Biblatex either uses 1 author or all 12 of them.

Question

Due to space constraints, I need to use exactly 2 or 3 authors on my bibliography. However, setting any of minnames, maxnames, mincitenames, maxcitenames, maxbibnames doesn't work. It's either 1 author or all 12. Is there any way to fix this?

MWE 1:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}   % Prepare document

% Set up bib
\usepackage[backend=biber,style=phys,articletitle=false,biblabel=brackets,%
chaptertitle=false,pageranges=false,mincitenames=1,maxcitenames=3,maxbibnames=3,uniquelist=false,uniquename=false]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{test.bib}

\begin{document}
    Whatever \cite{Katmis2016}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

Result:

MWE 2:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}   % Prepare document

% Set up bib
\usepackage[backend=biber,style=phys,articletitle=false,biblabel=brackets,%
chaptertitle=false,pageranges=false,maxcitenames=3,uniquelist=false,uniquename=false]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{test.bib}

\begin{document}
    Whatever \cite{Katmis2016}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

Result:

test.bib

@article{Katmis2016,
author = {Katmis, Ferhat and Lauter, Valeria and Nogueira, Flavio S. and Assaf, Badih A. and Jamer, Michelle E. and Wei, Peng and Satpati, Biswarup and Freeland, John W. and Eremin, Ilya and Heiman, Don and Jarillo-Herrero, Pablo and Moodera, Jagadeesh S.},
doi = {10.1038/nature17635},
journal = {Nature},
month = {may},
number = {7604},
pages = {513--516},
title = {{A high-temperature ferromagnetic topological insulating phase by proximity coupling}},
volume = {533},
year = {2016}
}

Answer 1

In bibliographies, if the number of authors is less than or equal to maxbibnames, the names of all authors appear. Otherwise, minbibnames authors appear followed by "et al."
_{(constraint: minbibnames ≤ maxbibnames).}

In citations, if the number of authors is less than or equal to maxcitenames, the names of all authors appear. Otherwise, mincitenames authors appear followed by "et al.".
_{(constraint: mincitenames ≤ maxcitenames).}

To define the same thresholds in citations and bibliographies, use maxnames and minnames.

So, to use "exactly 1, 2 or 3 authors in your bibliography", you may use maxbibnames=3,minbibnames=3.

(reference: p.46, biblatex manual, v3.5)