/ en-us Â鶹ÒùÔº internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Â鶹ÒùÔºics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. I've always been fascinated by how materials break down, especially glasses and polymers that don't have a regular crystal structure. Unlike crystals, where we understand plasticity through things like dislocations, amorphous materials like glasses are messier. There's no neat lattice to analyze, so figuring out where and how they deform under stress is a big open question. /news/2025-07-unveiling-hedgehog-topological-defects-dimensional.html Condensed Matter Soft Matter Thu, 03 Jul 2025 11:01:46 EDT news670759301 Angular momentum is a fundamental quantity in physics that describes the rotational motion of objects. In quantum physics, it encompasses both the intrinsic spin of particles and their orbital motion around a point. These properties are essential for understanding a wide range of systems, from atoms and molecules to complex materials and high-energy particle interactions. /news/2025-07-strong-magnetic-fields-flip-angular.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 02 Jul 2025 10:08:03 EDT news670669681 What if electricity and magnetism, usually considered as separate or even competing forces in materials, could actually work together in harmony? /news/2025-06-coupling-room-temperature-2d-ferromagnetic.html Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Thu, 26 Jun 2025 14:57:46 EDT news670168662 Researchers at the Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI), Kanazawa University, report in Small, on how short peptides self-assemble linearly on atomically-thick solid surfaces, such as graphite and MoS2. /news/2025-06-hydration-layers-nanoarchitectures-pivotal-role.html Nanomaterials Thu, 26 Jun 2025 11:04:47 EDT news670154683 We rarely think about how liquids flow—why honey is thick, water is thin or how molten plastic moves through machines. But for scientists and engineers, understanding and predicting the viscosity of materials, especially polymers, is essential. /news/2025-06-atomistic-route-viscosity-glass-transition.html Condensed Matter Soft Matter Tue, 24 Jun 2025 10:20:03 EDT news669979001 Scientists across the world are working to make quantum technologies viable at scale—an achievement that requires a reliable way to generate qubits, or quantum bits, which are the fundamental units of information in quantum computing. /news/2025-06-defects-2d-material-quantum-bits.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Mon, 23 Jun 2025 14:51:04 EDT news669909061 A condition long considered to be unfavorable to electrical conduction in semiconductor materials may actually be beneficial in 2D semiconductors, according to new findings by UC Santa Barbara researchers published in the journal Â鶹ÒùÔºical Review Letters. /news/2025-06-coupled-electrons-phonons-2d-semiconductors.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Mon, 23 Jun 2025 13:00:16 EDT news669902402 An international scientific collaboration has developed a novel nanomaterial to efficiently harvest clean drinking water from water vapor in the air. The nanomaterial can hold more than three times its weight in water and can achieve this far quicker than existing commercial technologies, features that enable its potential in direct applications for producing potable water from the air. /news/2025-06-feather-nanomaterial-air.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Mon, 23 Jun 2025 09:23:49 EDT news669889423 A research team including members from the University of Michigan have unveiled a new observational technique that's sensitive to the dynamics of the intrinsic quantum jiggles of materials, or phonons. /news/2025-06-electron-microscopy-technique-captures-nanoparticle.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Wed, 18 Jun 2025 17:19:04 EDT news669485941 Vacuum is often thought of as empty, but in fact it is teeming with fleeting energy fluctuations—virtual photons popping in and out of existence that can interact with matter, giving rise to new, potentially useful properties. /news/2025-06-scientists-harness-vacuum-fluctuations-quantum.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 18 Jun 2025 09:58:05 EDT news669459482 Researchers at Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have demonstrated an innovative method to control magnetism in materials using an energy-efficient electric field. The discovery focuses on materials known as magnetoelectrics, which offer promise for next-generation energy technologies, data storage, energy conversion, and medical devices. The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications. /news/2025-06-magnetoelectric-deflection-magnetic-textures-electric.html Condensed Matter Mon, 16 Jun 2025 13:09:03 EDT news669298141 Scientists from the National Graphene Institute at The University of Manchester and the University of Technology Sydney have developed a new way to improve the lifespan of zinc-ion batteries, offering a safer and more sustainable option for energy storage. /news/2025-06-2d-superlattice-zinc-ion-battery.html Nanomaterials Mon, 16 Jun 2025 10:30:03 EDT news669288601 A new platform for engineering chiral electron pathways offers potential fresh insights into a quantum phenomenon discovered by chemists—and exemplifies how the second quantum revolution is fostering transdisciplinary collaborations that bridge physics, chemistry, and biology to tackle fundamental questions. /news/2025-06-quantum-spirals-programmable-platform-ways.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Fri, 13 Jun 2025 14:00:03 EDT news668940541 A rare and bewildering intermediate between crystal and glass can be the most stable arrangement for some combinations of atoms, according to a study from the University of Michigan. /news/2025-06-quantum-mechanical-quasicrystals-reveals.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Fri, 13 Jun 2025 12:10:01 EDT news669034497 A new study led by researchers at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester has achieved a major advance in quantum materials, developing a method to precisely engineer single quantum defects in diamond—an essential step toward scalable quantum technologies. The results have been published in the journal Nature Communications. /news/2025-06-scientists-precision-quantum-defects-diamond.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Thu, 12 Jun 2025 16:20:03 EDT news668964001 A research team led by Prof. Shao Dingfu from the Hefei Institutes of Â鶹ÒùÔºical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has predicted a new class of antiferromagnetic materials with unique cross-chain structures, termed "X-type antiferromagnets." These materials exhibit sublattice-selective spin transport and unconventional magnetic dynamics, offering new possibilities for next-generation spintronic devices. /news/2025-06-class-antiferromagnets-enables-sublattice.html Condensed Matter Thu, 12 Jun 2025 10:13:03 EDT news668941981 A study nearly 10 years in the making has shed new insight into how oxides can regularly sustain themselves, using the oxygen inherent in their own structures. /news/2025-06-oxide-catalysts-sustain-reactors.html Analytical Chemistry Wed, 11 Jun 2025 15:57:14 EDT news668876222 In a new study, physicists at the University of Colorado Boulder have used a cloud of atoms chilled down to incredibly cold temperatures to simultaneously measure acceleration in three dimensions—a feat that many scientists didn't think was possible. /news/2025-06-quantum-device-atoms-3d.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 11 Jun 2025 14:18:04 EDT news668870281 A popular 2D active material, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), just got a platinum upgrade at an atomic level. A study led by researchers from the University of Vienna and Vienna University of Technology embedded individual platinum (Pt) atoms onto an ultrathin MoS2 monolayer and, for the first time, pinpointed their exact positions within the lattice with atomic precision. /news/2025-06-visualizes-platinum-doping-ultrathin-2d.html Nanomaterials Wed, 11 Jun 2025 10:53:04 EDT news668857968 Our everyday lives are so riddled with electronics that we hardly notice them anymore. When we casually reach for our smartphone, we rarely think about how complex this device is. Hundreds of tiny components work together within it—each of them a high-precision masterpiece of engineering. /news/2025-06-electron-shower-technique-advanced-piezoelectric.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Thu, 05 Jun 2025 12:13:04 EDT news668344381 MIT physicists have demonstrated a new form of magnetism that could one day be harnessed to build faster, denser, and less power-hungry "spintronic" memory chips. /news/2025-06-physicists-magnetism.html Condensed Matter Thu, 05 Jun 2025 09:12:04 EDT news668333521 The entry of quantum computers into society is currently hindered by their sensitivity to disturbances in the environment. Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, and Aalto University and the University of Helsinki in Finland, now present a new type of exotic quantum material, and a method that uses magnetism to create stability. /news/2025-06-magnetism-exotic-material-robust-quantum.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 04 Jun 2025 09:22:12 EDT news668247727 A joint research team has successfully developed a two-dimensional (2D) quantum material platform through the superposition of moiré lattices. /news/2025-06-overlapping-moir-lattices-2d-materials.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Tue, 03 Jun 2025 11:39:05 EDT news668169541 Very soon after the Big Bang, the universe enjoyed a brief phase where quarks and gluons roamed freely, not yet joined up into hadrons such as protons, neutrons and mesons. This state, called a quark-gluon plasma, existed for a brief time until the temperature dropped to about 20 trillion Kelvin, after which this "hadronization" took place. /news/2025-05-thermodynamic-properties-quark-gluon-plasma.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Plasma Â鶹ÒùÔºics Fri, 30 May 2025 10:00:03 EDT news667816855 Some of the most promising materials for future technologies come in layers just one atom thick, such as graphene, a sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice, prized for its exceptional strength and conductivity. While hundreds of such materials exist, truly merging them into something new has remained a challenge. Most efforts simply stack these atom-thin sheets like a deck of cards, but the layers typically lack significant interaction between them. /news/2025-05-glaphene-2d-hybrid-material-graphene.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Wed, 28 May 2025 16:22:05 EDT news667668121 A team of physicists at the University of Cambridge has unveiled a breakthrough in quantum sensing by demonstrating the use of spin defects in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) as powerful, room-temperature sensors capable of detecting vectorial magnetic fields at the nanoscale. The findings, published in Nature Communications, mark a significant step toward more practical and versatile quantum technologies. /news/2025-05-2d-quantum-sensor-defects-precise.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 28 May 2025 13:20:03 EDT news667657201 A study in Nature describes both the mechanism and the material conditions necessary for superfluorescence at room temperature. The work could serve as a blueprint for designing materials that allow exotic quantum states—such as superconductivity, superfluidity or superfluorescence—at high temperatures, paving the way for applications such as quantum computers that don't require extremely low temperatures to operate. /news/2025-05-solitonic-superfluorescence-paves-high-temperature.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 28 May 2025 11:00:10 EDT news667640101 A research team has discovered how to make a promising energy-harvesting material much more efficient—without relying on rare or expensive elements. The material, called β-Zn4Sb3, is a tellurium-free thermoelectric compound that can convert waste heat into electricity. /news/2025-05-smart-phonon-boosts-efficiency-eco.html Condensed Matter Mon, 26 May 2025 10:17:03 EDT news667473421 Diamond is one of the most prized materials in advanced technologies due to its unmatched hardness, ability to conduct heat and capacity to host quantum-friendly defects. The same qualities that make diamond useful also make it difficult to process. /news/2025-05-simpler-method-refines-ultrapure-diamond.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Fri, 23 May 2025 12:39:04 EDT news667222742 When exposed to periodic driving, which is the time-dependent manipulation of a system's parameters, quantum systems can exhibit interesting new phases of matter that are not present in time-independent (i.e., static) conditions. Among other things, periodic driving can be useful for the engineering of synthetic gauge fields, artificial constructs that mimic the behavior of electromagnetic fields and can be leveraged to study topological many-body physics using neutral atom quantum simulators. /news/2025-05-quantum-simulator-strongly-interacting-mott.html Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Fri, 23 May 2025 07:20:01 EDT news667133039