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. Photodetectors remain a critical component in the development of advanced electronics and photonics, particularly in the role of signal readout through the conversion of photons into electrons. These digital imaging components are ubiquitous in sensors, cameras, adaptive displays, telecommunications, LiDAR systems, health monitoring wearables, and oximeters. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-solar-2d-heterostructure-responsivity-gain.html Nanophysics Tue, 05 May 2026 16:40:05 EDT news697195813 A research team has demonstrated that silicon nanospheres can strongly enhance second-harmonic generation (SHG) from an atomically thin semiconductor while preserving the circular polarization information tied to its valley degree of freedom. The study, published in Nano Letters, provides design guidelines for efficient, polarization-preserving nonlinear light sources at the nanoscale. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-silicon-nanospheres-boost-ws-harmonic.html Nanophysics Wed, 25 Mar 2026 19:40:04 EDT news693667158 Atomically thin semiconductors such as tungsten disulfide (WS2) are promising materials for future photonic technologies. Despite being only a single layer of atoms thick, they host tightly bound excitons—pairs of electrons and holes that interact strongly with light—and can efficiently generate new colors of light through nonlinear optical processes such as second-harmonic generation. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-air-programmable-mie-voids-boost.html Nanophysics Mon, 02 Mar 2026 16:30:01 EST news691687622 A nanostructure made of silver and an atomically thin semiconductor layer can be turned into an ultrafast switching mirror device that may function as an optical transistor—with a switching speed around 10,000 times faster than an electronic transistor. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-ultrafast-atomically-thin-semiconductors-rapid.html Nanophysics Wed, 21 Jan 2026 14:35:57 EST news688228502 Controlling light is an important technological challenge—not just at the large scale of optics in microscopes and telescopes, but also at the nanometer scale. Recently, physicists at the University of Amsterdam published a clever quantum trick that allows them to make a nanoscale mirror that can be turned on and off at will. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-quantum-phenomenon-enables-nanoscale-mirror.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 08 Jan 2026 14:42:38 EST news687105721 Excitons are pairs of bound negatively charged electrons and positively charged holes that form in semiconductors, enabling the transport of energy in electronic devices. These pairs of charge carriers also emerge in transition metal dichalcogenides, thin semiconducting materials comprised of a transition metal and two chalcogen atoms. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-exciton-moir-superlattices-method-leverages.html Condensed Matter Sun, 21 Dec 2025 14:10:02 EST news685365916 Quantum technologies from ultrasensitive sensors to next-generation information processors depend on the ability of quantum bits, or qubits, to maintain their delicate quantum states for a sufficiently long time to be useful. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-quantum-ready-2d-materials.html Condensed Matter Mon, 08 Dec 2025 17:12:21 EST news684436321 In a world-first, researchers from the Femtosecond Spectroscopy Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have directly observed the evolution of the elusive dark excitons in atomically thin materials, laying the foundation for new breakthroughs in both classical and quantum information technologies. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-dark-valleytronics-excitons-atomically-thin.html Condensed Matter Thu, 25 Sep 2025 09:21:31 EDT news678010886 Moiré superlattices are periodic patterns formed when two or more thin semiconducting layers are stacked with a small twist angle or lattice mismatch. When 2D materials form these patterns, their electronic, mechanical, and optical properties can change significantly. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-trilayer-moir-superlattices-tunable-exciton.html Condensed Matter Fri, 12 Sep 2025 07:20:02 EDT news676805619 In the nanometer range (billionth of a meter), interactions occur between light and matter that do not happen on larger scales. As such, so-called nanophotonic materials have unique optical properties that open up a whole range of technical possibilities. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-ultrathin-resonators-standard-efficient.html Nanophysics Thu, 29 May 2025 12:09:11 EDT news667739344 A moiré pattern appears when you stack and rotate two copies of an image with regularly repeating shapes, turning simple patterns of squares or triangles into a groovy wave pattern that moves across the combined image in an optical delight. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-moir-eye-phasons-enable-interlayer.html Nanophysics Mon, 24 Mar 2025 13:03:04 EDT news662040182 Amplified spontaneous emission is a physical phenomenon that entails the amplification of the light spontaneously emitted by excited particles, due to photons of the same frequency triggering further emissions. This phenomenon is central to the functioning of various optoelectronic technologies, including lasers and optical amplifiers (i.e., devices designed to boost the intensity of light). https://phys.org/news/2025-03-amplified-spontaneous-emission-electron-hole.html Condensed Matter Mon, 17 Mar 2025 09:00:02 EDT news661175634 Leveraging the principles of quantum mechanics, quantum computers can perform calculations at lightning-fast speeds, enabling them to solve complex problems faster than conventional computers. In quantum technology applications such as quantum computing, light plays a central role in encoding and transmitting information. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-unity-quantum-efficiency-2d-photon.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 17 Dec 2024 16:05:05 EST news653673899 Electrons typically travel at high speeds, zipping through matter unbound. In the 1930s, physicist Eugene Wigner predicted that electrons could be coaxed into stillness at low densities and cold temperatures, forming an electron ice that would later be called the Wigner crystal. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-scientists-capture-images-quantum-phase.html Condensed Matter Thu, 07 Nov 2024 12:05:03 EST news650203501 A U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) multi-disciplinary team developed a new paradigm for the control of quantum emitters, providing a new method for modulating and encoding quantum photonic information on a single photon light stream. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-paradigm-quantum-emitters-modulating-encoding.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 31 Oct 2024 14:15:38 EDT news649602935 In 2018, a discovery in materials science sent shock waves throughout the community. A team showed that stacking two layers of graphene—a honeycomb-like layer of carbon extracted from graphite—at a precise "magic angle" turned it into a superconductor, says Ritesh Agarwal of the University of Pennsylvania. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-theoretical-physicist-uncovers-layers-material.html Nanophysics Fri, 04 Oct 2024 09:10:18 EDT news647251802 Researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and several collaborating institutions have successfully demonstrated an innovative approach to find breakthrough materials for quantum applications. The study is published in the journal Nature Communications. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-approach-discovery-quantum-materials.html Condensed Matter Wed, 17 Jul 2024 12:09:05 EDT news640436942 An international research team led by Professor My Ali El Khakani of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) has made a surprising discovery about the properties of molybdenum disulfide, also known as MoS2. The material is highly sought after in optoelectronics. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-synthesis-method-mos-optoelectronic.html Nanophysics Thu, 11 Jul 2024 12:36:24 EDT news639920181 Lenses are used to bend and focus light. Normal lenses rely on their curved shape to achieve this effect, but physicists from the University of Amsterdam and Stanford University have made a flat lens of only three atoms thick that relies on quantum effects. This type of lens could be used in future augmented reality glasses. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-scientists-thinnest-lens-earth-enabled.html Nanophysics Thu, 30 May 2024 11:06:03 EDT news636285961 In a study published in Science Advances, Prof. Wang Can from the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Prof. Xu Xiulai of Peking University have demonstrated for the first time the dependence of valley polarization switching and polarization degree on the moiré period by twist engineering in electrically controlled transition metal dichalcogenide heterobilayers (hBLs). https://phys.org/news/2024-05-angle-moir-lattice-valley-polarization.html Condensed Matter Wed, 22 May 2024 09:48:03 EDT news635590081 MIT physicists and colleagues have created a five-lane superhighway for electrons that could allow ultra-efficient electronics and more. The work, reported in the May 9 issue of Science, is one of several important discoveries by the same team over the last year involving a material that is essentially a unique form of pencil lead. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-physicists-lane-superhighway-electrons.html Condensed Matter Mon, 13 May 2024 16:46:28 EDT news634837585 A study of oxygen molecules interacting with atomically thin layers of materials being developed as new generations of semiconductors could significantly improve control over the fabrication and applications of these two-dimensional (2D) materials. https://phys.org/news/2024-04-defect-2d-semiconductor-crystals-oxygen.html Nanomaterials Thu, 11 Apr 2024 13:21:54 EDT news632060511 Researchers from SUTD have developed an advanced system of breast cancer cell detection with improved speed and sensitivity, using a viral mechanism to enhance the tool's sensing accuracy. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-viral-nanomaterial-cancer-sensor-early.html Bio & Medicine Tue, 19 Dec 2023 10:50:27 EST news622205421 When a negatively charged electron and a positively charged hole in a pair remain bound together following excitation by light, they produce states known as excitons. These states can influence the optical properties of materials, in turn enabling their use for developing various technologies. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-formation-excitonic-mott-insulator-state.html Condensed Matter Mon, 27 Nov 2023 09:10:01 EST news620039139 The way light interacts with naturally occurring materials is well-understood in physics and materials science. But in recent decades, researchers have fabricated metamaterials that interact with light in new ways that go beyond the physical limits imposed on naturally occurring materials. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-atomic-sheets-materials.html Nanophysics Fri, 10 Nov 2023 09:29:03 EST news618830941 Exciton polaritons, hybrid quasiparticles caused by the strong exciton-photon coupling, constitute a unique prototype for studying many-body physics and quantum photonic phenomena traditionally in cryogenic conditions. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-nonlinear-exciton-polaritons-ws2-monolayer.html Condensed Matter Fri, 13 Oct 2023 09:26:03 EDT news616407961 Light can excite electron and hole pairs inside semiconducting materials. If the attraction between a negatively charged electron and a positively charged hole (the antiparticle of electron in solid state physics) is strong, they stay bound together, forming states known as excitons. In these states, positively charged holes can be viewed as the vacancies left behind by the electrons they are paired with. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-excitons-moir-superlattices.html Condensed Matter Thu, 28 Sep 2023 09:55:02 EDT news615113693 Researchers at the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology have developed a coherent and controllable spin-optical laser based on a single atomic layer. This discovery is enabled by coherent spin-dependent interactions between a single atomic layer and a laterally confined photonic spin lattice, the latter of which supports high-Q spin-valley states through the photonic Rashba-type spin splitting of a bound state in the continuum. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-atomic-scale-spin-optical-laser-horizon-optoelectronic.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 06 Sep 2023 10:05:04 EDT news613213501 The interaction of light and matter on the nanoscale is a vital aspect of nanophotonics. Resonant nanosystems allow scientists to control and enhance electromagnetic energy at volumes smaller than the wavelength of the incident light. As well as allowing sunlight to be captured much more effectively, they also facilitate improved optical wave-guiding and emissions control. The strong coupling of light with electronic excitation in solid-state materials generates hybridized photonic and electronic states, so-called polaritons, which can exhibit interesting properties such as Bose-Einstein condensation and superfluidity. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-metasurface-enables-strong-coupling-effects.html Nanophysics Fri, 23 Jun 2023 10:04:56 EDT news606733494 When some semiconductors absorb light, excitons (or particle pairs made of an electron bound to an electron hole) can form. Two-dimensional crystals of tungsten disulfide (WS2) have unique exciton states that are not found in other materials. However, these states are short lived and can change from one to another very quickly. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-imaging-quantum-states-two-dimensional-materials.html Condensed Matter Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:36:03 EDT news606501361