Shifting dimensions: Exciting excitons in phosphorene

Since its discovery in 2014, phosphorene—a sheet of phosphorus atoms only a single atom thick—has intrigued scientists due to its unique optoelectronic anisotropy. In other words, electrons interact with light and move ...

Gold in limbo between solid and melted states

If you heat a solid material enough, the thermal energy (latent heat) causes the material's molecules begin to break apart, forming a liquid. One of the most familiar examples of this phase transition from a well-ordered ...

Blanket of light may give better quantum computers

Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories of natural science, and although its predictions are often counterintuitive, not a single experiment has been conducted to date of which the theory has not been able ...

Light pulses provide a new route to enhance superconductivity

Under normal electron band theory, Mott insulators ought to conduct electricity, but they do not due to interactions among their electrons. But now, scientists from the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research have shown that ...

One of the world's fastest cameras captures motion of electrons

During the conversion of light into electricity, such as in solar cells, a large part of the input light energy is lost. This is due to the behaviour of electrons inside of materials. If light hits a material, it stimulates ...

Brief reflections from a plasma mirror

When a dense sheet of electrons is accelerated to almost the speed of light, it acts as a reflective surface. Such a 'plasma mirror' can be used to manipulate light. Now an international team of physicists from the Max Planck ...

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