Every time a computer stores or erases information, it uses energy. The amount is tiny for a single operation, but those operations happen billions of times every second. For decades, scientists have wondered just how little energy a memory device could use before reaching the fundamental theoretical limit set by the laws of physics. Now, researchers have shown that it is possible to come close.

Scientists have developed a material that can grow and coordinate its own movement until the entire structure pulses in unison, paving the way for versatile robots that behave more like living systems.

Understanding and controlling phase transitions are fundamental to physics and central to many technological revolutions. There is currently strong interest in materials with coupled structural and electronic phase transitions, where controlling the transition plasticity naturally yields built-in memory—a key step in emulating neurons and synapses for “neuromorphic” or brain-like computing technologies.

Quantum networks are systems that connect different users or devices using principles of quantum mechanics. In the future, these networks could help improve the security of communications.

Researchers at Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the University of Regensburg have developed a method for determining, using light, a quantum property of electrons that has hitherto been difficult to access. The focus is on what is known as Berry curvature—a quantity that describes certain geometric properties of the quantum mechanical states of electrons. The researchers measured it in a layer of the semiconductor tungsten diselenide, just one atomic layer thick, using ultrashort laser pulses. The results have been published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Photonics.