To commercialize quantum computing, manufacturers need high-quality superconducting materials for microchips, but they also require a reliable, sustainable nanofabrication process. Tantalum is a corrosion-resistant metal that meets the...
Quantum communication promises many advantages over today's standard technologies, including absolutely secure transmission of large amounts of data. However, it requires single photons—and generating them is very difficult. Researchers...
In the global race to build bigger and better quantum computers, researchers have taken a step forward. A new machine called Helios is radically different from other quantum computers.
Optical fibers are already the backbone of global communication systems. Recently, however, physicists have started to explore how their functionality could be boosted further by conveying information via entangled quantum...
Quantum sensors, devices that collect measurements by exploiting quantum-mechanical phenomena, could potentially detect extremely weak magnetic, gravitational and electromagnetic signals with greater sensitivity than classical sensors....
A magnetar’s colossal magnetic field may have revealed a quantum effect predicted by Werner Heisenberg nearly 90 years ago, in which seemingly empty space alters the behavior of light. If confirmed, the discovery could offer the first...
Einstein’s abandoned cosmological constant made a spectacular comeback when astronomers discovered that the universe’s expansion is accelerating. It now sits at the heart of our best cosmological model—a model that works extraordinarily...
What is heat, and what is useful work if a machine consists only of an atom and light particles? In modern quantum technologies, this kind of question connects thermodynamics with quantum physics. Researchers at the University of Basel,...
Physicists at the University of Twente have improved the standard test for the quality of individual particles of light. By letting three photons interfere at the same time instead of two, they draw more information from every...
New results from the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) suggest that gluons, the glue-like particles that hold quarks together inside protons, play a central role in the conservation of baryon number—an essential...
Researchers at Monash University have predicted a new type of quantum matter that challenges decades of thinking about how ultracold particles behave. The paper, "Quantum droplets in a resonant Bose-Fermi mixture," is published in...
An electron is supposed to be indivisible. It carries one fundamental unit of electric charge, and every electron is exactly the same. But under extreme conditions, large numbers of electrons act together and give rise to new quantum...
A study has been published in Nature Communications that identifies an unusual regime of quantum oscillations in a three-dimensional topological insulator. The results show that, when subjected to temperatures near absolute zero and...
Time-reversal symmetry is an exotic behavior found in systems whose internal physics looks different when running forward versus backward in time. For some time, physicists have searched for this behavior in systems with almost no...
Physicists may have uncovered a hidden feature inside protons that helps preserve one of matter’s most fundamental properties. RHIC collision data suggest baryon number is carried not simply by three quarks, but by a Y-shaped junction of...
Nuclear reactors may go dark, but their fuel continues producing a faint antineutrino “glow” long after shutdown. Researchers have now detected that residual signal for the first time, finding it closely matched predictions of...
A tiny superconducting engine has successfully converted heat near absolute zero into useful work, demonstrating the first cyclic quantum heat engine of its kind. Future versions could operate autonomously inside quantum computers,...
Altermagnetism is a new, third type of magnetism of great interest for spin-transport applications like computer memory. If properly harnessed, it could combine the benefits of the two existing types of magnetism, ferromagnetism and...
Signals ride on waves of one kind or another: light, sound, radio. But new carriers are needed to relay information in next-generation devices. Disturbances or waves in magnetic materials called magnons could be an efficient option—if...
Quantum advantage refers to the point at which a quantum computer solves a clearly defined task faster or more efficiently than any classical computer—or makes it solvable in the first place. For many practical applications, this has not...
Superconductors are materials that conduct electricity with zero electrical resistance below specific temperatures. Most of these materials become superconducting at very low temperatures, but some also exhibit superconductivity at...
A University of Kansas physicist played a leading role in a CERN study showing that two rival explanations for how gluons behave inside atomic nuclei can now be experimentally distinguished.
When certain atoms are irradiated with laser light, they can produce a very different kind of laser light: laser pulses with extremely high frequencies in the X-ray range. These laser pulses, which helped achieve record-breaking results...
Researchers at the University of Basel and the Technical University of Munich have developed a new method to reveal the collective motion of electrons in one of the most elusive states of matter: the Wigner crystal. Using light, the...
Every electronic and optoelectronic device generates heat, and today that heat is managed almost entirely from the outside. Heatsinks, fans, cold plates and refrigerators are bulky exterior measures bolted onto a chip or package after...
Over the last decade, researchers have developed two-dimensional materials with fascinating quantum effects that could be harnessed for next-generation technologies.
Scientists have created the first quantum material that can sort and transport different quantum states of light at room temperature, potentially removing the need for bulky, ultra-cold refrigeration systems. Built from a gold film...
Scientists have generated quantum entanglement directly from sunlight, potentially offering a lower-energy alternative to the lasers normally used in quantum technology. Their outdoor experiment produced entangled photons with about 94%...
Using light to process quantum information is one of the most promising approaches to building future quantum computers. Light particles, known as photons, are excellent carriers of quantum information, but their lack of natural...
In Goethe's ballad "Erlkönig," immortalized in Schubert's fevered 1815 setting, a dying boy riding through the night sees a spectral king beckoning from the darkness. His father calms him: "Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif"—my son, it...
A tall glass of ice water isn't just a thirst quencher; it's also an everyday example of coexisting phases. Water can exist simultaneously in both liquid and solid phases. As it turns out, this phase duality can also exist in more exotic...
Scientists have demonstrated that heat can move through a crystal in focused, wave-like rays at room temperature instead of spreading randomly. The breakthrough could make it possible to route heat around sensitive parts of...
Three years after a team of Caltech scientists showed that pairs of entangled photons could double the resolution of a light microscope, the same lab has figured out a way to double down on that improvement. They have now achieved a...
At the International Conference on High Energy Physics in Brazil, the BESIII Collaboration report that, after 15 years of sustained research, it identified the dominant constituent of the X(2370) as a pseudoscalar glueball with...
Quantum errors are a normal part of quantum computing because fragile physical qubits (the tiny components storing data) can easily break down because of environmental noise, like heat, stray signals or microscopic vibrations. Typical...
Today's quantum technologies rely on energy-intensive lasers, raising concerns that scaling them up could further increase energy demands. In new work, researchers have demonstrated that quantum entanglement between photons can be...
An international team of researchers has succeeded in producing atomic quantum gas mixtures with an unprecedented particle flux. In the journal Nature Communications, the scientists report on experiments conducted with the MAIUS-B...
Super-thin superconducting materials, which are only one or a few atoms thick, have unique properties scientists can leverage to produce more compact, scalable, and efficient quantum devices. But these fragile materials degrade so...
When atomic nuclei smash together at nearly the speed of light, they create the hottest fluid in the universe, but scientists may have overlooked one of its most important forces. New simulations reveal that extreme acceleration builds...
Scientists have identified LHAASO J1912+1014u as a cosmic accelerator that can push protons beyond one quadrillion electron volts. The finding may help reveal where the Milky Way’s most energetic cosmic rays come from and how they...
Scientists have created a programmable optical chip that can slow light on demand, giving engineers far greater control over how optical signals propagate through a circuit. The technology could provide the delays, synchronization, and...
A new theoretical study offers a possible explanation for how the Universe can grow more complex without violating the second law of thermodynamics. Using a quantum gravity framework called Gravity from Entropy, mathematician Ginestra...
A new particle detector called PLATON could replace millions of tiny detector components with a single block of light-producing material. Using a light-field camera, highly sensitive photon sensors, and AI, it reconstructs particle paths...
A new review highlights exciting progress in atomically thin quantum materials where light and magnetism work together in ways never before possible. In these materials, light-generated excitons can interact directly with magnetic...
Dark matter may be far more complicated than scientists once believed. A new study suggests it could consist of at least two different kinds of particles that slowly separate over time, with heavier particles sinking toward the centers...
Scientists at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have discovered a surprisingly simple way to create exotic light structures called optical skyrmions using a 200-year-old optical effect known as the Poisson spot. Instead of...
Scientists have developed a new framework that could finally apply the laws of thermodynamics to real, ever-changing black holes instead of only perfectly stable ones. The advance may improve our understanding of black hole mergers,...
Physicists from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) have examined a fundamental property of quantum mechanics in collaboration with the German Aerospace Center (DLR). In the scientific journal Physical Review Letters, they show...
Researchers have recreated the physics of extracting energy from a spinning black hole using a stationary device that produces synthetic ultrafast rotation. The achievement transforms a long-standing theoretical idea into a practical...
A new quantum theory bridges two rival models of how impurities behave inside many-particle systems, resolving a problem that has challenged physicists for decades. The findings could reshape experiments on ultracold atoms,...