Physics News

A team of researchers at Princeton University's Materials Research Science and Engineering Center has observed electrons moving through a crystal of bismuth metal behaving like light.

Cymbals don’t clash of their own accord – in our world, anyway. But the quantum world is bizarrely different. Two metal plates, placed almost infinitesimally close together, spontaneously attract each other.

Using a laser and a device that converts reflected light into sound, researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory can detect explosives at distances exceeding 20 yards.

The odd behavior of a molecule in an experimental silicon computer chip has led to a discovery that opens the door to quantum computing in semiconductors.

Imagine a plane that has wings made out of glass. Thanks to a major breakthrough in understanding the nature of glass by scientists at the University of Bristol, this has just become a possibility.

Particles called excitons that emit a flash of light as they decay could be used for a new form of computing better suited to fast communication, physicists at UC San Diego have demonstrated.

ETH Zurich physicists have used a semiconductor material to create superimposed quantum dots that “trap” single electrons.

Until 1992, when California's magnitude-7.3 Landers earthquake set off small jolts as far away as Yellowstone National Park, scientists did not believe large earthquakes sparked smaller tremors at distant locations.

Quantum cryptography may be essentially solved, but getting the funky physics to work on disciplined computer networks is a whole new headache.

An international team of scientists has detected that some of the glow of Earth's aurora is polarized, an unexpected state for such emissions.