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Reconfigurable platform slows lights for on-chip photonic engineering

Integrated circuits are the brains behind modern electronic devices like computers or smart phones. Traditionally, these circuits—also known as chips—rely on electricity to process data. In recent years, scientists have turned their attention to photonic chips, which perform similar tasks using light instead of electricity to improve speed and energy efficiency.

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Icy hot plasmas: Fluffy, electrically charged ice grains reveal new plasma dynamics

When a gas is highly energized, its electrons get torn from the parent atoms, resulting in a plasma—the oft-forgotten fourth state of matter (along with solid, liquid, and gas). When we think of plasmas, we normally think of extremely hot phenomena such as the sun, lightning, or maybe arc welding, but there are situations in […]

Observing ultrafast magnetic domain changes at the nanoscale with soft X-rays

Scientists at the Max Born Institute have developed a new soft X-ray instrument that can reveal dynamics of magnetic domains on nanometer length and picosecond time scales. By bringing capabilities once exclusive to X-ray free-electron lasers into the laboratory, the work paves the way for routine investigations of ultrafast processes of emergent textures in magnetic […]

Electrons stay put in layers of mismatched ‘quantum Legos’

Electrons can be elusive, but Cornell researchers using a new computational method can now account for where they go—or don’t go—in certain layered materials.

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Rydberg-atom detector conquers a new spectral frontier

A team from the Faculty of Physics and the Center for Quantum Optical Technologies at the Center of New Technologies, University of Warsaw has developed a new method for measuring elusive terahertz signals using a “quantum antenna.”

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The hexatic phase: Ultra-thin 2D materials in a state between solid and liquid observed for the first time

When ice melts into water, it happens quickly, with the transition from solid to liquid being immediate. However, very thin materials do not adhere to these rules. Instead, an unusual state between solid and liquid arises: the hexatic phase. Researchers at the University of Vienna have now succeeded in directly observing this exotic phase in […]

X-ray spikes reveal electron beam size

While synchrotron radiation is often thought of as “stable,” the electromagnetic field exhibits pronounced randomly fluctuating distributions both temporally and spatially. These fluctuations encode spatial information about the electron beam that produces the X-rays.

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Shaping quantum light unlocks new possibilities for future technologies

Researchers from the School of Physics at Wits University, working with collaborators from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, have demonstrated how quantum light can be engineered in space and time to create high-dimensional and multidimensional quantum states. Their work highlights how structured photons—light whose spatial, temporal or spectral properties are deliberately shaped—offer new pathways for […]

Probing the existence of a fifth force via neutron star cooling

Neutron stars are ultra-dense star remnants made up primarily of nucleons (i.e., protons and neutrons). Over the course of millions of years, these stars progressively cool down, radiating heat into space.

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Quantum technology moves from lab to life, but widespread use remains years away

Quantum technology is accelerating out of the lab and into the real world, and a new article argues that the field now stands at a turning point—one that is similar to the early computing age that preceded the rise of the transistor and modern computing.

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High-energy-density barocaloric material could enable smaller, lighter solid-state cooling devices

A collaborative research team from the Institute of Solid State Physics, the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has discovered a high-energy-density barocaloric effect in the plastic superionic conductor Ag₂Te₁₋ₓSₓ.

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LHC data confirm validity of new model of hadron production—and test foundations of quantum mechanics

A boiling sea of quarks and gluons, including virtual ones—this is how we can imagine the main phase of high-energy proton collisions. It would seem that particles here have significantly more opportunities to evolve than when less numerous and much “better-behaved” secondary particles spread out from the collision point. However, data from the LHC accelerator […]

CERN’s ATLAS detects evidence for decay of Higgs boson into muon–antimuon pair

Although its existence had been theorized for decades, the Higgs boson was finally observed to exist in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Since then, it has continued to be heavily studied at the LHC. Now, a new study from the researchers at CERN combines the last two runs of ATLAS—one of […]

A direct leap into terahertz: Dirac materials enable efficient signal conversion at room temperature

Highspeed Internet, autonomous driving, the Internet of Things: data streams are proliferating at enormous speed. But classic radio technology is reaching its limits: the higher the data rate, the faster the signals need to be transmitted.

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Iron-based magnetic material achieves major reduction in core loss

A research team from NIMS, Tohoku University and AIST has developed a new technique for controlling the nanostructures and magnetic domain structures of iron-based soft amorphous ribbons, achieving more than a 50% reduction in core loss compared with the initial amorphous material.

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