https://phys.org/physics-news/ en-us The latest news in physics, materials science, quantum physics, optics and photonics, superconductivity science and technology. Updated Daily. Researchers at ETH Zurich have realized particularly stable quantum logical operations with qubits made of neutral atoms. Since these operations, called quantum gates, are based on geometric phases, they are extremely robust against experimental noise and can be used in quantum computers in the future. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-robust-noise-geometric-phase-swap.html Quantum Physics Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:20:05 EDT news694872394 For years, Rutgers physicist David Shih solved Rubik's Cubes with his children, twisting the colorful squares until the scrambled puzzle returned to order. He didn't expect the toy to connect to his research, but recently he realized the logic behind the puzzle was exactly what he needed to solve a problem involving particle physics. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ai-rubik-cube-solver-particle.html General Physics Wed, 08 Apr 2026 15:20:04 EDT news694871223 A new analysis reveals what happens when very short or narrow electron beams encounter a particle. The research is published in the New Journal of Physics. Scientists should be able to achieve a new level of control over high-energy electrons interacting with a particle, according to the theoretical analysis by a RIKEN physicist and two colleagues. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-electronatom-encodes-quantum-state-electron.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 08 Apr 2026 13:40:02 EDT news694869137 Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have reported important progress in quantum physics and materials science by optically initializing, controlling, and reading out nuclear spin states in a molecular material for the first time. Because of their weak interaction with the environment, nuclear spins are particularly stable quantum information carriers. The research, published in Nature Materials, shows that molecular nuclear spins could be a promising building block for future quantum technologies. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-optical-nuclear-molecules-paths-quantum.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 08 Apr 2026 13:00:01 EDT news694866541 When fundamental particles are heavier or lighter than expected, physicists' understanding of the universe can tip into the unknown. A particle that is just beyond its predicted mass can unravel scientists' assumptions about the forces that make up all of matter and space. But now, a new precision measurement has reset the balance and confirmed scientists' theories, at least for one of the universe's core building blocks. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-physicists-mass-fundamental-boson-particle.html General Physics Wed, 08 Apr 2026 12:00:08 EDT news694775101 Nearly every object we interact with in our lives has a mass, but where does this mass come from? Modern physics says matter acquires its mass from interaction with a physical vacuum—it is not an empty space, but contains a complex structure. Investigating the system of a meson—a composite particle made of a quark, an elementary particle, and its anti-matter, anti-quark—bound to an atomic nucleus, a mesic nucleus, provides precious insight into the vacuum structure, or mass generation mechanism. Scientists are now one step closer to further understanding the origin of mass thanks to new experimental results on a completely new type of mesic nucleus. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-mesic-nuclei-reveal-mass.html General Physics Tue, 07 Apr 2026 16:50:01 EDT news694797241 In a new Nature Physics publication, University of Amsterdam researchers introduce human-made materials that spring to life. These 'metamaterials' don't just learn to change shape, but can autonomously adapt their shape-changing strategy, perform reflex actions and move around like living systems do. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-metamaterial-chains-hinge.html General Physics Tue, 07 Apr 2026 14:20:05 EDT news694780502 Near-infrared spectroscopy, or fNIRS, offers a way to monitor brain activity without surgery or radiation by tracking changes in blood flow and oxygenation. Light sources placed on the scalp send near-infrared light into the head, and detectors measure the light that scatters back. Because this light must pass through the scalp and skull before reaching the brain, the measured signal always includes a mix of superficial and cerebral contributions. Separating those signals has long been a central challenge for fNIRS researchers. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-layered-approach-sharpens-brain-optical.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 07 Apr 2026 10:20:03 EDT news694772401 Mid-circuit measurements are one of the biggest practical hurdles in quantum error correction on encoded qubits. Researchers in Innsbruck and Aachen have now proposed and experimentally demonstrated that a universal fault-tolerant quantum algorithm can be executed without such measurements. Using a trapped-ion quantum processor, the team successfully ran Grover's quantum search algorithm on three logical qubits. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-quantum.html Quantum Physics Tue, 07 Apr 2026 09:20:05 EDT news694770721 Materials that repel water are used in countless applications, including industrial separation processes, routine laboratory pipetting, and medical devices. When water touches these surfaces, the interface where they meet tends to acquire a small electrical charge—an effect that is ubiquitous, yet poorly understood. KAUST researchers have now studied this in detail and their findings could have broad implications. The findings are published in the journal Langmuir. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-repelling-surfaces-reveal-effects.html Soft Matter Mon, 06 Apr 2026 18:40:01 EDT news694699416 The doctoral thesis of Sophia Hollick, Ph.D. '25, a recent graduate of Yale's Wright Lab in professor Reina Maruyama's group, has significantly contributed to answering a decades-long question in her field about whether or not a signal observed in an experiment that has taken data since 1997 was indicative of a direct detection of dark matter. The results of her analysis, which have excluded the dark matter explanation with greater confidence, were published in Physics Review Letters in the article "Combined Annual Modulation Dark Matter Search with COSINE-100 and ANAIS-112." https://phys.org/news/2026-04-refute-dark.html General Physics Mon, 06 Apr 2026 17:40:04 EDT news694698063 Most people think of diamonds as high-end adornments. Not Ania Bleszynski Jayich. The UC Santa Barbara physicist sees diamonds, which she grows in the UC Quantum Foundry, as a potentially powerful foundation for quantum sensors. Sensors are currently much farther along in their development than other potential quantum applications. Diamond sensors are particularly promising because diamonds require relatively few quantum bits (qubits) to operate, whereas a quantum computer, for instance, requires more than 100,000, perhaps as many as a million, qubits to handle error correction, one of the main hurdles for quantum computing. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-mechanical-boost-diamond-quantum-sensor.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:30:01 EDT news694710121 Quantum mechanics tells us that a particle can never be perfectly still. But how precisely can it be oriented? A research team at the University of Vienna, together with colleagues at TU Wien and Ulm University, has now cooled the rotational motion of a levitated silica nanorotor all the way to its quantum ground state—in two orientational degrees of freedom. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-quantum-ground-state-rotation-dimensions.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 06 Apr 2026 12:20:03 EDT news694688821 The electrons that power our society flow left and right through the circuitry in our electronics, back and forth along the transmission lines that make up our power grid, and up and down to light up every floor of every building. But the electrons in newly discovered "moiré crystals" move in much stranger ways. They can move left and right, back and forth, or up and down in our three-dimensional world, but these electrons also act as if they can teleport in and out of a mysterious fourth dimension of space that is perpendicular to our perceivable reality. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-electrons-moir-crystals-explore-higher.html Condensed Matter Mon, 06 Apr 2026 10:00:03 EDT news694685941 A research team has, for the first time in the world, elucidated the microscopic mechanism by which quantum order is lost and collapses in "open quantum environments" existing in nature. Since perfectly isolated quantum systems cannot exist in reality, this study is expected to provide a decisive breakthrough in bridging the gap between ideal quantum theory and quantum technologies that must operate in real-world environments. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-microscopic-mechanism-quantum-collapse-real.html Quantum Physics Sat, 04 Apr 2026 12:00:03 EDT news694089960 Detecting a single particle of light is hard; detecting a single microwave photon is even harder. Microwave photons, the tiny packets of electromagnetic radiation used in current technologies like Wi-Fi and radar, carry far less energy than visible light. They are about 100,000 times weaker than optical photons. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-tiny-detector-microwave-photons-advance.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 03 Apr 2026 14:00:05 EDT news694368242 Can a handful of atoms outperform a much larger digital neural network on a real-world task? The answer may be yes. In a study published in Physical Review Letters, a team led by Prof. Peng Xinhua and Assoc. Prof. Li Zhaokai from the University of Science and Technology of China of the Chinese Academy of Sciences demonstrated that a quantum processor comprising just nine interacting spins outperforms classical networks with thousands of nodes in realistic weather forecasting tasks. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-small-quantum-outperforms-large-classical.html Quantum Physics Fri, 03 Apr 2026 12:00:04 EDT news694432081 Quantum states are notoriously fragile, and can be destroyed simply through interactions, measurements, and exposure to their surrounding environments. In a new theoretical study published in Physical Review X, Rohan Mittal and colleagues at the University of Cologne have discovered a new way to protect quantum behavior on large scales within systems driven far from equilibrium. Their results could have promising implications for the design of more robust quantum devices. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-quantum-coherence-large-scales-realistic.html Condensed Matter Fri, 03 Apr 2026 08:20:01 EDT news694340197 Quantum mechanics is extremely successful at describing the behavior of matter at the atomic level. This success forces one to accept that certain aspects of physical reality go far beyond our intuition. Among these, none is more intriguing than the concept of quantum entanglement, which mathematically describes how two particles that have at some point in the past interacted with each other retain a memory of this interaction to such an extent that acting on one of the two particles has a measurable influence on the properties of the other particle, even if the two have long ago stopped interacting and may be separated by such a vast distance that communication between them is no longer possible. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-quantum-entanglement-electrons-ions-captured.html Quantum Physics Thu, 02 Apr 2026 16:20:03 EDT news694359361 A team of researchers has identified atomic distortions that may be linked with high-temperature superconductivity in a promising class of nickel-based materials, offering new insight into how next-generation superconductors might be designed. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-atomic-distortions-reveal-clues-superconductivity.html Condensed Matter Thu, 02 Apr 2026 16:00:04 EDT news694354637 Most laser sources produce Gaussian beams that diverge as they propagate. This natural spreading limits their effectiveness in applications that require light to remain concentrated over long distances. To overcome this challenge, structured light beams have been developed, whose amplitude, phase, and polarization can be carefully controlled. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-compact-flat-lens-generate-nondiffracting.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 02 Apr 2026 15:00:02 EDT news694351201 Researchers at IPhT (CEA, CNRS) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona have shown that gravity—and with it, supersymmetry—emerge as logical necessities whenever a massive spin-3/2 particle exists in nature. Two principles are enough: causality, the fact that no signal can travel faster than light, and unitarity, the requirement that probabilities are conserved in quantum mechanics. The structure of supergravity is not assumed: it bootstraps itself. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-gravity-positivity-massive-particle-logically.html General Physics Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:00:05 EDT news694343281 Australia's bid to detect elusive dark matter has taken a major step forward, with new research confirming that cosmic radiation levels deep inside the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL) are low enough to support the world-class experiment that will commence later this year. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-underground-lab-crucial-hurdle-dark.html General Physics Thu, 02 Apr 2026 11:40:01 EDT news694342788 For the first time, an international team of physicists has successfully harnessed a rare orbital transition in atoms of ytterbium to create a new type of atomic clock that is both highly precise and extremely sensitive to fundamental physical effects. Publishing their results in Nature Photonics, the researchers, led by Taiki Ishiyama at Kyoto University, say their approach could pave the way for some of the most stringent tests yet of predictions made by the Standard Model. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ytterbium-atomic-clock-window-fundamental.html General Physics Thu, 02 Apr 2026 10:00:01 EDT news694338430 Imagine you're trying to build a very long, complicated chain of dominoes. The aim is that each domino hits the next one perfectly, all the way down the line, producing an amazing result at the end. A quantum circuit is like a domino chain: a long chain of tiny steps ("operations") that work together to process information together in a powerful way. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-noise-limits-today-quantum-circuits.html Quantum Physics Thu, 02 Apr 2026 05:00:05 EDT news694191002 A University of Sydney quantum physicist has developed a new approach to quantum error correction that could significantly reduce the number of physical qubits required to build large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers. The study, co-authored by Dr. Dominic Williamson from the School of Physics, is titled "Low-overhead fault-tolerant quantum computation by gauging logical operators" and published in Nature Physics. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-approach-quantum-error-portends-scalable.html Quantum Physics Thu, 02 Apr 2026 05:00:03 EDT news694191061 Hidden features uncovered in X-ray signals are set to overturn a key scientific theory and fundamentally change how X-rays are interpreted across fields of physics, chemistry, biology and materials science, new research reveals. Researchers say the discovery can help scientists measure X-rays more precisely and reliably, and improve our understanding of common materials, from battery materials to biological proteins. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-hidden-features-rays-radically.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 01 Apr 2026 17:00:03 EDT news694264321 Superconductivity—the ability of a material to conduct electricity without any energy loss to heat—enables highly efficient, ultra-fast electronics essential for advanced technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, particle accelerators and, potentially, quantum computers. New research has now revealed that iron telluride (FeTe), a compound composed of the chemical elements iron and tellurium and long thought to be an ordinary magnetic metal, is in fact a superconductor. The researchers found that hidden excess iron atoms induce the material's magnetism, and removing these atoms allows electricity to flow with zero resistance. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-superconductivity-material-thought-magnetic.html Condensed Matter Wed, 01 Apr 2026 16:40:01 EDT news694263182 The direction in which the electromagnetic field of circularly polarized light rotates can be easily reversed by applying a voltage, RIKEN researchers have demonstrated. This could enable a new generation of optical devices based on circularly polarized light. The work is published in two papers in the journal Advanced Materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-helical-liquid-crystals-flip-chirality.html Condensed Matter Wed, 01 Apr 2026 16:10:01 EDT news694273141 Quantum computers of the future may be closer to reality thanks to new research from Caltech and Oratomic, a Caltech-linked start-up company. Theorists and experimentalists teamed up to develop a new approach for reducing the errors that riddle today's rudimentary quantum computers. Whereas these machines were previously thought to require millions of qubits to work properly (qubits being the quantum equivalent to 1's and 0's in classical computers), the new results indicate that a fully realized quantum computer could be built with as few as 10,000 to 20,000 qubits. The need for fewer qubits means that quantum computers could, in theory, be operational by the end of the decade. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-quantum-built-qubits-team.html Quantum Physics Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:20:04 EDT news694260841