterogeneous and interactive flying robot cooperation in diverse applications.

遗传学Genetics

Cocaine chemogenetics blunts drug-seeking by synthetic physiology

可卡因化学遗传学通过合成生理学机制抑制药物寻求行为

▲ 作者：Juan L. Gomez, Christopher J. Magnus, Jordi Bonaventura, Oscar Solis, Fallon P. Curry, Marjorie R. Levinstein, Reece C. Budinich, Meghan L. Carlton, Emilya N. Ventriglia, Sherry Lam, Le Wang, Ingrid Schoenborn, William Dunne, Michael Michaelides & Scott M. Sternson 

▲链接：

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09427-8

▲摘要：化学反馈在生理过程中无处不在，但若不对基础功能产生干扰，则难以进行研究。成瘾性药物即为典型实例：它们通过作用于大脑增强多巴胺信号传导[1-3]，引发药物寻求与摄入的正反馈循环。然而，通过改变基础多巴胺水平来干预此过程，也会对学习、运动、注意力和觉醒产生负面影响。

受生理调控系统启发，研究者开发了一种高选择性的合成生理学方法，通过在该身体—大脑信号环路中植入可卡因依赖的逆向信号过程，来干预成瘾的正反馈循环。我们利用蛋白质工程创建了对可卡因具有选择性响应的门控离子通道（相较于其他药物及内源性分子）。将兴奋型可卡因门控通道表达于大鼠缰核外侧区（一个通常被可卡因抑制的脑区），可抑制可卡因自我给药行为，且不影响食物驱动力。这一人工构建的可卡因激活化学遗传过程，降低了可卡因诱导的伏隔核区细胞外多巴胺升高。

研究结果表明，可卡因化学遗传学是一种通过可卡因存在时钳制多巴胺释放来对抗药物强化的选择性方法。未来，或可针对其他成瘾性药物、激素及代谢物开发化学遗传学受体，助力采用合成生理学方法探索其神经环路机制。由于这些化学遗传学离子通道对可卡因具有特异性（不响应自然奖赏），它们也可能为可卡因成瘾的基因治疗开辟新途径。

▲ Abstract：Chemical feedback is ubiquitous in physiology but is challenging to study without perturbing basal functions. One example is addictive drugs, which elicit a positive-feedback cycle of drug-seeking and ingestion by acting on the brain to increase dopamine signalling1,2,3. However, interfering with this process by altering basal dopamine also adversely affects learning, movement, attention and wakefulness. Here, inspired by physiological control systems, we developed a highly selective synthetic physiology approach to interfere with the positive-feedback cycle of addiction by installing a cocaine-dependent opposing signalling process into this body–brain signalling loop. We used protein engineering to create cocaine-gated ion channels that are selective for cocaine over other drugs and endogenous molecules. Expression of an excitatory cocaine-gated channel in the rat lateral habenula, a brain region that is normally inhibited by cocaine, suppressed cocaine self-administration without affecting food motivation. This artificial cocaine-activated chemogenetic process reduced the cocaine-induced extracellular dopamine rise in the nucleus accumbens. Our results show that cocaine chemogenetics is a selective approach for countering drug reinforcement by clamping dopamine release in the presence of cocaine. In the future, chemogenetic receptors could be developed for additional addictive drugs or hormones and metabolites, which would facilitate efforts to probe their neural circuit mechanisms using a synthetic physiology approach. As these chemogenetic ion channels are specific for cocaine over natural rewards, they may also offer a route towards gene therapies for cocaine addiction.