Chemists overturn 40-year assumption about a key class of superconductors
Scientists at Warwick have shown that a material treated for 40 years as a uniform, textbook superconductor is in fact a patchwork of different crystal structures throughout its b…
Transfer learning corrects alloy calculations to predict unexplored materials
Metals can be transformed into alloys by adding different elements, allowing their strength, stability and other properties to be tailored. A key parameter for understanding these…
A new rulebook for designing stable dilute alloy catalysts
Dilute alloy catalysts could improve fuel, plastic and pharmaceutical production, but their instability under heat holds back widespread use. Researchers at University of Michigan…
Close-up images show defects locking electrons into stable Wigner solids
A team of researchers led by the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) developed an approach that enabled them to directly observe how e…
Disorder is key to tuning a high-temperature superconductor
Cornell physicists have discovered that minimizing disorder, not varying electron count, is the key factor for controlling superconductivity in the unique material iron selenide (…
A new bridge for quantum networks: Physicists convert microwaves to light using 2D magnets
Physicists at The City College of New York have demonstrated a new way to transfer microwave signals onto light using magnetic waves inside a layered semiconductor. The work estab…
What kills Schrödinger's cat? Underground experiment rules out gravity model for quantum decoherence
Somewhere between the microscopic realm of elementary particles and the macroscopic world of human beings, something strange happens: The rules of quantum physics, which work so e…
Real-time quantum jump in sound observed for first time
A Stanford team has documented the first direct observation of quantum jumps of sound in a mechanical resonator, completing an arc of scientific exploration that started more than…
New benchmark puts quantum computers to the test and reveals their limitations
Quantum computers are no longer theoretical concepts. Today, they are being developed to tackle a range of complex problems, including exploring financial risk, modeling complex m…
Why does laundry get smelly if it stays wet? A textile scientist explains how to fix it
You forget a load in the machine overnight, and by morning it smells worse than before you washed it.
Diamond quantum sensors can detect heart magnetism at room temperature without skin contact
Physicists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have developed a technology that uses quantum sensors to measure biomagnetic signals, such as heart activity. Researchers f…
Robotic lab sets up and runs optics experiments on demand
Every new generation of phone display, television screen and solar panel is the result of precision optics experiments, which use lasers and other light sources to measure the opt…
Is dark matter 'natural?' Physicist puts the question to the test
Dark matter is one of the oldest open problems in physics. It makes up most of the matter in the universe and shapes how galaxies form and move, yet no one has ever directly detec…
Handheld scanner delivers lab-quality chemical composition maps using infrared light
Researchers have developed a compact, handheld mid-infrared imaging spectrometer that can produce high-resolution chemical maps of a sample without using stains or labels. With fu…
New porous diamond created by researchers
Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have created a carbon material with a three-dimensional structure. The material, named diamondiyne, can be described as a porous diamon…
Hot electrons reveal electronic collisions may raise resistance in twisted graphene
When a material heats up, its electrical resistance often rises. The harder question is what, exactly, is getting in the way. The electrons carrying the current may be scattered b…
Thinking outside the binding site: Drug molecule makes a square peg fit a round hole
A square peg doesn't fit a round hole. But what if the peg could change the shape of the hole? A newly developed drug molecule can do something surprisingly similar when binding t…
Mobile trap transports 92 antiprotons by road and stores them for over a month in world first
In March 2026, scientists succeeded in transporting antiprotons by road for the first time in a purpose-built trap loaded on a truck. The BASE collaboration, which realized this e…
Iron, sulfur and purple light unlock greener carbon-carbon bond formation
Much of organic chemistry, including the type used to create and alter medicinal drugs, relies on modifying carbon bonds. Rice University's Julian West has been developing a less …
Roll waves emerge as uniform water flow destabilizes on steep slopes, equations show
When it rains, traveling waves appear on steep asphalt pavement, slowly making their way down the slope. Because these so-called "roll waves" propagate without deforming and are t…
Why you really shouldn't overcook your proteins
The development of cooking was a major milestone in the evolution of human civilization because it made food easier to digest and more energy-efficient. Heating food can also kill…
Without bacteria or chemicals: How methanol and formaldehyde form abiotically in nature
The biopolymer lignin—one of the most important carbon reservoirs in plants and soils—not only decays through fungi or bacteria but can also be chemically attacked by iron linked …
Circular Rydberg atoms set three records, staying stable for 11 milliseconds
Rydberg atoms are considered promising building blocks for quantum computers and their precursors, quantum simulators. Researchers at the 5th Institute of Physics of the Universit…
Sliding droplets point to charging mechanism beyond mobile ions
Whether on a windowpane at home or during the industrial cleaning of computer chips: droplets sliding over solid surfaces become electrically charged. Yet the physical mechanism b…