https://phys.org/physics-news/quantum-physics/ en-us The latest news on quantum physics, wave particle duality, quantum theory, quantum mechanics, quantum entanglement, quantum teleportation, and quantum computing. Modern technological breakthroughs like lasers, MRI scanners, semiconductors and quantum computers rest on the study of quantum mechanics. However, the field has predominantly focused on (sub)atomic phenomena far removed from our human senses. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-quantum-shifting-centimeter-scale-lab.html General Physics Wed, 07 Oct 2026 14:00:50 EDT news710514722 Today, many physicists are actively exploring how light could be used to link objects through quantum entanglement. By fully harnessing the effect, they hope to unlock a wide array of applications, from secure communication networks spanning vast distances to sensitive new tests of the fundamental laws of physics. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-levitating-glass-sphere-entangled-room.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 07 Oct 2026 12:40:13 EDT news710587355 Collisions between particles at high energies can sometimes produce new particles and shed light on interactions between the fundamental constituents of matter. Simulating these collisions and their underlying processes could yield valuable insights into how matter behaves at extremely small scales. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-quantum-shortcut-particle-collisions-easier.html General Physics Wed, 07 Oct 2026 08:00:01 EDT news710065765 Creating a quantum device often begins by intentionally damaging a crystal. Scientists fire an ultrafast laser pulse into a material, knocking atoms out of place and leaving behind tiny imperfections called vacancies. Far from being flaws, these vacancies can behave as qubits—the fundamental building blocks of quantum information. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ray-technique-reveals-quantum-materials.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 06 Oct 2026 17:20:08 EDT news710508661 The world would look radically different without rulers and measuring tapes that fit into a pocket. Carpenters, fashion designers and engineers rely on these trusty tools to check the size of everything from a wooden board to a fabric swatch. But physicists who work with light lack that same convenience for one of the basic measurements of their craft. They routinely need to measure and compare the frequencies—colors—of the light waves they are using. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-chip-based-frequency-potential-portable.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 06 Oct 2026 15:00:10 EDT news710504281 A research team led by the University of Osaka has directly observed, for the first time, an unusual heavy-fermion state forming at the boundary between a one-atom-thick material and a metal. Such states are closely linked to exotic quantum phenomena, including unconventional superconductivity, and the finding opens new possibilities for designing quantum materials through their interfaces. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-heavy-fermions-emerge-atomic-layer.html Condensed Matter Tue, 06 Oct 2026 11:00:24 EDT news710498582 Black holes, despite their extreme nature, are described by surprisingly few basic parameters: their mass, charge and spin. Two black holes may have formed for completely different reasons and passed through very different histories, yet still end up in the same final state. John Wheeler summarized this idea with the famous phrase "black holes have no hair." https://phys.org/news/2026-10-black-hole-disturbance-hawking.html General Physics Tue, 06 Oct 2026 10:00:01 EDT news710416753 Even the most chaotic quantum systems keep a permanent mark of their own past—a "quantum birthmark"—that never fades. Researchers from Tampere University, Harvard University and TU Dresden discovered the feature in their recent study. Their findings shed new light on the elusive relationship between classical and quantum mechanics. Looking ahead, these quantum birthmarks, along with related phenomena known as "scars," could eventually be harnessed to power next-generation nanoelectronics. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-quantum.html General Physics Mon, 05 Oct 2026 16:00:13 EDT news710425290 Many complex quantum systems rapidly lose the recognizable patterns of their initial states as their components interact. To describe patterns of regular and chaotic motion in specific systems, physicists can construct a mathematical map called an effective phase space. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-scientists-uncover-recurrent-patterns-chaotic.html General Physics Mon, 05 Oct 2026 08:00:04 EDT news709981266 When I explain topology to students, I start with a knot in a rope. You can stretch it, twist it or shake it, but the knot stays until you cut the rope. Physicists have found that some materials and devices carry similar "knots" in how waves move through them. These are topological properties, labeled by whole numbers that don't change under small imperfections. That robustness is why topology has become one of the central ideas in modern physics. It promises electronics, photonics and quantum devices that tolerate defects and noise. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-hidden-topology-energy-leaks.html Optics & Photonics Sat, 03 Oct 2026 13:40:01 EDT news710151198 Working in close collaboration, researchers from Paderborn University, the University of Basel and Ruhr University Bochum have made a breakthrough in quantum communication. In their recently published paper in the journal Physical Review Letters, they demonstrate how special semiconductor nanostructures can be used to generate individual photons and pairs of photons that are almost perfectly identical. These "indistinguishable" particles form the basis for quantum entanglement and quantum interference. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-method-generates-indistinguishable-photons-quantum.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 01 Oct 2026 17:40:10 EDT news710077741 Quantum technologies rely on qubits, units of information that can exist in combinations of the states 0 and 1 instead of being limited to one or the other like conventional bits. Qubits can become entangled, which means their states become linked in ways that cannot be explained by considering each qubit separately. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-parallel-gate-entangles-diamond-qubits.html Condensed Matter Thu, 01 Oct 2026 08:40:16 EDT news709820817 By superimposing two ultrashort laser pulses that converge from different directions, a team of physicists at the University of Oldenburg has succeeded in generating three-dimensional light fields. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-3d-fields-electrons-quantum-states.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 30 Sep 2026 13:40:26 EDT news709983422 Researchers at Tohoku University, in collaboration with the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) and the University of Tokyo, have taken an important step toward semiconductor quantum computing using zinc oxide (ZnO). https://phys.org/news/2026-09-zinc-oxide-quantum-dots-enable.html Condensed Matter Wed, 30 Sep 2026 13:20:11 EDT news709981741 Most magnets have two poles: north and south, or positive and negative, in a familiar arrangement called a "dipole." But researchers are increasingly uncovering more complex forms of magnetism. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-physicists-octupolar-magnetism-implications-quantum.html Condensed Matter Wed, 30 Sep 2026 10:40:25 EDT news709975981 In materials chemistry, identifying common parameters that can organize magnetic ground states across complex intermetallic compounds remains a central challenge. Researchers have long used chemically tunable parameters to control magnetic properties. One is valence-electron concentration, commonly discussed as the electron-per-atom (e/a) ratio. The e/a ratio has been widely used to classify magnetic ground states in metallic systems such as Heusler alloys and approximant crystals. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-crystal-spacing-magnetic-states-complex.html Condensed Matter Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:02 EDT news709895521 An international team of physicists has developed a new method for determining the precise color of laser light using an image that rotates as the laser's frequency shifts. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-rotating-pattern-reveals-laser-frequency.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 29 Sep 2026 11:40:10 EDT news709897261 To build the ultrafast computers of the future, scientists are looking beyond the electrical charge of electrons to another property: their spin. While conventional hardware relies on the movement of charge to process data, tapping into this intrinsic quantum property could enable researchers to reinvent how information travels through a circuit. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-experimental-evidence-altermagnetism-layered-material.html Condensed Matter Mon, 28 Sep 2026 18:10:01 EDT news709834861 Quantum batteries are an emerging area of research, with progress coming from theoretical studies and proof-of-principle experiments in small quantum systems. Unlike conventional chemical batteries used in everyday life, they use quantum systems to store and transfer energy. Researchers are exploring them as potential future energy sources for quantum processors and other quantum technologies. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-quantum-batteries-high-power-stable.html Quantum Physics Mon, 28 Sep 2026 15:20:10 EDT news709823941 There's big news from the quantum world. A quantum computer has been used in space for the first time. The device was aboard a spacecraft in low Earth orbit and demonstrated technology that could eventually help solve a problem that has been bugging satellites for years. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-quantum-boldly-space.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 28 Sep 2026 14:40:01 EDT news709820802 A new graph-theoretic framework provides a unified description of atom-light interactions across regimes ranging from weak to deep-strong coupling. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-atom-interaction-uncovers-unbounded-network.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 28 Sep 2026 09:40:10 EDT news709805821 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 in the two-dimensional random-bond quantum Ising model, confirming a longstanding conjecture in quantum statistical mechanics. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-magnetic-survives-weak-quantum-fluctuations.html Condensed Matter Mon, 28 Sep 2026 09:20:01 EDT news709547682 Quantum photonics could be a pivotal part of future quantum technology if the right materials can be created, a new review paper has found. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ultrathin-materials-quantum-circuits-programmable.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 25 Sep 2026 15:40:01 EDT news709554121 We are continuously sending information to each other, transmitting zeros and ones through a giant network of connected computers and devices. Scientists are now trying to extend this familiar concept of the internet to the quantum realm, looking for an efficient way to exchange quantum rather than classical information: qubits instead of bits. The motivation is not just scientific curiosity. Qubits can be a 0, a 1 or any superposition of the two. They can also become entangled, showing a degree of correlation that is out of reach for classical bits. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-rephasing-quantum-memories-photon-states.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 25 Sep 2026 13:10:01 EDT news709556304 An electron's charge is normally fixed, like a coin you can't break into pieces. But if electrons are cooled close to absolute zero and trapped in a two-dimensional layer under a powerful magnetic field, they organize into a collective state of "quasiparticles" that seem to hold only a fraction of an electron's charge. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-rare-quantum-state-reveals-particles.html General Physics Fri, 25 Sep 2026 09:00:08 EDT news709544881 Classical computers can temporarily store the information required to perform specific tasks in a short-term memory component known as RAM (random access memory). This component allows computer processors to retrieve information from a chosen location without searching through all stored data. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-random-access-quantum-memory-processor.html Quantum Physics Fri, 25 Sep 2026 08:00:01 EDT news709464005 A simplified cosmological model suggests that decoherence can suppress quantum tunneling, effectively locking fields into the vacuum state they have reached. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-cosmic-lockdown-environment-isolate-quantum.html General Physics Fri, 25 Sep 2026 00:00:01 EDT news709483741 Strike a bell, and it rings with a pitch and a fading that tell you about the bell: its size, its shape, the metal it is made of. Black holes ring too. When two merge, the newborn black hole shivers and sheds gravitational waves in a brief, dying chord, and since 2015, gravitational-wave detectors have been listening. The notes of that chord, which physicists call quasinormal modes, depend only on the black hole's mass and spin and on the law of gravity itself. Change the law, and the chord changes. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-higher-dimensional-black-holes-exact.html General Physics Thu, 24 Sep 2026 17:20:04 EDT news709463984 Quantum materials do things ordinary materials cannot. They carry current without any loss, or conduct only along their outer edge while the inside insulates. Future quantum computers and quantum sensors will run on materials like these. To improve them, researchers need to see exactly where currents and magnetic fields run at the nanoscale. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-vertical-quantum-sensor-reveal-nanoscale.html Superconductivity Thu, 24 Sep 2026 15:20:06 EDT news709464484 Twistronics has become a new alchemy of materials. By choosing atomically thin layers, stacking them and changing their relative angle, researchers can create electronic behavior absent from the original ingredients. Twisted graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides have already yielded superconductivity and fractional Chern insulators, states with fractionally charged excitations. One of physics' most active frontiers now has a moonshot ambition: to design entirely new forms of quantum matter. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-quantum-possibilities-atomically-thin-materials.html Condensed Matter Thu, 24 Sep 2026 14:00:06 EDT news709397881