/ 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. It is anticipated that within just a few decades, the surging volume of digital data will constitute one of the world's largest energy consumers. Now, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have made a breakthrough that could shift the paradigm: an atomically thin material that enables two opposing magnetic forces to coexist—dramatically reducing energy consumption in memory devices by a factor of 10. /news/2025-09-coexisting-magnetic-states-2d-material.html Condensed Matter Fri, 26 Sep 2025 11:13:04 EDT news678103982 Rice University researchers used a focused electron beam to pattern device functions with submicron precision directly into an ultrathin crystal. The approach produced traces narrower than the width of a DNA helix that glow with bright blue light and conduct electricity, showing it could be used to manufacture compact on-chip wiring and built-in light sources. /news/2025-09-scientists-electrons-pattern-sources-wiring.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Wed, 24 Sep 2025 13:33:40 EDT news677939615 Transistors, the building blocks of modern electronics, are typically made of silicon. Because it's a semiconductor, this material can control the flow of electricity in a circuit. But silicon has fundamental physical limits that restrict how compact and energy-efficient a transistor can be. /news/2025-09-magnetic-transistor-energy-efficient-electronics.html Condensed Matter Tue, 23 Sep 2025 13:10:04 EDT news677851238 A new study has successfully demonstrated the confinement of terahertz (THz) light to nanoscale dimensions using a new type of layered material. This could lead to improvements in optoelectronic devices such as infrared emitters used in remote controls and night vision and terahertz optics desired for physical security and environmental sensing. /news/2025-09-layered-material-successfully-confines-terahertz.html Condensed Matter Optics & Photonics Mon, 15 Sep 2025 17:19:04 EDT news677175541 Spintronics is an emerging field that leverages the spin, or the intrinsic angular momentum, of electrons. By harnessing this quantum-relativistic property, researchers aim to develop devices that store and transmit information faster, more efficiently, and at higher data densities, potentially making devices much smaller than what is possible today. These advances could drive next-generation memory, sensors, and even quantum technologies. /news/2025-09-advanced-ray-technique-enables-magnon.html Condensed Matter Wed, 10 Sep 2025 12:39:06 EDT news676726742 The iridescent blue of butterfly wings has inspired researchers to find a solution to a challenge previously considered insurmountable—dynamically tuning advanced optical processes at visible wavelengths. /news/2025-09-butterfly-wings-solution-impossible-optics.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Tue, 09 Sep 2025 09:19:06 EDT news676628341 2H-NbO₂—a novel van der Waals oxide synthesized by researchers from Japan—exhibits strongly correlated electronic properties with two-dimensional flexibility. By chemically extracting lithium ions from the layered sheets of LiNbOâ‚‚, the researchers transformed a three-dimensional oxide into a two-dimensional material—unlocking unique properties like Mott insulating states and superconductivity. Bridging transition metal oxides and 2D materials, the discovery paves the way for realizing advanced quantum materials in next-generation electronic devices. /news/2025-09-layered-transition-metal-oxide-2d.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Mon, 08 Sep 2025 14:30:28 EDT news676560621 A research team led by Prof. Shao Dingfu at the Institute of Solid State Â鶹ÒùÔºics, the Hefei Institutes of Â鶹ÒùÔºical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has unveiled a new mechanism for achieving strong spin polarization using antiferromagnetic metal interfaces. /news/2025-08-interface-antiferromagnetic-tunnel-junctions-path.html Condensed Matter Fri, 29 Aug 2025 13:52:03 EDT news675694321 The same technology behind MRI images of injury or disease also powers nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, which is used to analyze biological molecules for research on diseases and therapeutics. While NMR spectroscopy produces valuable data about the structure of molecules, the resolution is too low to sense individual atoms. /news/2025-08-mri-technology-quantum-advancement-2d.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 27 Aug 2025 12:11:04 EDT news675515461 Imagine a whirlpool spinning in a river, or a tornado swirling through the sky. They don't just spin on the spot: they travel forward while maintaining that spiraling motion inside them. These twisting motions, called vortices, are powerful and organized spirals. Now, imagine light that behaves the same way: a beam of light that spins as it moves forward. This "twisted" light, known as an optical vortex, can carry more information than normal light, opening the door to faster internet and ultra-secure communications. /news/2025-08-ultra-thin-materials-optical-vortices.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 19 Aug 2025 15:27:03 EDT news674836021 A research team led by Prof. Huang Qing from the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a new way to "edit" the internal layers of certain advanced materials, called MAX phases, in a breakthrough that could lead to entirely new kinds of two-dimensional (2D) layered materials with valuable technological uses. /news/2025-08-scientists-method-layered-inorganic-materials.html Nanomaterials Mon, 18 Aug 2025 12:58:04 EDT news674740676 The ability to move electron-hole pairs—called excitons—in desired directions is important for generating electricity and creating fuels. This happens naturally in photosynthesis, making it a source of inspiration to researchers innovating optoelectronic devices. /news/2025-08-evidence-hyperbolic-exciton-polaritons.html Condensed Matter Optics & Photonics Thu, 14 Aug 2025 12:14:44 EDT news674392475 Sliding ferroelectrics are a type of two-dimensional (2D) material realized by stacking nonpolar monolayers (atom-thick layers that lack an electric dipole). When these individual layers are stacked, they produce ferroelectric materials with an intrinsic polarization (i.e., in which positive and negative charges are spontaneously separated), which can be switched using an external electric field that is perpendicular to them. /news/2025-08-domain-walls-polarization-ferroelectrics.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Mon, 11 Aug 2025 13:10:01 EDT news674133369 In an advance at the intersection of neuromorphic engineering and photonics, researchers have developed an ionic-electronic photodetector that not only detects light but also performs in-sensor image processing, offering the potential to surpass some limitations of human vision—including color vision deficiencies. /news/2025-08-ionic-electronic-photodetector-sensor-vision.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 04 Aug 2025 11:16:04 EDT news673524961 UC Riverside researchers have unveiled a powerful new imaging technique that exposes how cutting-edge materials used in solar panels and light sensors convert light into electricity—offering a path to better, faster, and more efficient devices. /news/2025-07-imaging-method-reveals-generate-electricity.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Optics & Photonics Thu, 31 Jul 2025 06:24:48 EDT news673161883 Finding new materials with useful properties is a primary goal for materials scientists, and it's central to improving technology. One exciting area of current research is 2D materials—super-thin substances made of just a few layers of atoms, which could power the next generation of electronic devices. In a new study, researchers at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) developed a new way to predict 2D materials that might transform electronics. The results were published in Chemistry of Materials on July 7. /news/2025-07-method-2d-materials-generation-electronics.html Materials Science Tue, 22 Jul 2025 13:50:02 EDT news672409456 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 pioneering partnership between researchers from The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has produced a novel nanopore sensing platform for single-biomolecule detection. Their findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, pave the way for solid-state, label-free DNA sequencing technologies with implications for precision medicine. /news/2025-06-nanopore-platform-paves-solid-state.html Bio & Medicine Thu, 12 Jun 2025 16:13:04 EDT news668963581 A new bio-based hot glue derived from a byproduct of the wood pulp industry beats traditional epoxy resins and commercial hot-melt glues in terms of adhesive performance. /news/2025-06-bio-based-hot-industrial-leftovers.html Polymers Materials Science Fri, 06 Jun 2025 09:50:03 EDT news668421932 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 In the nanometer range (billionth of a meter), interactions occur between light and matter that do not happen on larger scales. As such, so-called nanophotonic materials have unique optical properties that open up a whole range of technical possibilities. /news/2025-05-ultrathin-resonators-standard-efficient.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Thu, 29 May 2025 12:09:11 EDT news667739344 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 An international research team has successfully achieved single-molecule spectroscopic observation of hydrogen (H2) and deuterium (D2) confined within a picocavity. The picocavity was formed between a silver nanotip and a silver single-crystal substrate under cryogenic and ultrahigh vacuum conditions, using tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS). /news/2025-05-molecule-spectroscopy-reveals-isotope-effect.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Wed, 21 May 2025 14:08:03 EDT news667055281 Carbyne, a one-dimensional chain of carbon atoms, is incredibly strong for being so thin, making it an intriguing possibility for use in next-generation electronics, but its extreme instability causing it to bend and snap on itself made it nearly impossible to produce at all, let alone produce enough of it for advanced studies. Now, an international team of researchers, including from Penn State, may have a solution. /news/2025-05-stability-solution-unique-carbon-closer.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Fri, 09 May 2025 11:54:04 EDT news666010441 The rules about magnetic order may need to be rewritten. Researchers have discovered that chromium selenide (Cr2Se3)—traditionally non-magnetic in bulk form—transforms into a magnetic material when reduced to atomically thin layers. This finding contradicts previous theoretical predictions, and opens new possibilities for spintronics applications. This could lead to faster, smaller, and more efficient electronic components for smartphones, data storage, and other essential technologies. /news/2025-05-magnetic-materials-atomically-thin.html Condensed Matter Thu, 08 May 2025 09:56:39 EDT news665916997 Scientists from the Faculty of Â鶹ÒùÔºics and Applied Informatics at the University of Lodz have published an article on friction in the journal Small. Their research on "bismuth islands" moving on the surface of graphite confirmed the existence of a totally new form of so-called superlubricity—a friction-free contact between two solid bodies. /news/2025-05-revolution-friction-super-smooth-materials.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Wed, 07 May 2025 16:19:41 EDT news665853568 Recently, a group of researchers discovered a novel way to achieve spin-valve effects using kagome quantum magnets. /news/2025-04-kagome-quantum-magnets-valve-effects.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 30 Apr 2025 10:46:02 EDT news665228761 In new research published in Nature, Weizmann Institute scientists introduce a powerful tool to explore quantum phenomena—the cryogenic Quantum Twisting Microscope (QTM). /news/2025-04-microscope-reveals-quantum-atoms-graphene.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 23 Apr 2025 11:00:02 EDT news664472881 A research group from the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has proposed a new strategy to precisely manipulate interlayer stacking orders and related properties in two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals layered materials via mechanical bending, enabling efficient electric polarization switching. The study is published in Â鶹ÒùÔºical Review Letters. /news/2025-04-scientists-modulate-2d-material-properties.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Wed, 09 Apr 2025 13:04:03 EDT news663422642 Research by physicists at The City College of New York is being credited for a novel discovery regarding the interaction of electronic excitations via spin waves. The finding by the Laboratory for Nano and Micro Photonics (LaNMP) team headed by physicist Vinod Menon could open the door to future technologies and advanced applications such as optical modulators, all-optical logic gates, and quantum transducers. The work is reported in the journal Nature Materials. /news/2025-04-physicists-uncover-electronic-interactions.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Thu, 03 Apr 2025 13:18:04 EDT news662905081