https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. 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 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 Dark matter could be a type of matter in the universe that does not emit, absorb or reflect detectable light and appears to interact very weakly with regular matter. Although physicists have observed gravitational effects attributed to dark matter, they have not yet been able to determine what it is made of. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-gamma-ray-limits-dark-annihilation.html Astronomy Sun, 04 Oct 2026 15:20:01 EDT news709978528 When light travels through a strongly scattering material, such as biological tissue or other disordered opaque media, it follows many different paths and produces a seemingly random speckle pattern. Wavefront shaping makes it possible to control this complex interference and focus light through such materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-giant-fluctuations-focused-reveal-hidden.html Condensed Matter Sun, 04 Oct 2026 08:00:01 EDT news710002088 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 The circular photogalvanic effect (CPGE), a phenomenon that generates helicity-dependent photocurrents in noncentrosymmetric materials, can originate purely from a crystal's internal structure without a contribution from the surface, a study from Science Tokyo reveals. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-mirror-image-crystals-reverse-driven.html Nanophysics Fri, 02 Oct 2026 14:40:12 EDT news710157781 EPFL researchers have developed a chip-based laser that keeps a very stable frequency across its tested operating range, without needing active electronic control. Their research is published in the journal Nature Photonics. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-laser-stays.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 02 Oct 2026 09:20:02 EDT news710149861 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 Light scattered in tissue usually ceases to be a useful source of information. But what if, instead of forcing it to travel along a single path, we allowed it to wander a little differently each time? Scientists from ICTER tested this seemingly risky idea and showed that a series of measurements that differ from one another can produce a clearer image than a single frame. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-approach-imaging.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 01 Oct 2026 09:20:22 EDT news710063761 Researchers from the University of Bath have developed fluorescent molecular probes that can detect changes in glucose levels inside living animals, giving scientists new ways of visualizing sugar uptake and studying diabetes, cancer and other metabolic diseases in whole organisms in real time. The findings are published in the journal Advanced Science. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-fluorescent-sensors-diabetes-action.html Biochemistry Wed, 30 Sep 2026 18:00:01 EDT news709992734 In a new Physical Review Letters study, researchers have demonstrated that bending diamond nanostructures can tune the light they emit without doping. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-nanoribbons-tunes-diamond-emission-doping.html Nanophysics Wed, 30 Sep 2026 15:20:06 EDT news709983577 A new technique for controlling optical components with light could help usher in a generation of high-efficiency signal-processing technology that could drive futuristic applications such as holographic video. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-dyed-liquid-crystals-enable-optical.html Nanophysics Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:20:16 EDT news709915321 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 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 When light or sound bounces around inside an oddly shaped room, its reflections can quickly become difficult to predict. But new research led by scientists at the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) shows that waves can behave very differently when they travel through a special class of materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-chaos-oddly-cavity.html General Physics Mon, 28 Sep 2026 05:00:03 EDT news709561441 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 Orthogonally arranged π-electronic systems that combine electron-donating and electron-accepting units display distinctive electronic and photophysical behavior. Fine-tuning their electronic structure offers a way to control photoinduced electron transfer. Building on this idea, complexing boron with 1,3-diketones and 9-oxidophenalenone may produce electron-deficient cationic π-electronic systems. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-counterions-molecular-materials-electronic-behaviors.html Analytical Chemistry Thu, 24 Sep 2026 19:20:04 EDT news709470841 In the search for extraterrestrial life, it makes sense to first look for rocky planets with an atmosphere, like Earth. Without an atmosphere, a planet can't have surface water. But of the more than 6,300 exoplanets cataloged thus far, the vast majority are not rocky, and only a handful of the rocky worlds appear to have an atmosphere. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-coolest-lava-world-atmosphere-clues.html Astrobiology Thu, 24 Sep 2026 18:20:06 EDT news709469461 Just as a leaf drifts along with a stream, objects in other moving fluids normally drift along with the flow. That is, unless they exert energy to move against it. Although it may be less intuitive, light waves or photons work similarly. To move against a stream of light, an object or particle, like a photon, must either have an external force acting on it or actively use energy to move upstream. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-upstream-quantum-fluid-violating-newton.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 22 Sep 2026 16:10:02 EDT news709310548 Engineers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have designed a new type of quantum nanostructure that could enable optical neural networks. This emerging technology has the potential to make artificial intelligence systems, like large language models and image generation, faster and significantly more energy efficient. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-tiny-quantum-nanostructures-ai-energy.html Nanophysics Tue, 22 Sep 2026 15:40:06 EDT news709307761 Reliably verifying the location of a device connected to the internet or other networks is important for various real-world applications. For instance, it could be valuable for authorizing financial transactions, securing communications and controlling who can access specific databases or services. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-quantum-protocol-device-position-stations.html Quantum Physics Tue, 22 Sep 2026 09:40:03 EDT news709287636 Understanding the origin, acceleration and propagation of high-energy cosmic rays has been a century-old mystery in astrophysics. Recently, joint observations from China's Einstein Probe (EP) satellite and the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) showed an extraordinarily long X-ray tail near a pulsar about 4,600 light-years (27 quadrillion miles) from Earth—one that had never before been seen in full. The tail extends about 42 light-years (250 trillion miles) and stretches in the same direction as ultrahigh-energy gamma-ray emission detected by LHAASO, with the two showing a close spatial match. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-year-ray-tail-links-pulsar.html Astronomy Tue, 22 Sep 2026 03:57:28 EDT news709268201 Students in Cornell's Space Systems Design Studio (SSDS) have released mission results for two unique light-sail experiments. These sails are slightly larger than a pizza box and harness momentum from photons to accelerate to high velocities. With ChipSats onboard—gram-scale spacecraft that fit in the palm of your hand—the sails can become free-flyers. They origami-fold into CubeSats for launch and completely separate when deployed, allowing them to be far smaller and lighter than traditional solar sails. The ChipSats provide all ground communications and steering capabilities for a fraction of the mass and cost. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-student-missions-deploy-free-flying.html Space Exploration Mon, 21 Sep 2026 17:10:02 EDT news709227061 Quantum key distribution allows two users to establish secret keys whose security is grounded in the laws of quantum mechanics. Extending this capability to multiple users is an essential step toward quantum networks that support secure communication among many participants. Quantum cryptographic conferencing addresses this need by enabling multiple users to share the same secure key, which they can then use to protect group communications. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-quantum-communication-protocol-enables-users.html Quantum Physics Mon, 21 Sep 2026 12:00:01 EDT news709207846 Ultrashort laser pulses can be used to generate X-rays. Normally, however, only certain specific frequencies are produced. A team from TU Wien and the University of California San Diego has developed a method that makes it possible to tune the frequency continuously. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ray-guitar-music-frequencies-harmonics.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 21 Sep 2026 09:40:08 EDT news709201204 Photonic integrated circuits route information with optical signals instead of relying only on electrical currents. Silicon (Si) and silicon nitride (SiNx) are excellent photonic platforms for waveguides, but they cannot efficiently perform the ever-increasing tasks required for fully integrated optical systems. A heterogeneous photonic integration platform capable of interfacing different optical materials with high performance is thus an ongoing challenge for both academia and industry. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-photonic-legos-functional-3d-thin.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 21 Sep 2026 06:40:01 EDT news708945868