Phase transitions as a research area investigates qualitative changes in the macroscopic state of matter or systems as control parameters such as temperature, pressure, or external fields are varied, with emphasis on critical phenomena, universality, and order-parameter behavior. It encompasses equilibrium and nonequilibrium transitions, including first- and second-order transitions, symmetry breaking, renormalization-group theory, and scaling laws. The field spans condensed matter physics, statistical mechanics, and interdisciplinary complex systems, using analytical, numerical, and experimental methods to characterize phase diagrams, critical exponents, collective excitations, and emergent structures, and to understand how microscopic interactions give rise to distinct thermodynamic or dynamical phases.
Today's most powerful computers hit a wall when tackling certain problems, from designing new drugs to cracking encryption codes. Error-free quantum computers promise to overcome those challenges, but building them requires ...
Superconductivity
Feb 5, 2026
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When cooled to its superconducting state, niobium blocks the radiative flow of heat 20 times better than when in its metallic state, according to a study led by a University of Michigan Engineering team. The experiment marks ...
Superconductivity
Feb 3, 2026
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Through a combination of high-pressure experiments and optical spectroscopy, physicists have revealed new insights into the structural forms of solid methane. Led by Mengnan Wang at the University of Edinburgh in the UK, ...
Ordinary matter, when cooled, transitions from a gas into a liquid. Cool it further still, and it freezes into a solid. Quantum matter, however, can behave very differently. In the early 20th century, researchers discovered ...
Soft Matter
Jan 28, 2026
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Charge density waves (CDWs) are ordered, crystal-like patterns in the arrangement of electrons that spontaneously form inside some solid materials. These patterns can change how electricity flows through materials, in some ...
Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have a unique resource in the form of the Center for Biomolecular Condensates at the McKelvey School of Engineering, which draws scientists from around the world to study ...
Biotechnology
Jan 26, 2026
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Researchers in the Department of Theoretical Physics at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, have discovered that instead of manipulating every component or modifying interactions in a many-body system, ...
General Physics
Dec 17, 2025
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In a new study published in Nature Physics, researchers have achieved the first experimental observation of a fragile-to-strong transition in deeply supercooled water, resolving a scientific puzzle that has persisted for ...
The Jahn-Teller effect, proposed by Jahn and Teller in 1937, describes how molecules or crystals with degenerate electronic orbitals can lower their total energy by distorting their structure. This distortion lifts the degeneracy, ...
Condensed Matter
Dec 10, 2025
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Researchers have discovered that not all atoms in a liquid are in motion and that some remain stationary regardless of the temperature, significantly impacting the solidification process, including the formation of an unusual ...
Nanophysics
Dec 9, 2025
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