/ 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. An international team of researchers has developed a new method for parameterizing machine-learning interatomic potentials (MLIP) to simulate magnetic materials, making the prediction of their properties much more reliable and accurate. A key feature of the new approach is that the models of interatomic interactions are trained on so-called "magnetic forces." /news/2025-04-magnetic-ai-material-simulations.html Condensed Matter Wed, 16 Apr 2025 10:24:45 EDT news664017879 During the latter part of the 20th century, string theory was put forward as a unifying theory of physics foundations. String theory has not, however, fulfilled expectations. That is why we are of the view that the scientific community needs to reconsider what comprises elementary forces and particles. /news/2025-04-einstein-field-theory.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Thu, 10 Apr 2025 10:24:52 EDT news663499484 From the early days of quantum mechanics, scientists have thought that all particles can be categorized into one of two groups—bosons or fermions—based on their behavior. /news/2025-01-mathematical-methods-possibility-particles-thought.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 08 Jan 2025 15:26:04 EST news655572361 MIT physicists and colleagues have for the first time measured the geometry, or shape, of electrons in solids at the quantum level. Scientists have long known how to measure the energies and velocities of electrons in crystalline materials, but until now, those systems' quantum geometry could only be inferred theoretically, or sometimes not at all. /news/2024-12-physicists-quantum-geometry.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Sun, 22 Dec 2024 09:30:01 EST news653660469 In-plane magnetic fields are responsible for inducing anomalous Hall effect in EuCd2Sb2 films, report researchers from the Institute of Science Tokyo. By studying how these fields change electronic structures, the team discovered a large in-plane anomalous Hall effect. /news/2024-12-plane-magnetic-fields-reveal-hall.html Condensed Matter Thu, 19 Dec 2024 08:38:03 EST news653819881 The search for quantum gravity has gone on for 100 years, but it is not the only unification challenge in physics. Many of us believe that one day there will be a unification theory—a theory that will reconcile many divergent physical theories. /news/2024-12-alena-tensor-unification-physics.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Tue, 10 Dec 2024 10:30:01 EST news653048532 In recent years, many physicists and materials scientists have been studying a newly uncovered class of magnetic materials known as altermagnets. These materials exhibit a unique type of magnetism that differs from both conventional ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism, marked by electrons whose spin varies depending on their momentum. /news/2024-10-physicists-reveal-nonlinear-quantum-geometry.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Fri, 11 Oct 2024 06:30:02 EDT news647773547 The Brewster reflectionless effect stands out as one of the simplest yet pivotal discoveries in manipulating waves. Initial investigations were limited to isotropic materials, but later, thanks to the advent of metamaterials, the phenomenon was found to expand into anisotropic materials. /news/2024-07-anomalous-brewster-effect-metamaterials.html Condensed Matter Optics & Photonics Wed, 10 Jul 2024 16:00:03 EDT news639846001 Researchers from Skoltech and MIPT and their German, Austrian, and Norwegian colleagues have proposed and tested a new method for computer modeling of magnetic alloys. The method, which relies on machine learning, accurately predicted the energy, mechanical and magnetic characteristics of the alloy of iron and aluminum. /news/2024-01-physicists-magnetic-alloy-properties-machine.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Tue, 30 Jan 2024 12:42:39 EST news625840952 Millisecond pulsars are amazing astronomical tools. They are fast-rotating neutron stars that sweep beams of radio energy from their magnetic poles, and when they are aligned just right we see them as rapidly flashing radio beacons. They flash with such regularity that we can treat them as cosmic clocks. Any change in their motion can be measured with extreme precision. Astronomers have used millisecond pulsars to measure their orbital decay due to gravitational waves and to observe the background gravitational rumblings of the universe. They have even been proposed as a method of celestial navigation. They may soon also be able to test the most fundamental nature of gravity. /news/2023-09-astronomers-event-horizon-telescope-pulsars.html Astronomy Mon, 04 Sep 2023 12:36:03 EDT news613049761 Developing commercial fusion energy requires scientists to understand sustained processes that have never before existed on Earth. But with so many unknowns, how do we make sure we're designing a device that can successfully harness fusion power? /news/2023-06-mathematical-blueprint-fusion-device.html Plasma Â鶹ÒùÔºics Thu, 22 Jun 2023 16:12:03 EDT news606669121 Excitations in solids can also be represented mathematically as quasiparticles; for example, lattice vibrations that increase with temperature can be well described as phonons. Mathematically, also quasiparticles can be described that have never been observed in a material before. If such "theoretical" quasiparticles have interesting talents, then it is worth taking a closer look. Take fractons, for example. /news/2023-05-fractons-storage-tangible.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Fri, 26 May 2023 13:01:49 EDT news604324907 In physics, one often has to deal with different scales that can be described separately from one another: For the Earth's orbit around the sun, it makes absolutely no difference whether an elephant in the zoo walks to the left or to the right. And the movement of the elephant can be described without having to know anything about the properties of the electrons in its ear. The world can be divided into different scales. /news/2023-05-scale-unsolvable-problems-solvable.html Condensed Matter Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Fri, 05 May 2023 09:00:14 EDT news602496011 Theoretical physicists routinely introduce fictitious particles and fields in their calculations, in view of completing a theory or simply to make it more elegant. A striking example concerns the magnetic monopole imagined by Dirac in 1931: a point-like source of magnetic field, which is absent in classical electromagnetism. While the Dirac monopole was never observed in nature, it appears artificially in various physical settings, in particular, in the solid state. /news/2022-03-strange-monopole-diamond-theory-quantum.html Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Tue, 22 Mar 2022 11:58:31 EDT news567169108 Strain-mediated magnetic coupling in ferroelectric and ferromagnetic heterostructures can offer a unique opportunity for scientific research in low-power multifunctional devices. Ferroelectrics are materials that can maintain spontaneous and reversible electric polarization. Relaxor-ferroelectrics that exhibit high electrostriction are ideal candidates for ferroelectric layer constructs due to their large piezoelectricity. Although the properties of relaxor ferroelectrics are known, their mechanistic origins remain a mystery, giving rise to an enigmatic form of materials. In addition to that, thin films are ineffective from substrate clamping and can substantially reduce piezoelectric in-plane strains. In a new report now published in Science Advances, Shane Lindemann and a research team in materials science, and physics in the U.S. and Korea, displayed low-voltage magnetoelectric coupling in an all-thin-film heterostructure using anisotropic strains induced by the orientation of the material. The team used an ideal ferroelectric layer of Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–PbTiO3 abbreviated PMN-PT during this work and coupled it with ferromagnetic nickel overlayers to create membrane heterostructures with magnetization. Using scanning transmission electron microscopy and phase-field simulations, they clarified the membrane response to understand the microstructural behavior of PMN-PT thin films, to then employ them in piezo-driven magnetoelectric heterostructures. /news/2021-11-low-voltage-magnetoelectric-coupling-membrane-heterostructures.html Nanophysics Nanomaterials Fri, 19 Nov 2021 09:40:02 EST news556536415 Recently, a research team identified two possible magnetic interaction images in Sr2IrO4, which marked a new progress in the magnetic superexchange coupling study in Sr2IrO4 5d associative system. /news/2021-09-mott-insulating-images-magnetic-superexchange-couplings.html Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Mon, 27 Sep 2021 10:17:41 EDT news551956659 Molecules have a very intricate and rich structure, which allows them to rotate and vibrate freely. As a result, they have an almost limitless space in which computer scientists could encode quantum information. In addition to their vast internal space, molecules are capable of long-range interactions and could thus be entangled to other separate molecules. /news/2021-09-robust-storage-qubits-ultracold-polar.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Mon, 27 Sep 2021 09:30:02 EDT news551947343 Dr. Zi Yang Meng from the Division of Â鶹ÒùÔºics and Astronomy, Faculty of Science, the University of Hong Kong (HKU), is pursuing a new paradigm of quantum material research that combines theory, computation and experiment in a coherent manner. Recently, he teamed up with Dr. Wei LI from Beihang University, Professor Yang Qi from Fudan University, Professor Weiqiang YU from Renmin University and Professor Jinsheng Wen from Nanjing University to untangle the puzzle of Nobel Prize-winning theory Kosterlitz-Thouless (KT) phase. /news/2020-11-simulated-results.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Thu, 19 Nov 2020 12:28:41 EST news525011298 Skoltech scientists have shown that quantum enhanced machine learning can be used on quantum (as opposed to classical) data, overcoming a significant slowdown common to these applications and opening a "fertile ground to develop computational insights into quantum systems." The paper was published in the journal Â鶹ÒùÔºical Review A. /news/2020-07-quantum-machines.html Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Thu, 30 Jul 2020 08:30:01 EDT news515316457 A joint research team from the University of Hong Kong (HKU), Institute of Â鶹ÒùÔºics at Chinese Academy of Science, Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Beihang University in Beijing and Fudan University in Shanghai, has provided a successful example of modern era quantum material research. By means of the state-of-art quantum many-body simulations, performed on the world's fastest supercomputers (Tianhe-I and Tianhe-III protype at National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin and Tianhe-II at National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou), they achieved accurate model calculations for a rare-earth magnet TmMgGaO4 (TMGO). They found that the material, under the correct temperature regime, could realize the the long-sought-after two-dimensional topological Kosterlitz-Thouless (KT) phase, which completed the pursuit of identifying the KT physics in quantum magnetic materials for half a century. The research work has been published in Nature Communications. /news/2020-06-quantum-material-discovery-materials-benefit.html Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Tue, 16 Jun 2020 11:12:01 EDT news511524717 Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy helps chemists and other scientists identify and explore atomic structures. However, NMR is limited by the availability of catalogs of reference data to compare and identify structures. /news/2020-06-cutting-edge-paves-future-nmr-spectroscopy.html Materials Science Mon, 15 Jun 2020 08:11:03 EDT news511427460 Most traditional electromagnetic methods for detecting hidden metal objects involve systems that are heavy, bulky and require lots of electricity. /news/2020-01-power-metal-detector-magnetic-fingerprints.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Tue, 21 Jan 2020 14:13:21 EST news498838394 Biochemists can use electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) on protein single crystals to determine the ultimate electronic structure of paramagnetic protein intermediates and investigate the relative magnetic tensor to a molecular structure. The method is, however, withheld by typical protein crystal dimensions (0.05 to 0.3 mm) that do not provide sufficient signal intensity during protein crystallography. In a new study on Science Advances, Jason W. Sidabras and an interdisciplinary research team in the departments of Chemical Energy Conversion, Photobiotechnology, Institute for Biology and Experimental Â鶹ÒùÔºics in Germany presented a microwave self-resonant microhelix to quantify nanoliter samples. The scientists implemented the technique in a commercial X-band (mid-range frequency; 9.5 GHz) EPR spectrometer. The self-resonant microhelix provided a measured signal-to-noise improvement compared to other commercial EPR resonators. The work enables advanced EPR techniques to study protein single crystals for X-ray crystallography, without size-related exclusions or challenges. To demonstrate the method, Sidabras et al. used single crystal protein [FeFe]-hydrogenase (from Clostridium pasteurianum) with 0.3 mm by 0.1 mm by 0.1 mm dimensions. /news/2019-11-electron-paramagnetic-resonance-epr-spectroscopy.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Mon, 04 Nov 2019 10:33:48 EST news492086010 Quantum simulation plays an irreplaceable role in diverse fields, beyond the scope of classical computers. In a recent study, Keren Li and an interdisciplinary research team at the Center for Quantum Computing, Quantum Science and Engineering and the Department of Â鶹ÒùÔºics and Astronomy in China, U.S. Germany and Canada. Experimentally simulated spin-network states by simulating quantum spacetime tetrahedra on a four-qubit nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) quantum simulator. The experimental fidelity was above 95 percent. The research team used the quantum tetrahedra prepared by nuclear magnetic resonance to simulate a two-dimensional (2-D) spinfoam vertex (model) amplitude, and display local dynamics of quantum spacetime. Li et al. measured the geometric properties of the corresponding quantum tetrahedra to simulate their interactions. The experimental work is an initial attempt and a basic module to represent the Feynman diagram vertex in the spinfoam formulation, to study loop quantum gravity (LQG) using quantum information processing. The results are now available on Communication Â鶹ÒùÔºics. /news/2019-10-quantum-spacetime-simulator.html Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Fri, 18 Oct 2019 08:00:01 EDT news490599538 The isolation of graphene more than a decade ago transformed the landscape of condensed-matter physics, as the single-atom-thick, two-dimensional material exhibited high crystal and electronic quality to represent a conceptually new class of quantum materials. Â鶹ÒùÔºicists and engineers have since explored a vast family of two-dimensional crystals known as transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) in which electrons exist in layers with insulating, conducting or semiconducting properties, although little attention has been directed to investigate superconductivity in the 2-D crystals. Ongoing work in the field continues to provide surprisingly fertile ground for applications in low dimensional physics. /news/2019-04-evidence-pair-density-pdw-spin-valley.html Condensed Matter Superconductivity Tue, 09 Apr 2019 09:40:01 EDT news474014594 Gravitational waves – the invisible ripples in the fabric of space predicted by Albert Einstein – are opening up a new era of astronomy that is allowing scientists to see parts of the universe once thought to be invisible, such as black holes, dark matter and theoretical subatomic particles called axions. /news/2019-04-gravitational-expose-black-holes-dark.html Astronomy Fri, 05 Apr 2019 10:30:02 EDT news473676151 With a newly developed neutron tomography technique, an HZB team has mapped for the first time magnetic field lines inside materials at the BER II research reactor. Tensorial neutron tomography promises new insights into superconductors, battery electrodes and other energy-related materials. /news/2018-10-neutrons-scan-magnetic-fields-samples.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Fri, 05 Oct 2018 07:47:33 EDT news457944447 (Â鶹ÒùÔº)—For the first time, scientists have determined the equation of state of an infinite chain of hydrogen atoms, which tells the amount of energy each hydrogen atom has, given the bond length between adjacent atoms. /news/2017-10-scientists-many-electron-problem-infinite-chain.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Mon, 09 Oct 2017 09:30:03 EDT news426737356 Five years ago, Emory neuroscientist Gregory Berns became the first to capture images of actual canine thought processes. To explore the minds of the oldest domesticated species, the Berns lab trained dogs to remain still and alert while undergoing functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)—the same tool that is unlocking secrets of the human brain. The project opened a new door into canine cognition and social cognition of other species. /news/2017-09-neuroscientist-explores-dog.html Plants & Animals Fri, 08 Sep 2017 06:55:00 EDT news424072490 (Â鶹ÒùÔº)—Dynamic holograms allow three-dimensional images to change over time like a movie, but so far these holograms are still being developed. The development of dynamic holograms may now get a boost from recent research on optical metasurfaces, a type of photonic surface with tunable optical properties. /news/2017-03-electrically-tunable-metasurfaces-pave-dynamic.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 02 Mar 2017 09:30:01 EST news407649027