Today, I want to walk you through a deceptively simple innovation from the lab at Loughborough University (PI: Prof Marco Peccianti): what happens when we decorate a spintronic heterostructure with a sparse layer of plasmonic nanoparticles? This isn't just a lab curiosity—it's a step toward making terahertz sources more efficient, compact, and practical for real-world applications like high-speed communications, noninvasive imaging, and advanced spectroscopy.
The cosmological constant is the mathematical description of the energy that drives the ever-accelerating expansion of the cosmos. It's also the source of one of the most enduring and confounding problems in modern physics.
Distributed fiber-optic sensors are widely used to monitor temperature and strain in infrastructure, but their spatial resolution has long been limited. In a new study, researchers from Shibaura Institute of Technology and Yokohama National University, Japan, have demonstrated that operating near a previously avoided frequency regime and suppressing signal distortions allows reflection-based sensing to achieve a world-record spatial resolution of 6 mm among single-end-access configurations. This enables precise monitoring of temperature and strain in infrastructure.
A quantum spin liquid is a phase of matter in which the magnetic moments in a material do not align or freeze, even at temperatures close to absolute zero (i.e., at 0 K). The experimental realization of this highly dynamic state could have important implications for the development of quantum computers and other technologies that operate leveraging quantum mechanical effects.
Researchers from Bar-Ilan University have successfully recreated key features of black hole physics in a laboratory setting using an innovative optical system that mimics how black holes behave after violent cosmic events such as collisions or mergers.
Researchers have discovered a new way to tune the quantum properties of tiny defects in diamond—by gently stretching or compressing the crystal. These findings could pave the way for next-generation sensors that can detect pressure, temperature, and other physical changes with unprecedented precision.
Superconductors, materials that can conduct electricity with a resistance of zero, have proved to be highly promising for the development of quantum technologies, medical imaging devices, particle accelerators and other advanced technologies. These materials can be divided into two broad categories: conventional and unconventional superconductors.
Tens of kilometers above Earth's surface, high-energy particles from outer space constantly strike the atmosphere, creating showers of energetic secondary particles that rain down from the sky. Approximately one of these particles passes through your head every second, but the "cosmic rays" that produce them are still not fully understood. In a recent paper posted to the arXiv preprint server, the ATLAS Collaboration describes how its first measurement of proton–oxygen collisions at the LHC could help us learn more about them.
A new technology has been proposed that could fundamentally solve the issue of smartphones overheating during high-spec gaming or extended video streaming. Researchers at KAIST have discovered the principle of processing signals using the minute vibrations of magnets (spin waves) instead of electrons. This method significantly reduces heat generation and power consumption while enabling instantaneous frequency switching within the several GHz range. This breakthrough is expected to pave the way for smart devices with less heat and longer battery life, as well as ultra-low-power, high-speed computing.
Researchers from the University of Twente and Harvard University have developed a new way to generate ultraviolet (UV) light on a photonic chip at power levels high enough for real-world use. For the first time, the technique produces milliwatt-level UV light on a chip. It is an important step for quantum technology, optical atomic clocks and advanced measurement equipment. The research is published in the journal Nature Communications.
As long as there's been an internet, there's been a way to hack it. Scientists have spent decades imagining a different kind of network, one where the laws of physics make eavesdropping physically impossible, not just technically difficult. They call that dream a quantum internet.
Buried within the Antarctic ice are more than 5,000 light sensors that work together to detect some of the highest energy particles in the universe. These tiny particles, called neutrinos, provide insight into the extreme cosmic events that created them as well as phenomena that challenge traditional physics.
Only about 5% of the universe is composed of normal matter that we can directly observe, while the remaining 95% is widely believed to consist of dark matter and dark energy. Paradoxically, however, the nature of these dark components remains unknown. Is this due to limitations in our observational capabilities, or does it reflect a more fundamental incompleteness in the classical laws of physics that have long underpinned our understanding of the universe?
Plasma, the fourth state of matter, consists of a gas in which electrons are no longer bound to atoms, which allows electricity to flow freely. When beams of particles moving close to the speed of light travel through plasma, they disturb electrons and drive so-called plasma waves.
A tiny discrepancy in particle physics has loomed for decades as an exciting possible crack in one of science's most successful theories, hinting at unknown forces or quantum objects. Now, an international team led by a Penn State physicist has published the most precise study yet to reveal the discrepancy was a fluke in calculation, not nature.
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