Researchers have developed tiny flexible lasers that can be used to measure forces inside living cells. The new lasers could help illuminate various biological processes, including those involved in early development and tumor progression.

Spintronic devices enable data processing with significantly lower energy consumption. They are based on the interaction between ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic layers. Now, a team from Freie Universität Berlin, HZB and Uppsala University has succeeded in tracking—separately for each layer—how the magnetic order changes after a short laser pulse has excited the system. The researchers were also able to identify the main cause of the loss of antiferromagnetic order in the oxide layer: The excitation is transported from the hot electrons in the ferromagnetic metal to the spins in the antiferromagnet. The findings are published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

A scientific discovery by researchers at Tel Aviv University’s School of Chemistry offers a new perspective on a long-standing scientific mystery: how does a flowing liquid suddenly become a rigid, almost frozen material, without changing its structure? This phenomenon, known as the “glass transition,” has puzzled physicists for over a hundred years. The study proposes a new experimental approach to observing this elusive process—by tracking the motion of tiny particles that serve as microscopic “sensors” within the material.