NEWSROOM

New research shows that a neutrino laser, which physicists had earlier proposed might be a viable technology, is in fact impossible. Neutrinos are the pervasive yet intangible particles that permeate the universe, streaming through whole planets, stars, and our bodies by the trillions each second. The elementary particles are often described as “ghostly” for their near-zero mass and their elusive nature, as they have very little interaction with normal matter. Since their dis

In a swap gate, neighbouring qubit states (blue and beige) are exchanged. The qubits are made of cold atoms trapped inside an artificial crystal created by laser light. (Image: Mika Blackmore-Esslinger / ETH Zurich) Quantum bits, or qubits, which are required for building quantum computers, come in different kinds. In recent years, many research institutes and companies have focused on superconducting circuits and trapped ions. However, neutral atoms trapped with laser light

An AI-generated illustration depciting the Kondo effect. Conducting electrons in a metal are shown interacting with the spin of an embedded magnetic atom impurity. Credit: AI-generated artwork by Linqing Peng A team of scientists from Caltech and Yale University has shown for the first time how to accurately quantify an important quantum phenomenon in metals, called the Kondo effect, for specific real materials. Unlike previous approaches, which for decades have relied on sim

Atomic nuclei colliding at high energy causing scattering (Credit: Osaka Metropolitan University) Researchers perform a full Glauber-theory calculation that overcomes long-standing computational challenges Every high energy nuclear collision leaves behind a trail of clues about the structure of atomic nuclei. Deciphering those clues, however, depends on the accuracy of the underlying theory. Physicists at Osaka Metropolitan University have now performed a full calculation wit

Electrons are indivisible, yet in a strong magnetic field they can move as if they carried only a fraction of their charge. Mitali Banerjee’s group at EPFL has built a bilayer-graphene antidot—a small electrically defined energy hill—that measures those fractions directly. Quasiparticles circle the hill and tunnel at regular intervals as the magnetic field or gate voltage is swept. The spacing of the resulting conductance oscillations gives the charge. The team recorded e/3 a

Researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China have demonstrated skin mode tunability in photonic Floquet lattices. A potential applied at one boundary isolates a skin mode at the opposite boundary, turning it into a self-healing state that recovers its profile after disturbance. The approach enables control of non-Hermitian wave dynamics for mode routing and optical switching. Published in PhotoniX.