https://phys.org/physics-news/materials/ en-us The latest news on Physics, Materials, Science and Technology A research team from Tohoku University, Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd., and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) has invented a new way to efficiently guide spin waves around sharp corners with minimal loss—representing an exciting discovery for energy-efficient computing. Using a two-dimensional magnonic crystal—a copper (Cu) film with a hexagonal array of tiny holes placed on a magnetic garnet film—the team showed through calculations that spin waves travel along a Z-shaped path more than 5,000 times more efficiently than in conventional waveguides. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-boosted-path-approach.html Condensed Matter Thu, 28 May 2026 15:50:01 EDT news699198962 Scientists at the University of California, Riverside are making breakthroughs in understanding how quantum wave functions move across ultra-thin materials—research that could eventually improve solar energy technologies and help lay the groundwork for new forms of quantum computing. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-quantum-vibronics-future-energy-technologies.html Condensed Matter Thu, 28 May 2026 15:00:02 EDT news699191461 Honeycombs are famous for their elegant design, but now they may have found a new application: quantum computing. To collect knowledge from subatomic particles, quantum computers require carefully designed materials capable of performing necessary, complex functions. However, the metals used, such as ruthenium and iridium, are often rare and expensive, limiting the potential to build new technology. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-cobalt-honeycombs-path-quantum.html Condensed Matter Thu, 28 May 2026 11:20:05 EDT news699179222 Quantum mechanics is a physics framework that describes how matter and energy behave at an extremely small scale, specifically at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. An effect predicted by the laws of quantum mechanics is superposition, which entails that particles can exist in multiple states or positions simultaneously, which remain indefinite until they are measured or observed. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-generation-massive-schrdinger-cat-states.html Condensed Matter Thu, 28 May 2026 07:10:01 EDT news698933812 Ultra-fast data transfer and superconductivity: Quantum materials offer significant technological prospects—if we can understand them at the atomic scale. A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), in collaboration with the University of Salerno, the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona, and the National Research Council of Italy, has succeeded in observing the "quantum metric" in a topological insulator—a unique geometric property of these materials, which conduct electricity only on their surface. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-strange-quantum-property-tomorrow-insulator.html Condensed Matter Wed, 27 May 2026 12:20:44 EDT news699096241 Researchers have created a new theoretical framework that shows how memory-preserving "memtransistors" could overcome the intrinsic limits in efficiency faced by conventional semiconductor transistors, imposed by the laws of thermodynamics. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-memory-transistors-bypass-boltzmann-limit.html General Physics Wed, 27 May 2026 07:00:03 EDT news698927164 Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have developed a new procedure, enabling them to speed up elaborate computer simulations that analyze matter under extreme conditions. In particular, this work improves the evaluation of experiments at large-scale research facilities like the European XFEL—and should facilitate substantial progress, among others, in fusion research and laboratory astrophysics. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-imaginary-technique-ray-simulations-extreme.html Condensed Matter Tue, 26 May 2026 10:20:02 EDT news699003482 In the race to develop safer, faster-charging solid-state batteries and more efficient thermoelectric conversion technologies, engineers and scientists have long faced a fundamental challenge: how to ensure ions move through hard, solid materials as quickly as they do in liquids? https://phys.org/news/2026-05-vibrations-fast-ion-superionic-crystals.html Condensed Matter Tue, 26 May 2026 09:20:07 EDT news698999221 Flashes of femtosecond laser light, lasting just a few trillionths of a second, have made it possible to observe new magnetic structures for the first time. By using light as a remote control, researchers were able to switch magnetism into previously unseen three-dimensional states at the nanoscale. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-threedimensional-magnetic-laser.html Condensed Matter Mon, 25 May 2026 17:00:01 EDT news698942462 Many solid materials "remember" their past. A piece of metal may respond differently after being stretched, heated, or cooled, and memory materials rely precisely on this kind of history-dependent behavior. This phenomenon, known as hysteresis, is central to technologies such as memory devices, energy conversion materials, and durable structural materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-rethinking-hysteresis-thermodynamic-framework-history.html General Physics Mon, 25 May 2026 15:00:05 EDT news698939777 The mechanism of high-temperature (TC) superconductivity is a key challenge in condensed matter physics. Recently, Chinese scientists made significant progress in the study of high-TC nickelate superconductors. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-nickelate-reveals-nodeless-gap-key.html Condensed Matter Fri, 22 May 2026 16:40:02 EDT news698673481 An unusual thermoelectric effect has been observed in the semiconductor tellurium by RIKEN physicists for the first time. This demonstration points to the potential of similar materials to be used in applications such as energy harvesting and advanced heat management. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-unusual-nonlinear-thermoelectric-effect-chiral.html Condensed Matter Thu, 21 May 2026 12:40:13 EDT news698581321 A research team in China has reported a significant piezoelectric effect in ultrathin and ultra-flexible polycrystalline diamond membranes. This pioneering discovery challenges a century-long scientific dogma that diamonds are strictly non-piezoelectric. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-piezoelectric-effect-diamond-membranes-century.html Condensed Matter Thu, 21 May 2026 12:20:05 EDT news698578321 Like so much else in nature, the human visual system has both a complex structure and functional efficiency that is difficult for scientists to replicate. The system is both a sensor and a processor, with the eyes and the brain working together to resolve images with less energy use than anything people have invented. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-optoelectronic-synapse-exceptional-photoresponse-neuromorphic.html Condensed Matter Wed, 20 May 2026 17:20:03 EDT news698508661 How come our universe is full of disorder, when all elementary particles appear to follow strictly ordered laws of physics? And are there organizing principles behind disorder and apparent chaos? https://phys.org/news/2026-05-evolution-glass-chaos.html Condensed Matter Wed, 20 May 2026 15:46:10 EDT news698510725 Today's computers store information using only two values: 0 and 1. But as electronic devices become smaller and reach their limits, scientists are searching for new ways to pack more information into the same space. One idea is to use magnetism. In some materials, atoms behave like tiny magnets that can arrange themselves in different patterns. If each pattern represents a different value, one memory element could store more than just two possibilities. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-ferrotoroidic-material-magnetic-states.html Condensed Matter Tue, 19 May 2026 17:20:04 EDT news698424301 Modern energy demands are soaring as technologies like AI and IoT become more common, and researchers have been working hard to develop hardware that can keep up. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Tokyo has developed an ultrafast and energy-efficient nonvolatile switching device, described in an article published in the journal Science, that may soon be able to significantly reduce power consumption for high-energy demand technologies. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-ultrafast-device-power-optical-electrical.html Condensed Matter Mon, 18 May 2026 16:20:03 EDT news698335116 Quantum materials, materials with properties that are influenced by the laws of quantum mechanics, have attracted considerable attention over the past few decades. Their unique properties make these materials advantageous for the development of numerous cutting-edge technologies, including quantum computers, highly sensitive sensors and energy-efficient electronics. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-wse-reveals-elusive-neutral-quantum.html Condensed Matter Mon, 18 May 2026 07:40:03 EDT news698056753 In recent years, atomically thin materials—crystals only a few atoms thick—have attracted growing attention because they can exhibit physical properties that do not appear in conventional bulk materials. Among them, atomically thin magnetic materials are particularly intriguing, as they can host unconventional magnetic states and offer new possibilities for spin-based electronic technologies. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-bilayer-antiferromagnet-reveals-photocurrent-flips.html Condensed Matter Mon, 18 May 2026 05:00:35 EDT news698069701 Imagine a laptop that never gets hot, a phone that holds its charge for days, or a computer memory chip designed to permanently retain data, even when the power goes out. This is the possibility sitting inside a remarkable family of materials that a team of researchers from the University of Ottawa and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has spent years trying to understand, and they just published a comprehensive roadmap of the field to date in the journal Newton. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-roadmap-paths-room-temperature-quantum.html Condensed Matter Sun, 17 May 2026 18:40:02 EDT news698071930 Two RIKEN physicists have established new theoretical limits for experimentally measurable quantities by viewing solids through a lens of quantum geometry. Their results shed light both on the physics of solids and on quantum mechanics. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-quantum-geometry-theoretical-limits-properties.html Condensed Matter Wed, 13 May 2026 13:09:42 EDT news697896542 Researchers have recently found a new way to summon useful structures in magnetic materials using light, heat, and electric fields. This new method, described in a new study published in Physical Review Letters, may lead to more energy-efficient and flexible technologies for data storage and optical devices. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-liquid-crystal-demand-skyrmions-room.html Condensed Matter Wed, 13 May 2026 12:40:02 EDT news697890165 It's been 37 years since scientists first demonstrated the ability to move single atoms, suggesting the possibility of designing materials atom by atom to customize their properties. Today there are several techniques that allow researchers to move individual atoms in order to give materials exotic quantum properties and improve our understanding of quantum behavior. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-3d-atomic-rearrangement-quantum-defects.html Condensed Matter Wed, 13 May 2026 11:00:10 EDT news697802941 Insulators are materials in which electrons cannot move freely. Past theoretical studies predicted the existence of an unusual insulating state dubbed obstructed atomic insulator (OAI), in which electrons are localized inside a crystal, while their centers of charge lie in empty spaces between atoms, rather than on the atoms themselves. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-atomic-bands-transition-metal-dichalcogenides.html Condensed Matter Wed, 13 May 2026 06:40:02 EDT news697807903 Matter behaves strangely under extreme conditions, and often, remnants of these behaviors are left behind even when conditions return to normal. The Trinity nuclear test in 1945 left behind such remnants, and now, 80 years after the explosion, researchers have identified another unique example of what happens when various materials are heated to temperatures exceeding 1,500 °C (2,730 °F) and put under pressures tens of thousands of times atmospheric pressure. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-years-trinity-nuclear-scientists-molecule.html General Physics Tue, 12 May 2026 12:50:01 EDT news697805584 An international team of researchers, including scientists from HZDR and Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, for the first time directly observed how angular momentum is transferred and conserved within a crystal lattice. Using intense terahertz laser pulses, the researchers were able to selectively control these processes, which unveiled a surprising effect: During the angular momentum transfer, the direction of rotation reverses—caused by the rotational symmetry of the material. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-atoms-vibrate-circular-paths-unexpected.html Condensed Matter Tue, 12 May 2026 10:00:04 EDT news697795861 In new research published in Nature Materials, a team of researchers led by Columbia University chemist Xiaoyang Zhu, in collaboration with fellow Columbians Xavier Roy, Milan Delor, Dmitri Basov, and James McIver, has observed coherent ferrons for the first time. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-coherent-ferrons-polarization-potential-quantum.html Condensed Matter Mon, 11 May 2026 18:30:01 EDT news697738741 Over the past few decades, some physicists worldwide have been investigating unusual particle-like magnetic structures known as topological solitons. These structures could potentially be leveraged to develop new cutting-edge technologies, such as new magnetic memory devices and computing systems. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-laser-isolated-hopfions.html Condensed Matter Fri, 08 May 2026 08:00:03 EDT news697281397 A team of researchers from the Universities of Tübingen, Bayreuth, and Kassel, and the Polish Academy of Sciences has developed a method for precisely controlling the movement of magnetic microparticles based on their size. These suspended particles, known as colloidal particles, range in size from a few tens of nanometers to several micrometers. Controlling them is important for applications such as drug delivery, medical laboratory tests, and the synthesis of new materials. The team's study has now been published in Physical Review Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-magnetic-checkerboard-microparticles-size-paths.html Condensed Matter Thu, 07 May 2026 11:20:01 EDT news697366511 Researchers at The University of Manchester's National Graphene Institute have shown that electrons in ultra-clean graphene can be steered with high precision while keeping their spin information intact, a key requirement for future low-power electronics and quantum devices. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-team-electron-ballistically-graphene.html Condensed Matter Thu, 07 May 2026 11:00:12 EDT news697277102