Phys.org Physics

• Physicists create resilient 3D solitons in the lab

  For the first time, physicists in Italy have created a 'lump soliton': an extremely stable packet of light waves which can travel through 3D space, and even interact with other solitons without losing its shape.

• Radio waves enable energy-efficient AI on edge devices without heavy hardware

  As drones survey forests, robots navigate warehouses and sensors monitor city streets, more of the world's decision-making is occurring autonomously on the edge—on the small devices that gather information at the ends of much larger networks.

• Superconducting detector captures hot spots with submicron resolution

  A research team from Osaka Metropolitan University proposed using a current-biased kinetic inductance detector with submicron 400 megapixels to image hot spots induced by a localized external stimulus over a 15 × 15 mm2 area. The team utilized a delay-line technique to trace the propagation of internal signals for a pair of signals arising from each hot spot.

• Laser pulse 'sculpting' unlocks new control over particle acceleration

  In high-intensity laser–matter interactions, including laser-induced particle acceleration, physicists generally want to work with the highest possible focused laser peak power, which is the ratio of energy per unit area to pulse duration. Therefore, for the same pulse energy and focus, the highest peak intensity can be achieved with the shortest pulse duration.

• Engines of light: New study suggests we could increase useful energy obtained from sunlight

  Physicists from Trinity College Dublin believe new insights into the behavior of light may offer a new means of solving one of science's oldest challenges—how to turn heat into useful energy.

• An ultra-fast quantum tunneling device for the 6G terahertz era

  A research team affiliated with UNIST has unveiled a quantum device, capable of ultra-fast operation, a key step toward realizing technologies like 6G communications. This innovation overcomes a major hurdle that has long limited the durability of such devices under high electrical fields.

• How does glass 'shake' and why does it start flowing when pushed hard enough?

  Glassy materials are everywhere, with applications far exceeding windowpanes and drinking glasses. They range from bioactive glasses for bone repair and amorphous pharmaceuticals that boost drug solubility to ultra-pure silica optics used in gravitational-wave detectors. In principle, any substance can become glass if its hot liquid is cooled fast enough to avoid forming an ordered crystal.

• Quantum-enhanced interferometry amplifies detection of tiny laser beam shifts and tilts

  A quantum trick based on interferometric measurements allows a team of researchers at LMU to detect even the smallest movements of a laser beam with extreme sensitivity.

• Quantum phenomenon enables a nanoscale mirror that can be switched on and off

  Controlling light is an important technological challenge—not just at the large scale of optics in microscopes and telescopes, but also at the nanometer scale. Recently, physicists at the University of Amsterdam published a clever quantum trick that allows them to make a nanoscale mirror that can be turned on and off at will.

• Replication efforts suggest 'smoking gun' evidence isn't enough to prove quantum computing claims

  A group of scientists, including Sergey Frolov, professor of physics at the University of Pittsburgh, and co-authors from Minnesota and Grenoble have undertaken several replication studies centered around topological effects in nanoscale superconducting or semiconducting devices. This field is important because it can bring about topological quantum computing, a hypothetical way of storing and manipulating quantum information while protecting it against errors.

• Unexpected oscillation states in magnetic vortices could enable coupling across different physical systems

  Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have uncovered previously unobserved oscillation states—so-called Floquet states—in tiny magnetic vortices. Unlike earlier experiments, which required energy-intensive laser pulses to create such states, the team in Dresden discovered that a subtle excitation with magnetic waves is sufficient.

• Self-configuring optical devices automatically learn how to sort out light

  Light can be sculpted into countless shapes. Yet building optical devices that can simultaneously manipulate many different optical patterns at once is extremely complicated, and remains a major challenge in modern photonics.

• Entanglement enhances the speed of quantum simulations, transforming long-standing obstacles into a powerful advantage

  Researchers from the Faculty of Engineering at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) have made a significant discovery regarding quantum entanglement. This phenomenon, which has long been viewed as a significant obstacle in classical quantum simulations, actually enhances the speed of quantum simulations. The findings are published in Nature Physics in an article titled "Entanglement accelerates quantum simulation."

• A new way to view shockwaves could boost fusion research

  At the heart of our sun, fusion is unfolding. As hydrogen atoms merge to form helium, they emit energy, producing the heat and light that reach us here on Earth. Inspired by our nearby star, researchers want to create fusion closer to home. If they can crack the engineering challenges underlying the process, they would create an abundant new source of power to eclipse all others.

• THz spectroscopy system bypasses long-standing tradeoff between spectral and spatial resolution

  Terahertz (THz) radiation, which occupies the frequency band between microwaves and infrared light, is essential in many next-generation applications, including high-speed wireless communications, chemical sensing, and advanced material analysis.

• Optics research uses dim light to produce bright LEDs

  Researchers at Princeton and North Carolina State University have developed a technique that substantially improves the ability to convert low-energy light into a high-energy version. The method has immediate applications in lighting and displays.

• Synchronizing ultrashort X-ray pulses for attosecond precision

  Scientists at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have, for the first time, demonstrated a technique that synchronizes ultrashort X-ray pulses at the X-ray free-electron laser SwissFEL. This achievement opens new possibilities for observing ultrafast atomic and molecular processes with attosecond precision.

• New evidence for a particle system that 'remembers' its previous quantum states

  In the future, quantum computers are anticipated to solve problems once thought unsolvable, from predicting the course of chemical reactions to producing highly reliable weather forecasts. For now, however, they remain extremely sensitive to environmental disturbances and prone to information loss.

• Making the invisible visible: Space particles become observable through handheld invention

  You can't see, feel, hear, taste or smell them, but tiny particles from space are constantly raining down on us.

• Scientists use string theory to crack the code of natural networks

  For more than a century, scientists have wondered why physical structures like blood vessels, neurons, tree branches, and other biological networks look the way they do. The prevailing theory held that nature simply builds these systems as efficiently as possible, minimizing the amount of material needed. But in the past, when researchers tested these networks against traditional mathematical optimization theories, the predictions consistently fell short.

• Going further with fusion, together

  At 4 a.m., while most of New Jersey slept, a Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) physicist sat at his computer connected to a control room 3,500 miles away in Oxford, England. Years of experience running fusion experiments in the U.S. helped guide the U.K. team through delicate adjustments as they worked together to coax particles of plasma—the fourth state of matter—to temperatures that match those found at the heart of the sun.

• Antiferromagnetic metal exhibits diode-like behavior without external magnetic field

  Antiferromagnetic (AF) materials are made up of atoms or molecules with atomic spins that align in antiparallel directions of their neighbors. The magnetism of each individual atom or molecule is canceled out by the one next to it to produce zero net magnetization.

• 'Pocket-type' high-temperature superconducting coil achieves 44.86 tesla combined magnetic field

  A research team led by Kuang Guangli and Jiang Donghui at the High Magnetic Field Laboratory of the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CHMFL), has developed a "pocket-type" high-temperature superconducting (HTS) coil, achieving a record combined magnetic field of 44.86 tesla.

• Advanced quantum detectors are reinventing the search for dark matter

  When it comes to understanding the universe, what we know is only a sliver of the whole picture.

• Electrons that lag behind nuclei in 2D materials could pave way for novel electronics

  One of the great successes of 20th-century physics was the quantum mechanical description of solids. This allowed scientists to understand for the first time how and why certain materials conduct electric current and how these properties could be purposefully modified. For instance, semiconductors such as silicon could be used to produce transistors, which revolutionized electronics and made modern computers possible.