/ 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. As the number of particles in a physical system increases, its properties can change and different phase transitions (i.e., shifts into different phases of matter) can take place. Microscopic systems (i.e., containing only a few particles) and macroscopic ones (i.e., containing many particles) are thus typically very different, even if the types of particles they are made up of are the same. /news/2025-06-atom-tweezer-arrays-reveal-phase.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 18 Jun 2025 07:00:02 EDT news669383357 Scientists at Paderborn University have made a further step forward in the field of quantum research: for the first time ever, they have demonstrated a cryogenic circuit (i.e. one that operates in extremely cold conditions) that allows light quanta—also known as photons—to be controlled more quickly than ever before. /news/2025-05-photon-absolute-individual-particles.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Thu, 22 May 2025 11:44:49 EDT news667133086 He Qinglin's group at the Center for Quantum Materials Science, School of Â鶹ÒùÔºics, has reported the first observation of non-reciprocal Coulomb drag in Chern insulators. This breakthrough opens new pathways for exploring Coulomb interactions in magnetic topological systems and enhances our understanding of quantum states in such materials. The work was published in Nature Communications. /news/2025-04-reciprocal-coulomb-chern-insulators.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Mon, 28 Apr 2025 14:50:42 EDT news665070636 The behavior of water at hydrophobic interfaces has perplexed scientists for over a century, spanning chemistry, biology, materials science, geology, and engineering. Recent discoveries—such as the anomalous chemistry of water microdroplets and contact electro-catalysis—highlight the pivotal role of interfacial water. /news/2025-03-unfamiliar-familiar-substance-extraordinary-interfacial.html Analytical Chemistry Wed, 19 Mar 2025 17:02:03 EDT news661622521 Researchers have pioneered a new technique at the Swiss Light Source SLS called X-ray linear dichroic orientation tomography, which probes the orientation of a material's building blocks at the nanoscale in three-dimensions. /news/2024-12-ray-technique-nanoscale-architecture-functional.html Nanomaterials Wed, 11 Dec 2024 11:00:01 EST news653128741 We all start our lives as symmetric balls of cells. In humans, during the first few weeks after fertilization, embryonic cells undergo several rounds of division, increasing their mass. Then comes gastrulation, the process that changes everything and establishes our body plan. During gastrulation, the collection of uniform cells that make up the early embryo break symmetry and reorganize into a multi-layered structure with distinct cell types. /news/2024-11-tail-cells-autonomously-early.html Cell & Microbiology Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 18 Nov 2024 15:36:04 EST news651166561 When the number of electrons matches host lattice sites in a material, strong interactions between electrons can cause them to arrange themselves into an orderly pattern, forming what is known as an electron crystal. This phenomenon is fascinating because the electrons start to act collectively, which can be useful for quantum simulations. /news/2024-07-ground-technologies-electron-hole-crystals.html Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Tue, 30 Jul 2024 06:58:21 EDT news641541494 The levitation of microscopic objects in vacuum and the control of their movements while they are suspended was first demonstrated several decades ago. Since then, various research groups have been working on new approaches to control levitated objects in vacuum with greater degrees of freedom. /news/2024-07-vacuum-levitation-motion-optical-electrostatic.html Nanophysics Tue, 02 Jul 2024 07:00:01 EDT news639057124 The Theory Department of the Fritz Haber Institute calls attention to catalyst morphology as a key factor in determining what product is being formed during an electrocatalytic reaction. The analysis, published in Nature Catalysis, explores how the "roughness" of a catalyst surface changes the selectivity for a number of technologically important reactions, including the electrochemical conversion of CO2 into fuels and H2O formation in fuel-cells. /news/2024-06-surface-morphology-electrocatalysis.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Tue, 18 Jun 2024 11:33:03 EDT news637929181 The selective bond-breaking powers of enzymes bring new versatility for building nanoparticles with a wide range of technical and medical potential. /news/2024-06-technique-enzymes-versatile-nanoparticles.html Nanomaterials Tue, 11 Jun 2024 09:16:04 EDT news637316161 When an ordinary electrical conductor—such as a metal wire—is connected to a battery, the electrons in the conductor are accelerated by the electric field created by the battery. While moving, electrons frequently collide with impurity atoms or vacancies in the crystal lattice of the wire, and convert part of their motional energy into lattice vibrations. The energy lost in this process is converted into heat that can be felt, for example, by touching an incandescent light bulb. /news/2024-05-electron-vortices-graphene.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Mon, 13 May 2024 09:49:15 EDT news634812552 Most people are familiar with the DNA double-helix. Its twisted ladder shape forms because the long pieces of DNA that make up our genome are exactly complementary—every adenine paired to a thymine, and every cytosine paired to a guanine. Sequences of these four nucleotides hold the information needed to build the proteins in our bodies, but they also encode their own double-helical structure. /news/2024-04-capturing-dna-origami-dynamic.html Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 18 Apr 2024 09:47:04 EDT news632652421 Microscopic chasms forming a sea of conical jagged peaks stipple the surface of a material called black silicon. While it's commonly found in solar cell tech, black silicon also moonlights as a tool for studying the physics of how water droplets behave. /news/2024-04-physicists-unknown-droplets-superhydrophobic-surfaces.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Soft Matter Tue, 16 Apr 2024 10:18:57 EDT news632481534 Scientists at Paderborn University have used a new method to determine the characteristics of optical quantum states. For the first time, they are using certain photon detectors—devices that can detect individual light particles—for so-called homodyne detection. /news/2024-02-properties-scientists-method-quantum-states.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Mon, 26 Feb 2024 11:04:14 EST news628167852 Recent research has broken the size limitation of traditional ferroelectric effects, providing experimental evidence and theoretical simulations to confirm that a structure with as few as 5,000 atoms can still exhibit solid-state ferroelectric effects. /news/2024-02-atoms-smallest-solid-state-ferroelectricity.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Fri, 16 Feb 2024 12:38:22 EST news627309495 An anomalous Floquet topological insulator (AFTI) is a periodically driven topological insulator (TI with nonzero winding numbers to support topological edge modes, though its standard topological invariants like Chern numbers are zero. /news/2023-12-fractal-photonic-anomalous-floquet-topological.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Thu, 07 Dec 2023 12:12:34 EST news621173551 In the intricate world of light, a journey through inhomogeneous media often leads to distortions in space, time, spectrum, and polarization. These distortions, detrimental to applications like optical manipulation, imaging, and communication, have long posed a challenge. Enter the art of wavefront shaping (WS)—a potent tool for correcting these wave maladies in linear optics. But that's not all. Nonlinearity adds a twist, finding purpose in fields from biological sensing to phototherapy. Now, picture combining these forces—nonlinearity and WS—opening doors to unprecedented control. /news/2023-08-illuminating-horizons-nonlinear-precision.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 31 Aug 2023 16:30:03 EDT news612718201 Pythagoras first discovered that the vibrations of strings are drastically enhanced at certain frequencies. This discovery forms the basis of our tone system. Such natural vibrations ubiquitously exist in objects regardless of their size scales and are widely utilized to derive their species, constituents, and morphology. For example, molecular vibrations at a terahertz rate have become the most common fingerprints for the identification of chemicals and the structural analysis of large biomolecules. /news/2023-08-single-particle-photoacoustic-vibrational-spectroscopy-optical.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 07 Aug 2023 08:27:56 EDT news610615668 Enantioselection with neither chiral catalysis nor chiral ingredients (absolute enantioselection) has been one of the most active topics in biology, but its experimental realizations have been challenging. A team led by researchers at the Institute for Molecular Science (IMS) have demonstrated the enantioselectivity of helical supramolecules consisting only of achiral molecules solely by exploiting chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect. /news/2023-07-effect-molecular-chirality-universal-applications.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Fri, 28 Jul 2023 10:35:04 EDT news609759301 In a recent publication in the journal Advanced Materials Interfaces, the research team led by first author Dr. Philip Schädlich, a research associate at the Professorship of Experimental Â鶹ÒùÔºics, presents a method for the detailed structural analysis of synthesized two-dimensional lead layers on a specially manufactured system for the first time. /news/2023-07-monoatomic-layers-specially-method.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Mon, 24 Jul 2023 10:36:40 EDT news609413772 Quantum electronics promises significant advances in ultra-sensitive measurements and quantum information processing. In nanoelectronic circuits, one electron can be used to precisely modify the trajectory of another electron through their mutual Coulomb interaction. /news/2023-06-electron-collider-chip-independent-teams.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Fri, 30 Jun 2023 11:19:02 EDT news607342741 Quantum technology is expected to fundamentally change many key areas of society. Researchers are convinced that there are many more useful quantum properties and applications to explore than those we know today. A team of researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have now developed open-source, freely available software that will pave the way for new discoveries in the field and accelerate quantum research significantly. /news/2023-06-open-source-software-quantum.html Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Tue, 20 Jun 2023 09:20:04 EDT news606471601 Novel, ultrathin nanomaterials exhibit remarkable properties. If you stack individual atomically thin layers of crystals in a vertical assembly, for example, fascinating physical effects can occur. For instance, bilayers of the wonder material graphene twisted by the magic angle of 1.1 degrees may exhibit superconductivity. And researchers are also focusing their attention on bilayer semiconducting heterostructures made of so-called transition metal dichalcogenides, which are held together weakly by van der Waals forces. /news/2023-03-nanophysics.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Tue, 28 Mar 2023 11:38:03 EDT news599222282 The precise control of micro-mechanical oscillators is fundamental to many contemporary technologies, from sensing and timing to radiofrequency filters in smartphones. Over the past decade, quantum control of mechanical systems has been firmly established with atoms, molecules, and ions in the first wave of development and superconducting circuits in the second quantum revolution. /news/2022-12-optomechanics-simulates-graphene-lattices.html Superconductivity Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 21 Dec 2022 11:00:06 EST news590839745 Researchers have shown that a new microscopy technique can capture dynamic 3D images of an entire zebrafish larvae while maintaining cellular resolution in all three dimensions. By giving scientists an unprecedented view of how cells interact in their most natural state, the new technique could provide information that is used to develop new treatments for diseases, for example. /news/2022-12-life-action-capture-3d-cellular.html Cell & Microbiology Biotechnology Thu, 08 Dec 2022 10:00:01 EST news589714592 Few of us realize that listening to music on Spotify or watching Netflix or YouTube releases CO2 in the process. Online services use data stored on servers in data centers, and they guzzle energy. Â鶹ÒùÔºicist Remko Fermin researched methods to make the memory in data centers more energy efficient. /news/2022-11-superconducting-memory-centers-carbon-footprints.html Superconductivity Wed, 30 Nov 2022 12:05:08 EST news589032303 A research team led by the GRASP—Group of Research and Applications in Statistical Â鶹ÒùÔºics—at the University of Liège (Belgium), demonstrates how to manipulate the mesh, shape and symmetry of floating crystals by wandering, in a controlled way, between their metastable states. This study is published in the journal Scientific Reports. /news/2022-09-metastable-states-crystals.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Fri, 30 Sep 2022 12:10:06 EDT news583758601 Traveling waves are commonly observed in biological and synthetic systems, and recent discoveries have shown how silver colloids form traveling motion waves in hydrogen peroxide under UV light. In a new report now published in Science Advances, Xi Chen and a team of researchers in smart materials, physics and optics at the Harbin Institute of Technology, and the Shanghai Jiao Tang University, in China, showed the colloidal motion wave as a heterogeneous excitable system. /news/2022-06-physicochemical-nature-colloidal-motion-silver.html Soft Matter Thu, 09 Jun 2022 10:05:55 EDT news573987946 Advancing our understanding of the human brain will require new insights into how neural circuitry works in mammals, including laboratory mice. These investigations require monitoring brain activity with a microscope that provides resolution high enough to see individual neurons and their neighbors. /news/2021-12-two-photon-microscope-unprecedented-brain-imaging-ability.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 02 Dec 2021 12:45:16 EST news557671507 One of the primary objectives of quantum physics studies is to measure the quantum states of large systems composed of many interacting particles. This could be particularly useful for the development of quantum computers and other quantum information processing devices. /news/2021-11-method-quantum-entanglement-nuclear-ensemble.html Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Fri, 12 Nov 2021 09:30:01 EST news555930560