For more than 10 years, Guoliang Huang, the Huber and Helen Croft Chair in Engineering at the University of Missouri, has been investigating the unconventional properties of "metamaterials"—an artificial material that exhibits properties not commonly found in nature as defined by Newton's laws of...
When most people think of crystals, they picture suncatchers that act as rainbow prisms or the semi-transparent stones that some believe hold healing powers. However, to scientists and engineers, crystals are a form of materials in which their constituents—atoms, molecules, or nanoparticles—are...
New experiments using one-dimensional gases of ultra-cold atoms reveal a universality in how quantum systems composed of many particles change over time following a large influx of energy that throws the system out of equilibrium....
The connection between quantum physics and the theory of relativity is extremely hard to study. But now, scientists have set up a model system, which can help: Quantum particles can be tuned in such a way that the results can be translated into information about other systems, which are much harder...
Ferromagnets are materials that become magnetized and remain so while they are exposed to an external magnetic field. In these materials, electric currents typically induce a so-called transverse Hall voltage (i.e., a voltage resulting from the deflection of electrons), which is proportional to...
A team of physicists at Nanjing University, attempting to replicate the superconductivity results from an experiment conducted by a team at the University of Rochester, produced the desired material but also found that it was not superconductive. In their study, reported in the journal Nature, the...
For gummy candies, texture might be even more important than taste. Biting into a hard, stale treat is disappointing, even if it still carries a burst of sweetness. Keeping gummies in good condition depends on their formulation and storage, both of which alter how the molecules in the candies link...
Researchers from the University of Twente proved that germanene, a two-dimensional material made of germanium atoms, behaves as a topological insulator. It is the first 2D topological insulator that consists of a single element. It also has the unique ability to switch between "on" and "off" states,...
A team of physicists has discovered a new role for a specific type of turbulence—a finding that sheds light on fluid flows ranging from the Earth's liquid core to boiling water....
What does the inside of a carbon atom's nucleus look like? A new study provides a comprehensive answer to this question. In the study, the researchers simulated all known energy states of the nucleus. These include the puzzling Hoyle state. If it did not exist, carbon and oxygen would only be...
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