In physics, disordered systems are physical systems whose microscopic constituents (e.g., atoms, spins, impurities, or structural units) lack translational or orientational long-range order and are characterized by randomness in parameters such as positions, couplings, or local potentials. This quenched or annealed disorder crucially affects thermodynamic, transport, and dynamical properties, leading to phenomena such as Anderson localization, glassy dynamics, and complex energy landscapes. Disordered systems are modeled using probabilistic descriptions of disorder realizations and ensemble averages, often requiring techniques from statistical mechanics, random matrix theory, and renormalization group methods to analyze emergent macroscopic behavior and phase transitions in the presence of randomness.
Physicists at Auburn University have used flashes of laser light to bring order to tiny electrically charged "islands" inside a crystal. The discovery helps answer a decades-old question about how the material organizes itself ...
Condensed Matter
Oct 15, 2026
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Understanding and controlling phase transitions are fundamental to physics and central to many technological revolutions. There is currently strong interest in materials with coupled structural and electronic phase transitions, ...
Condensed Matter
Oct 14, 2026
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A study from the Research Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA), one of the centers under the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), presents a new method to reveal hidden material disorder reflected in ...
Nanophysics
Oct 6, 2026
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The bulk photovoltaic effect (BPVE), a photoelectric effect that generates photocurrent without a p–n junction, can persist even when a material's average crystal structure remains centrosymmetric, a study from Institute ...
Condensed Matter
Oct 5, 2026
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When light travels through a strongly scattering material, such as biological tissue or other disordered opaque media, it follows many different paths and produces a seemingly random speckle pattern. Wavefront shaping makes ...
Condensed Matter
Oct 4, 2026
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Electromagnetic waves in the gigahertz (GHz) range, such as those used in mobile communications, can readily pass through many types of glass. However, transmission decreases significantly at terahertz frequencies above a ...
General Physics
Sep 28, 2026
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In a new study published in Physical Review Letters, researchers have shown that magnetic order can survive weak quantum fluctuations in disordered magnets that lack an energy gap. The work establishes robust ferromagnetism ...
A team led by University at Buffalo physicists has found a mathematical solution that shows how a frustrated quantum magnet can transition from ultraslow behavior to ultrafast, highly entangled behavior resembling that of ...
Condensed Matter
Sep 22, 2026
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Before diving into the mystery of glass, theoretical physicist Corentin Laudicina takes us back to high school physics for a moment. Although he has spent years studying exactly what happens in a material during the glass ...
General Physics
Sep 20, 2026
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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 electrons interact with defects in advanced ...
Condensed Matter
Sep 17, 2026
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