Nothing exists in a vacuum, but physicists often wish this weren't the case. If the systems that scientists study could be completely isolated from the outside world, things would be a lot easier.
When you turn on a lamp to brighten a room, you are experiencing light energy transmitted as photons, which are small, discrete quantum packets of energy. These photons must obey the sometimes strange laws of quantum mechanics, ...
Quantum computing, just like traditional computing, needs a way to store the information it uses and processes. On the computer you're using right now, information, whether it be photos of your dog, a reminder about a friend's ...
Crystals that can freely conduct electrons, but not heat, hold great potential for numerous applications. A team of researchers has now developed a method for discovering and developing these materials. Their results are ...
Electrons inside crystals interact closely with phonons, defined as the discrete unit of crystal vibrations. The electron–phonon coupling strength is an important fundamental physical quantity in solid state physics, determining ...
Physicists have been riveted by systems composed of materials only one or a few layers of atoms thick. When a few sheets of these two-dimensional materials are stacked together, a geometric pattern called a moiré pattern ...
The NOMAD Laboratory researchers have recently shed light on fundamental microscopic mechanisms that can help with tailoring materials for heat insulation. This development advances the ongoing efforts to enhance energy efficiency ...
Findings published in Nature settle the dispute: phonons can be chiral. This fundamental concept, discovered using circular X-ray light, sees phonons twisting like a corkscrew through quartz.
When we listen to our favorite song, what sounds like a continuous wave of music is actually transmitted as tiny packets of quantum particles called phonons.
University of Washington researchers have discovered they can detect atomic "breathing," or the mechanical vibration between two layers of atoms, by observing the type of light those atoms emitted when stimulated by a laser. ...
