Phys.org Physics

• Twisting sound: Scientists discover a new way to control mechanical vibrations in metamaterial

  Scientists at the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) have discovered a way to control sound and vibrations using a concept inspired by "twistronics," a phenomenon originally developed for electronics.

• Uncertainty-aware Fourier ptychography enhances imaging stability in real-world conditions

  Professor Edmund Lam, Dr. Ni Chen and their research team from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering under the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) have developed a novel uncertainty-aware Fourier ptychography (UA-FP) technology that significantly enhances imaging system stability in complex real-world environments. The research has been published in Light: Science & Applications.

• From artificial atoms to quantum information machines: Inside the 2025 Nobel Prize in physics

  The 2025 Nobel Prize in physics honors three quantum physicists—John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis—for their study of quantum mechanics in a macroscopic electrical circuit.

• A new scalable approach to realize a quantum communication network based on ytterbium-171 atoms

  Quantum networks, systems consisting of connected quantum computers, quantum sensors or other quantum devices, hold the potential of enabling faster and safer communications. The establishment of these networks relies on a quantum phenomenon known as entanglement, which entails a link between particles or systems, with the quantum state of one influencing the other even when they are far apart.

• Stable ferroaxial states offer a new type of light-controlled non-volatile memory

  Ferroic materials such as ferromagnets and ferroelectrics underpin modern data storage, yet face limits: They switch slowly, or suffer from unstable polarization due to depolarizing fields respectively. A new class, ferroaxials, avoids these issues by hosting vortices of dipoles with clockwise or anticlockwise textures, but are hard to control.

• Multimode quantum entanglement achieved via dissipation engineering

  A research team led by Prof. Lin Yiheng from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), collaborating with Prof. Yuan Haidong from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, succeeded in generating multipartite quantum entangled states across two, three, and five modes using controlled dissipation as a resource. Their study is published in Science Advances.

• Ice XXI: Scientists use X-ray laser to identify new room-temperature phase

  Ice cream comes in many different flavors. But even pure ice, which consists only of water molecules, has been discovered to exist in more than 20 different solid forms or phases that differ in the arrangement of the molecules. The phases are named with Roman numerals, like ice I, ice II or ice III. Now, researchers led by scientists from the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) have identified and described a new phase called ice XXI. The results are published in the journal Nature Materials.

• Controlling atomic interactions in ultracold gas 'at the push of a button'

  Changing interactions between the smallest particles at the touch of a button: Quantum researchers at RPTU have developed a new tool that makes this possible. The new approach—a temporally oscillating magnetic field—has the potential to significantly expand fundamental knowledge in the field of quantum physics. It also opens completely new perspectives on the development of new materials.

• Physics-informed AI excels at large-scale discovery of new materials

  One of the key steps in developing new materials is property identification, which has long relied on massive amounts of experimental data and expensive equipment, limiting research efficiency. A KAIST research team has introduced a new technique that combines physical laws, which govern deformation and interaction of materials and energy, with artificial intelligence. This approach allows for rapid exploration of new materials even under data-scarce conditions and provides a foundation for accelerating design and verification across multiple engineering fields, including materials, mechanics, energy, and electronics.

• The playbook for perfect polaritons: Rules for creating quasiparticles that can power optical computers, quantum devices

  Light is fast, but travels in long wavelengths and interacts weakly with itself. The particles that make up matter are tiny and interact strongly with each other, but move slowly. Together, the two can combine into a hybrid quasiparticle called a polariton that is part light, part matter.

• Strain engineering enhances spin readout in quantum technologies, study shows

  Quantum defects are tiny imperfections in solid crystal lattices that can trap individual electrons and their "spin" (i.e., the internal angular momentum of particles). These defects are central to the functioning of various quantum technologies, including quantum sensors, computers and communication systems.

• California physicist and Nobel laureate John Martinis won't quit on quantum computers

  A California physicist and Nobel laureate who laid the foundation for quantum computing isn't done working.

• A new method to build more energy-efficient memory devices could lead to a sustainable data future

  A research team led by Kyushu University has developed a new fabrication method for energy-efficient magnetic random-access memory (MRAM) using a new material called thulium iron garnet (TmIG) that has been attracting global attention for its ability to enable high-speed, low-power information rewriting at room temperature. The team hopes their findings will lead to significant improvements in the speed and power efficiency of high-computing hardware, such as that used to power generative AI.

• Freely levitating rotor spins out ultraprecise sensors for classical and quantum physics

  With a clever design, researchers have solved eddy-current damping in macroscopic levitating systems, paving the way for a wide range of sensing technologies.

• Individual electrons trapped and controlled above 1 K, easing cooling limits for quantum computing

  Researchers from EeroQ, the quantum computing company pioneering electron-on-helium technology, have published a paper, titled "Sensing and Control of Single Trapped Electrons Above 1 Kelvin," in Physical Review X that details a significant milestone: the first demonstration of controlling and detecting individual electrons trapped on superfluid helium at temperatures above 1 Kelvin. This work was achieved using on-chip superconducting microwave circuits, a method compatible with existing quantum hardware.

• Quantum fluctuations found hidden beneath classical optical signals in polaritons

  When optical materials (molecules or solid-state semiconductors) are embedded in tiny photonic boxes, known as optical microcavities, they form hybrid light-matter states known as polaritons. Most of the optical properties of polaritons under weak illumination can be understood using textbook classical optics. Now researchers from UC San Diego show that this is not the entire story: there are quantum fluctuations lurking underneath the classical signal and they reveal a great deal about the molecules in question.

• Ultrafast laser pulses reveal solid-state bandgaps in motion

  The bandgap, i.e. the energy gap between the highest lying valence and the lowest lying conduction band, is a defining property of insulating solids, governing how they absorb light and conduct electricity. Tracking how a bandgap changes under strong laser excitation has been a long-standing challenge, since the underlying processes unfold on femtosecond timescales and are difficult to track directly, especially for wide-bandgap dielectrics.

• Superconductivity distorts crystal lattice of topological quantum materials

  Superconductors (materials that conduct electricity without resistance) have fascinated physicists for more than a century. While conventional superconductors are well understood, a new class of materials known as topological superconductors has attracted intense interest in recent years.

• World's most sensitive table-top experiment sets new limits on very high-frequency gravitational waves

  The world's most sensitive table-top interferometric system—a miniature version of miles-long gravitational-wave detectors like LIGO—has completed its first science run.

• Nobel Prize in physics awarded for ultracold electronics research that launched a quantum technology

  Quantum mechanics describes the weird behavior of microscopic particles. Using quantum systems to perform computation promises to allow researchers to solve problems in areas from chemistry to cryptography that have so many possible solutions that they are beyond the capabilities of even the most powerful nonquantum computers possible.

• Tiny engine runs hotter than the sun to probe the frontiers of thermodynamics

  Scientists have created the world's hottest engine running at temperatures hotter than those reached in the sun's core. The team from King's College London and collaborators believe their platform could provide an unparalleled understanding of the laws of thermodynamics on a small scale, and provide the foundation for a new, efficient way to compute how proteins fold—the subject of last year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

• Nanoscale X-ray imaging reveals bulk altermagnetism in MnTe

  Magnetic materials have been known since ancient times and play an important role in modern society, where the net magnetic order offers routes to energy harvesting and data processing. It is the net magnetic moment of ferromagnets that has so far been key to their applications, with an alternative type of magnetic material, the antiferromagnet, deemed "useless" by their discoverer Louis Néel in his Nobel Prize lecture.

• Physicists improve precision of atomic clocks by reducing quantum noise

  Every time you check the time on your phone, make an online transaction, or use a navigation app, you are depending on the precision of atomic clocks.

• Quantum dynamics on your laptop? New technique moves us closer

  Imagine zooming into matter at the quantum scale, where tiny particles can interact in more than a trillion configurations at once.

• Programmable optical chip merges photons to change color

  Cornell researchers have built a programmable optical chip that can change the color of light by merging photons, without requiring a new chip for new colors.