All chemistry starts with a push from electrons. In the early moments of a chemical reaction, it's the movement of electrons that initiates the breaking of old chemical bonds and forging of new ones, transforming one molecule ...
General Physics
Aug 5, 2026
0
39
In early 2025, special signals wended their way through a fiber-optic highway strung above the streets and sidewalks of the Maryland suburbs. The arrival of those signals at their destination marks a significant step toward ...
Optics & Photonics
Aug 5, 2026
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34
Lasers have become indispensable in everyday life and research, with applications ranging from data transmission and metrology to manufacturing. Masers, by contrast, have so far found hardly any practical applications.
Condensed Matter
Aug 5, 2026
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64
Dark matter's existence is all but certain—astronomers believe it makes up about a quarter of the universe's total energy content—yet its true identity has eluded us for decades. Two of the leading candidates for dark matter ...
General Physics
Aug 5, 2026
3
42
Chiral phonons are groups of atoms that move in a circular direction when excited by an energy source, such as heat. As the phonons move through a material, they propagate that circular motion, or angular momentum, through ...
Condensed Matter
Aug 5, 2026
0
40
Researchers from the U.S. National Science Foundation National Solar Observatory (NSF NSO), the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany, and the High Altitude Observatory (HAO) in the U.S. have made ...
General Physics
Aug 5, 2026
3
209
One of the most famous and intriguing results of quantum mechanics is the finding that fundamental particles, such as electrons, cannot be pinned down to one single location. Instead, a particle is described by its "wavefunction," ...
Optics & Photonics
Aug 4, 2026
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195
Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) are often described as a "fifth state of matter": a quantum state in which many particles lose their individual identities and behave as one collective object. For more than 60 years, researchers ...
Condensed Matter
Aug 4, 2026
0
36
Scientists from Rice University in the U.S. have developed a way to precisely tune the temperature inside a trapped-ion simulator. The breakthrough means they will be able to run quantum simulations at precise temperatures ...
Even when the lights go out and nuclear reactors are turned off, the story inside the reactor core still has a great deal to tell. Radioactive, long-lived fission products continue to decay for months or even years, producing ...
General Physics
Aug 4, 2026
0
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