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. Black holes represent some of the most extreme environments in the universe. They are the sources of the strongest gravitational fields, allowing us to test Einstein's theory of general relativity to an extent impossible with small objects. But we are also reaching the limit of what we can learn about one remotely. So, various authors have put forward ideas for how we might eventually send a probe directly to a black hole to observe it up close. One of the most vocal of those authors is Cosimo Bambi of Fudan University in Shanghai—and he recently released a paper, available as a preprint on arXiv, about what it would take to send a gram-sized probe to a nearby black hole. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-spacecraft-black-hole.html Astronomy Mon, 27 Jul 2026 08:20:04 EDT news704355842 Materials with magnetic nanostructures have a wide range of potential applications. One area is so-called spintronics, with devices that encode information in magnetic domains. These magnetic bits can be written, read and erased in a more energy-efficient way than bits in current semiconductor devices. Spin textures and magnetic domains in such materials can be investigated using nanoscale magnetic imaging techniques. For example, photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM), coupled with a magnetically sensitive detection mechanism. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-tiny-magnetic-image-spintronic-materials.html Nanophysics Sun, 12 Jul 2026 17:00:03 EDT news702563676 More than half a century ago, Sir Roger Penrose envisioned a scenario in which energy could be extracted from a black hole spinning at extreme speeds. He proposed that a particle entering its ergosphere—a region of space dragged around by a rotating black hole—could split into two. One part could fall into the black hole while the other escaped carrying more energy than the original particle. Building on this theory, physicist Yakov Zel'dovich later predicted that a wave interacting with a sufficiently fast, rotating object could extract energy from it and become amplified. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-synthetic-rotation-black-hole-energy.html Optics & Photonics Sat, 11 Jul 2026 17:00:06 EDT news702729354 Light can carry enormous amounts of information at extreme speeds, making photonic technologies promising for the development of faster communications, more powerful computing systems and more sensitive sensors. But for light to be useful for these purposes, engineers need to be able to control where it goes and redirect it quickly. A new device built by Caltech researchers uses a beam of light to steer another to a different angle in just 74 femtoseconds (74 quadrillionths of a second). That's about the time it takes light to travel the width of a human hair. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-chip-redirects-trillionth.html Nanophysics Tue, 07 Jul 2026 15:40:06 EDT news702648282 Achieving the blackest of blacks has been one of humanity's enduring challenges. It is a frontier that unites modern nanotechnologists with nature's ancient color palette. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-blackest-black-nature-nanotechnology.html Nanomaterials Mon, 06 Jul 2026 19:40:02 EDT news702562621 Over the past decade, Professor L. Mahadevan's Soft Math Lab at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) has helped establish how the ancient Japanese paper arts of folding or cutting can be used to inversely design structures that transform dramatically in shape and function. Now, the researchers have created a new class of shape-changing matter, based not on folds or cuts, but linkages—networks of interconnected scissor mechanisms that collapse into lines and deploy into curved surfaces. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-collapsible-scissored-surfaces-trilogy-metamaterial.html General Physics Wed, 24 Jun 2026 15:20:03 EDT news701524441 Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) scientists have used a classic optical phenomenon known as the Poisson spot to create stable patterns of light called optical skyrmions, which are tiny, swirling configurations in the properties of light—akin to the spikes of a hedgehog. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-scientists-optical-skyrmions-century-phenomenon.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 23 Jun 2026 09:40:05 EDT news701425623 If we're to reach another star, chemical propulsion will not get us there in any reasonable time frame. We're going to need a different propulsion technology, and one of the most promising seems to be a solar sail. These giant reflective surfaces form the basis of many interstellar mission concepts. Combined with giant lasers pushing them, they can be accelerated to speeds unreachable by any other current technologies. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-hidden-physics-complicating-interstellar-lightsails.html Space Exploration Sun, 14 Jun 2026 14:00:01 EDT news700146150 Researchers in China recently uncovered a quantum-inspired rule governing how sound is scattered by certain physical properties of a material. Their research, published in Physical Review Letters, may lead to the ability to design materials with optimal, broadband sound blocking. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-newfound-bulky-effective-soundproofing.html General Physics Mon, 08 Jun 2026 13:30:01 EDT news700143119 Biophotonics is a multidisciplinary field that involves the development and application of light-based technologies to study, monitor and treat biological systems. The ability to directly image cells and molecules has led to many fundamental discoveries in the past century. More recently, the terahertz (THz) region of the electromagnetic spectrum has attracted growing interest as a promising frontier for advancing biological research. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-terahertz-biophotonics-path-applications-biological.html Biotechnology Sun, 07 Jun 2026 09:40:01 EDT news699874978 Heat behaves in predictable ways: a hot cup of coffee cools, a laptop warms your hands, the sun heats Earth. But at scales thousands of times smaller than a human hair, those rules begin to break down, and scientists are learning how to take advantage of that. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-metamaterials-enable-nanoscale-potentially-energy.html Nanophysics Wed, 27 May 2026 17:40:05 EDT news699116822 When we think about highly sensitive medical testing, we often imagine a hospital laboratory filled with large instruments, trained technicians, and carefully controlled conditions. This is especially true for optical biosensing, where scientists try to detect extremely small changes caused by biomolecules binding to a sensor surface. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-based-sensor-ultrasensitive-disease-portable.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 21 May 2026 17:40:01 EDT news698499656 Researchers have recently found a new way to summon useful structures in magnetic materials using light, heat, and electric fields. This new method, described in a new study published in Physical Review Letters, may lead to more energy-efficient and flexible technologies for data storage and optical devices. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-liquid-crystal-demand-skyrmions-room.html Condensed Matter Wed, 13 May 2026 12:40:02 EDT news697890165 Under a microscope, a bouquet of lollipop-like structures, each smaller than a grain of sand, waves gently in a Petri dish of liquid. Suddenly, they snap together, like the jaws of a Venus flytrap, as a scientist waves a small magnet over the dish. What was previously an assemblage of tiny passive structures has transformed instantly into an active robotic gripper. The lollipop gripper is one demonstration of a new type of soft magnetic hydrogel developed by engineers at MIT and their collaborators at EPFL and the University of Cincinnati. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-swipe-magnet-microscopic-magno-bots.html Nanophysics Tue, 28 Apr 2026 11:00:03 EDT news696587647 For some time, researchers have assumed that solid materials could gain more useful properties by making their microscopic components more active. Now, a team led by Jack Binysh at the University of Amsterdam has found that this idea doesn't always hold. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-response-materials.html General Physics Sat, 25 Apr 2026 13:00:03 EDT news695900124 Acoustic metamaterials are a fast-evolving family of materials which manipulate sound waves in ever more advanced ways. Now, a team led by Changqing Xu at Nanjing Normal University in China has engineered an acoustic metamaterial, a "ghost tunnel": a structure which acts as a near-perfect waveguide for sound entering through its ends, while being essentially invisible to waves incident on its sides. The results, published in Physical Review Letters, could open new avenues for manipulating sound waves in complex signal environments. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ghost-tunnels-staying-invisible.html General Physics Mon, 13 Apr 2026 10:20:06 EDT news695290653 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 A team of NASA researchers is developing new types of optical masks that could help enable the many orders of magnitude of starlight suppression needed for future space observatories to pick out very faint habitable exoplanets from the far brighter glare of their stellar hosts. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-optical-vortex-phase-masks-habitable.html Astrobiology Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:40:08 EDT news693660601 The electronic and magnetic properties of two-dimensional materials both have strong potential for technological applications. Researchers have long assumed that they are distinct phenomena, but Illinois Grainger engineers have demonstrated that they share a mathematical language. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-magnetic-graphene-equations-massless-electron.html Nanophysics Sun, 08 Mar 2026 13:20:03 EDT news692027599 Leiden physicists Daniela Kraft and Julio Melio have created soft structures that can take on different shapes without any external drive in their lab. They present their research on microscale metamaterials in Nature—a breakthrough that opens the door to smart, reconfigurable materials and microscopic robots. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-world-microscopic-scale-metamaterials.html General Physics Wed, 25 Feb 2026 17:40:01 EST news691247370 Smartphone cameras are becoming smaller, yet photos are becoming sharper. Korean researchers have elevated the limits of next-generation smartphone cameras by developing a new image sensor technology that can accurately represent colors regardless of the angle at which light enters. The team achieved this by utilizing a "metamaterial" that designs the movement of light through structures too small to be seen with the naked eye. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-metamaterial-image-sensor-oblique.html Optics & Photonics Sat, 21 Feb 2026 16:00:01 EST news690731362 When light passes through materials, it typically changes direction and bends in predictable ways. This change in direction, known as refraction, is caused by a change in the speed of light as it enters a new medium. In some rare cases, however, light bends differently, specifically in the opposite direction, and this is known as negative refraction. This unusual change in direction can be leveraged to develop a wide range of advanced technologies, including advanced imaging systems and small optical devices. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-nanoengineers-chip-excitonic-hyperlens.html Nanophysics Tue, 17 Feb 2026 07:30:02 EST news690456579 By changing the physical structure of gold at the nanoscale, researchers can drastically change how the material interacts with light—and, as a result, its electronic and optical properties. This is shown by a study from Umeå University published in Nature Communications. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-reshaping-gold-electronic-optical-properties.html Nanophysics Mon, 02 Feb 2026 14:46:38 EST news689265961 With an advanced technology known as angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), scientists are able to map out a material's electron energy-momentum relationship, which encodes the material's electrical, optical, magnetic and thermal properties like an electronic DNA. But the technology has its limitations; it doesn't work well under a magnetic field. This is a major drawback for scientists who want to study materials that are deployed under or even actuated by magnetic fields. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-clearer-critical-materials-refrigerator-magnets.html Condensed Matter Mon, 02 Feb 2026 13:00:55 EST news689259601 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 Prof. Gal Shmuel of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology has developed an innovative approach that enables precise control of heat conduction in ways that do not occur naturally. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-solution-enables-unprecedented.html General Physics Tue, 13 Jan 2026 21:20:03 EST news687539995 Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have optimized and 3D-printed helix structures as optical materials for terahertz (THz) frequencies, a potential way to address a technology gap for next-generation telecommunications, non-destructive evaluation, chemical/biological sensing and more. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-3d-helixes-thz-optical-materials.html Condensed Matter Mon, 15 Dec 2025 14:10:33 EST news685030196 A dissertation study at the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) developed two-dimensional fishnet-like structures from DNA origami for silicon surfaces and investigated how different conditions affect their formation. The results provide new possibilities for DNA-assisted lithography and thus for the fabrication of new types of materials, for example, for optics. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-dna-origami-lattices-silicon-possibilities.html Bio & Medicine Fri, 12 Dec 2025 13:50:01 EST news684769654 Inspired by the Japanese art of kirigami, a team of scientists from the University of Amsterdam have developed a material that can reflect different colors of light, depending on how it is stretched. The results were recently published in the journal ACS Photonics. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-chameleon-nanomaterial-mechanical-strain.html Nanophysics Fri, 05 Dec 2025 11:43:40 EST news684157381 Researchers have been developing computers that deploy light (photons) rather than electricity to power storage and calculations. These light-based computers have the potential to be more energy efficient than traditional computers while also running calculations at greater speeds. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-gyromorphs-combine-liquid-crystal-traits.html Condensed Matter Thu, 06 Nov 2025 16:17:03 EST news681668221