The Physics World 2018 Breakthrough of the Year goes to Pablo Jarillo-Herrero of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US and colleagues for making the discovery that led to the development of “twistronics”, which is a new and very promising technique for adjusting the electronic properties of graphene by rotating adjacent layers of the material. The technique was first used by the team to create “magic-angle graphene”, which behaves like a high-temperature superconductor. Nine other achievements are highly commended in the Top Ten Breakthroughs of 2018 and cover topics ranging from the first full body PET/CT scan to a zero-carbon aeroplane propelled by a jet of ions.