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. Quantum technologies are considered key technologies of the future. However, research in this field requires not only scientific expertise but sometimes also highly specialized laboratory conditions. Bose–Einstein condensates are a remarkable example, in which atoms move in lockstep, making quantum-mechanical effects visible not only at the level of individual atoms but also on a macroscopic scale. The first Bose–Einstein condensates were observed in ultracold atomic gases at temperatures close to absolute zero. The cooling required to achieve this was technically demanding, costly and restricted to specialized laboratories. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-layered-semiconductor-magnetic-emitted-quantum.html Condensed Matter Thu, 08 Oct 2026 16:00:11 EDT news710679481 Molecular gases are a new form of artificial quantum matter. However, when these molecules collide, they are often lost extremely rapidly. Researchers from Radboud University and Columbia University have been able to suppress this collisional loss, paving the way for strongly interacting quantum matter. This new artificial quantum matter allows researchers to study quantum behavior relevant to electrons in real materials. Their results are published in Science. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-extremely-stable-quantum-gas-lens.html Condensed Matter Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:20:01 EDT news708945122 A new study has demonstrated that it is possible to make a network of atoms and photons that could improve how artificial intelligence stores and recalls memories. This network, called a quantum-optical spin glass, works as an associative memory, a form of AI that enables the recall of full memories from partial information—much like how humans can recognize a person's face in a blurred photograph. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-quantum-optical-glass-ai.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 03 Sep 2026 14:00:01 EDT news707657764 Neutrinos are pervasive yet intangible particles that permeate the universe, streaming through whole planets, stars and our bodies by the trillions each second. The elementary particles are often described as "ghostly" for their near-zero mass and elusive nature, as they have very little interaction with normal matter. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-neutrino-laser-wont-physicists.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 02 Sep 2026 13:20:04 EDT news707567701 A team of researchers from the University of Bonn, Heidelberg University and the National Autonomous University of Mexico has studied the critical behavior of light particles (photons) close to a phase transition. This critical scaling behavior, which sees thermodynamic quantities grow extremely large or diverge shortly prior to Bose-Einstein condensation, had never before been seen in photon gases until the researchers successfully secured precisely this proof. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-particles-reveal-critical-scaling-dimensional.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 27 Aug 2026 04:30:01 EDT news707022164 An international team of researchers has succeeded in producing atomic quantum gas mixtures with an unprecedented particle flux. In the journal Nature Communications, the scientists report on experiments conducted with the MAIUS-B apparatus, in which Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) consisting of two different atomic species—rubidium and potassium—were generated and studied under microgravity conditions in the Einstein Elevator at Leibniz University Hannover in Germany. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-miniaturized-laser-technology-paves-fundamental.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 05 Aug 2026 19:40:04 EDT news705162354 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 have sought to create such condensates from excitons—electron-hole pairs—as a solid-state route to macroscopic quantum coherence, which is useful for quantum technologies. This has been difficult to realize in controllable semiconductor devices because optically generated excitons have very short lifetimes of around a billionth of a second, and BECs are normally attained with ultracold gases in a vacuum. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-quantum-fluid-reveals-hidden-states.html Condensed Matter Tue, 04 Aug 2026 17:40:02 EDT news705076621 Bose–Einstein condensates are states of matter that form when particles called bosons are cooled to temperatures that are only a fraction of a degree above absolute zero (i.e., 0 Kelvin [-460°F]). In these states, particles occupy the same quantum state and exhibit interesting collective behaviors, essentially behaving as if they were a single "super-particle." https://phys.org/news/2026-07-physicists-boseeinstein-condensate-ultracold-polar.html Condensed Matter Thu, 30 Jul 2026 07:40:03 EDT news704539595 Resolving a long-standing problem in semiconductor physics and optoelectronics, a team of researchers from Skoltech—a VEB.RF group institution—and their colleagues from ITMO University and HSE University have for the first time demonstrated direct electrical pumping of a polariton laser based on a solution-processed halide perovskite microcrystal. Published in Nature, this solution to a decades-long technological challenge ushers in inexpensive nonepitaxial laser diodes operating under continuous electric current. These could be used in optical sensing and spectroscopy, high-speed computing and energy-efficient neuromorphic computing. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-electrically-perovskite-polariton-laser-diode.html Condensed Matter Wed, 29 Jul 2026 15:20:06 EDT news704544242 Researchers at RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau have achieved a key experimental breakthrough: For the first time, the spontaneous macroscopic coherence of magnons—the quantized excitations of magnetic materials—has been directly observed. These experiments confirm a central prediction of the theory of magnon Bose-Einstein condensates. Eventually, these findings could open new avenues for signal processing, sensing technologies and information processing. The study has been published in Nature Physics. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-spontaneous-magnon-coherence-room-temperature.html Quantum Physics Tue, 14 Jul 2026 11:40:11 EDT news703241755 In a new study published in Nature Physics, researchers have demonstrated the Hong–Ou–Mandel (HOM) effect with up to 12 indistinguishable neutral atoms—an effect that has been predominantly observed in photonic systems. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-physicists-hongoumandel-atoms.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 30 Jun 2026 12:00:01 EDT news702035661 Two U.S. physicists have suggested that the nine concentric rings surrounding the galaxy LEDA 1313424, also known as the Bullseye galaxy, could have emerged through the quantum behavior of particles of dark matter. Through analysis published in The Astrophysical Journal, Pierre Sikivie and Yuxin Zhao at the University of Florida argue that the extraordinary structure wasn't created by a collision between galaxies, as previous theories had suggested—but by a Bose-Einstein condensate of axions. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ripple-bullseye-galaxy-dark.html Astronomy Thu, 18 Jun 2026 08:40:01 EDT news700990454 Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have switched on NASA's newly upgraded Cold Atom Lab, a one-of-a-kind facility designed to improve how scientists explore the fundamental workings of matter and develop new quantum technologies. By leveraging the unique environment of microgravity in space, the lab can accomplish cutting-edge science impossible to do anywhere else. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-quantum-lab-aboard-space-station.html Space Exploration Tue, 16 Jun 2026 18:20:06 EDT news700837742 Quantum mechanics is a physics framework that describes how matter and energy behave at an extremely small scale, specifically at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. An effect predicted by the laws of quantum mechanics is superposition, which entails that particles can exist in multiple states or positions simultaneously, which remain indefinite until they are measured or observed. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-generation-massive-schrdinger-cat-states.html Condensed Matter Thu, 28 May 2026 07:10:01 EDT news698933812 A Majorana fermion is a particle that would be identical to its antiparticle. Such an object has not yet been found. However, certain solid materials exhibit analogous behavior as if Majorana fermions were present through collective excitations of the system called quasiparticles. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-poor-majoranas-quantum-probes.html Condensed Matter Sat, 11 Apr 2026 08:00:04 EDT news695029562 An international research team led by Alexander Kuznetsov at the Paul Drude Institute for Solid State Electronics (PDI) in Berlin has demonstrated a fundamentally new way to control the condensation of hybrid light-matter particles. Using coherent acoustic driving to dynamically reshape the energy landscape of a semiconductor microcavity, the researchers achieved deterministic steering of a macroscopic quantum state into its lowest energy configuration. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-acoustic-enables-condensation-chip.html Condensed Matter Wed, 11 Mar 2026 12:40:01 EDT news692443561 Physicists have long categorized every elementary particle in our three-dimensional universe as being either a boson or a fermion—the former category mostly capturing force carriers like photons, the latter including the building blocks of everyday matter like electrons, protons, or neutrons. But in lower dimensions of space, the neat categorization starts to break down. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-class-strange-dimensional-particles.html General Physics Tue, 03 Feb 2026 12:20:01 EST news689342039 The 20th century was marked by the discovery of exotic states of matter. First, liquid helium was observed to flow without friction at extremely low temperatures, a phase now known as superfluid. Soon after, it was also discovered that under appropriate external conditions, some materials can conduct electricity without resistance; these materials were therefore named superconductors. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-imaging-captures-crystalline-vibrations-supersolid.html Condensed Matter Thu, 29 Jan 2026 17:07:32 EST news688928821 The Einstein–de Haas effect, which links the spin of electrons to macroscopic rotation, has now been demonstrated in a quantum fluid by researchers at Science Tokyo. The team observed this effect in a Bose–Einstein condensate of europium atoms, showing that a change in magnetization causes the coherent transfer of angular momentum from atomic spins to fluid motion, thereby experimentally demonstrating that angular momentum is conserved at the quantum level. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-atomic-quantum-fluid-motion-experimental.html Condensed Matter Thu, 29 Jan 2026 08:44:52 EST news688898641 For the first time, physicists have generated and observed stable bright matter-wave solitons with attractive interactions within a grid of laser light. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-breakthrough-laser-technique-quantum-stable.html Optics & Photonics Sun, 25 Jan 2026 13:00:03 EST news688141605 Properties that remain unchanged when materials are stretched or bent, which are broadly referred to as topological properties, can contribute to the emergence of unusual physical effects in specific systems. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-unusual-topological-phenomena.html General Physics Mon, 29 Dec 2025 11:20:03 EST news686206510 The microscopic processes taking place in superconductors are difficult to observe directly. Researchers at the RPTU University of Kaiserslautern-Landau have therefore implemented a quantum simulation of the Josephson effect: They separated two Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) by means of an extremely thin optical barrier. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-atomic-josephson-contacts-bose-einstein.html Superconductivity Fri, 12 Dec 2025 11:39:27 EST news684761941 Physics is often about recognizing patterns, sometimes repeated across vastly different scales. For instance, moons orbit planets in the same way planets orbit stars, which in turn orbit the center of a galaxy. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-superfluids-collide-physicists-behavior.html Soft Matter Wed, 19 Nov 2025 12:39:48 EST news682778373 Researchers from Hanns-Christoph Nägerl's group have produced the world's first ultracold KCs molecules in their absolute ground state. Starting by mixing clouds of potassium and cesium atoms cooled almost to absolute zero temperature, they were able to use a combination of magnetic fields and laser beams to associate pairs of freely moving atoms into chemically stable molecules. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-ultracold-potassium-cesium-molecules-absolute.html Condensed Matter Mon, 17 Nov 2025 12:46:04 EST news682605961 Spin glasses are physical systems in which the small magnetic moments of particles (i.e., spins) interact with each other in a random way. These random interactions between spins make it impossible for all spins to satisfy their preferred alignments; a condition known as 'frustration." https://phys.org/news/2025-10-driven-dissipative-ising-glass-cavity.html Quantum Physics Fri, 31 Oct 2025 08:00:01 EDT news681061214 Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) are fascinating states of matter that emerge when atoms or molecules are cooled to extremely low temperatures just slightly above absolute zero (0 K). In 2023, physicists at Columbia University realized BECs comprised of ultracold molecules for the very first time. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-simulations-hint-strongly-states-ultracold.html Condensed Matter Thu, 23 Oct 2025 10:30:01 EDT news680432237 The nature of dark matter remains one of the greatest mysteries in cosmology. Within the standard framework of non-collisional cold dark matter (CDM), various models are considered: WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, with masses of around 100 GeV/c2), primordial black holes, and ultralight axion-like particles (mass of 10-22 to 1 eV/c2). In the latter case, dark matter behaves like a wave, described by a Schrödinger equation, rather than as a collection of point particles. This generates specific behaviors at small scales, while following standard dynamics (CDM) at large scales. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-vortices-ultralight-dark-halos-reveal.html General Physics Sat, 18 Oct 2025 08:00:02 EDT news679921966 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 At any given moment, trillions of particles called neutrinos are streaming through our bodies and every material in our surroundings, without noticeable effect. Smaller than electrons and lighter than protons, these ghostly entities are the most abundant particles with mass in the universe. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-physicists-idea-lasers-neutrinos.html General Physics Mon, 08 Sep 2025 13:22:04 EDT news676556521 In everyday life, all matter exists as either a gas, liquid, or solid. In quantum mechanics, however, it is possible for two distinct states to exist simultaneously. An ultracold quantum system, for instance, can exhibit the properties of both a fluid and a solid at the same time. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-superfluid-simultaneously-solid.html Soft Matter Thu, 28 Aug 2025 13:12:03 EDT news675605521