What exactly is light—and what is it made of? It's an age-old question that dates back to antiquity, and one of the most important investigations undertaken by scientists looking to understand the nature of reality.
Optics & Photonics
Mar 14, 2023
0
1678
Until about 50 years ago, all known superconductors were metals. This made sense, because metals have the largest number of loosely bound "carrier" electrons that are free to pair up and flow as electrical current with no ...
Superconductivity
Mar 21, 2018
11
827
When people imagine "new materials," they typically think of chemistry. But UConn physicist Ilya Sochnikov has another suggestion: mechanics.
Superconductivity
Oct 12, 2020
0
998
Quite by accident, Washington State University researchers have achieved a 400-fold increase in the electrical conductivity of a crystal simply by exposing it to light. The effect, which lasted for days after the light was ...
General Physics
Nov 14, 2013
3
0
Researchers at Penn State and the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are pushing the limits of electron microscopy into the tens of picometer scale, a fraction of the size of a hydrogen atom.
Condensed Matter
Aug 31, 2016
1
879
Most people think of water as existing in only one of three phases: Solid ice, liquid water, or gas vapor. But matter can exist in many different phases—ice, for example, has more than ten known phases, or ways that its ...
Materials Science
Jun 14, 2019
0
1111
In work that may have broad implications for the development of new materials for electronics, Caltech scientists for the first time have developed a way to predict how electrons interacting strongly with atomic motions will ...
Quantum Physics
Dec 10, 2019
1
1570
(PhysOrg.com) -- A clever materials science technique that uses a silicon crystal as a sort of nanoscale vise to squeeze another crystal into a more useful shape may launch a new class of electronic devices that remember ...
Nanophysics
May 6, 2009
0
0
Truly two-dimensional objects are rare. Even a thin piece of paper is trillions of atoms thick. When physicists do succeed in producing 2D systems, quantum interactions can lead to new phenomena and Nobel prizes. Two examples: ...
Superconductivity
Sep 9, 2014
4
0
When scientists found electrical current flowing where it shouldn't be – at the place where two insulating materials meet– it set off a frenzy of research that turned up more weird properties and the hope of creating ...
General Physics
Sep 13, 2013
5
0
