Quasiparticles & collective excitations as a research area investigates emergent, effective degrees of freedom in many-body systems, where interactions among underlying microscopic constituents give rise to particle-like or mode-like entities such as phonons, magnons, polarons, excitons, and plasmons. This field focuses on formulating and analyzing low-energy effective theories, dispersion relations, lifetimes, and interaction vertices of these excitations using frameworks such as many-body perturbation theory, Green’s functions, field-theoretic methods, and numerical many-body techniques. It plays a central role in understanding transport, superconductivity, topological phases, and nonequilibrium dynamics in condensed matter, ultracold atomic systems, and related quantum materials.
Researchers at McGill University have developed a novel device that generates sound-like particles known as phonons at extremely cold temperatures. The technology could be used to create phonon lasers, with possible applications ...
Optics & Photonics
Apr 27, 2026
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246
Three RIKEN researchers have demonstrated a way to stop problematic "dark modes" from squelching intriguing effects in quantum systems. This advance could help with the development of more versatile quantum devices that can ...
Optics & Photonics
Apr 24, 2026
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26
A novel approach for realizing the one-way quantum synchronization of phonons has been proposed by three theoretical physicists at RIKEN. Importantly, this method is remarkably resilient against practical challenges such ...
Optics & Photonics
Apr 24, 2026
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73
In materials science, if you can understand the "texture" of a material—how its internal patterns form and shift—you can begin to design how it behaves. That's the focus of the work of Zhenglu Li, assistant professor in the ...
Condensed Matter
Apr 24, 2026
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41
Excitons are being explored in materials science and information technology as a means of storing light. These luminous quasiparticles move through individual layers of quantum materials and can absorb and emit light with ...
Nanophysics
Apr 23, 2026
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51
It was a head-spinning discovery. In 2018, researchers in Japan claimed to find concrete evidence of an elusive particle, a Majorana fermion, in a quantum spin liquid called ruthenium trichloride. Majoranas are highly sought-after ...
Condensed Matter
Apr 22, 2026
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125
A compass always points north—or does it? Magnets normally maintain a stable direction of magnetization, pointing from south to north (S→N). However, this direction can change under strong magnetic fields or heat. For example, ...
Nanophysics
Apr 22, 2026
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24
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 ...
Condensed Matter
Apr 21, 2026
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65
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 ...
A joint research team led by Professor Park Kyoung-Duck and Associate Director Suh Yung Doug of the Center for Multidimensional Carbon Materials within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) has succeeded in realizing a high-efficiency ...
Optics & Photonics
Apr 18, 2026
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