Quantum computer microscope is set to significantly improve electron microscopy

Electron microscopes are used wherever particularly small details need to be imaged. But from a strictly physical point of view, every electron in a conventional electron microscope represents a missed opportunity: If all you do is count electrons, any additional quantum information they carry remains unused.

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Laser-cut aluminum foil could replace costly terahertz polarizers

When physicists at the ARC Centre for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems (TMOS) needed a key component for their terahertz experiments, they ran into a frustrating problem—they needed tiny optical devices, known as wire-grid polarizers, but these cost thousands of dollars each.

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Realistic solid-state model brings fractons in quantum spin liquids closer to detection

Quasiparticles arise from the complex interaction of many particles in solids; for example, we describe lattice vibrations in crystals as phonons. Fractons are exotic quasiparticles that occur at the vertices of magnetic domain walls between different spin orders. What makes them special is that they are virtually immobile and can only be displaced by other […]

LHC collisions reveal oxygen and neon’s shifting nuclear geometry

Many people are aware that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN smashes tiny subatomic particles together at nearly the speed of light to test foundational laws of physics and discover new fundamental particles, but some experiments also help scientists better visualize the actual structure of atoms we are already familiar with, like oxygen and […]

‘Rainbow-on-a-chip’ could help unlock 6G networks and precision timing for quantum technologies

Loughborough University physicists and an international team have demonstrated that a grain-of-rice-sized microchip can be used to produce a spectrum of precisely spaced frequencies of light, which is then converted into multiple high-frequency electromagnetic signals known as millimeter waves.

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Century-old physics idea explains why cubic fluid equations work

The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) has developed a new cubic equation of state (EOS) that provides a physical justification for a mathematical structure that the chemical and petroleum industries have relied on for more than half a century without a first-principles explanation.

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Intense light bent out of shape—ultrafast lenses made from gas

Researchers from the MPIK in Heidelberg used an atomic gas as a time-dependent lens to shape and spectrally manipulate intense high-frequency laser pulses. This gas-based optical element could pave the way toward better XUV- and X-ray pulse control for applications such as chemical reaction steering, quantum computing, and advanced spectroscopy methods for fundamental science. The […]

AI boosts sensitivity to double-Higgs signatures occurring about once per trillion collisions

Is the universe as stable as we think it is? That’s one of the big questions that particle physicists worldwide are preparing to answer with the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC—the world’s most powerful particle accelerator—when its upgrade is completed in about four years. In the meantime, researchers, including a cohort at the University of […]

Magnetically levitated quantum bit could address design flaws

Researchers at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, headquartered at Florida State University, have designed a new quantum computing architecture that uses magnetic levitation to smooth over design flaws in the intricate components necessary to run a quantum computer.

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New measurements explain how silicon and diamond achieve extreme reversible stretching

A research team led by Yang Lu from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering, The University of Hong Kong (HKU), has uncovered the microscopic physical nature of ultralarge elasticity in covalent semiconductors such as silicon and diamond. The discovery provides quantitative guidance for deep elastic strain engineering (DESE), paving the way […]

Newton’s momentum principles could help design safer offshore facilities in extreme waves

Researchers have developed a novel model to accurately and efficiently predict the impact of “green water”—water washing onto the deck of an offshore facility during extreme wave conditions.

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A little Big Bang: Bowling-pin-shaped nuclei shed new light on the universe’s first moments

What happened in the first moments of the universe—before the building blocks of life and the world we know today came into existence? Physicists at the CERN research facility in Switzerland are trying to answer this question by recreating some of the extreme conditions that prevailed in the universe during its earliest history. Now, researchers […]

Illuminating the limits of the international unit of light, the candela

The candela, the international unit of light in use for almost a century, forms the basis of photometry. According to a new study, measurements derived from it systematically misjudge the brightness of colored light sources and depart markedly from human perception.

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Dark energy and quantum gravity may be deeply intertwined

For close to a century, physicists have pursued a way to unite gravity with quantum mechanics. Known as quantum gravity, this goal has remained frustratingly out of reach so far. Similarly elusive is the force of dark energy, which is believed to be driving the universe’s accelerating expansion.

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3D-printed ceramic waveguide lasers could surpass the power of glass fiber lasers by 10 times

At the bottom of the ocean, optical fibers transmit telecommunications and internet data around the world. Waveguides make that feat possible by channeling and amplifying the light—and therefore the data within—over enormous distances.

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