Physics
press releases.

Physics7 Feb 2025

Single-beam optical trap-based surface-enhanced raman scattering optofluidic molecular fingerprint spectroscopy detection system

A new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances; DOI 10.29026/oea.2025.240182 , discusses a single-beam optical trap-based surface-enhanced Raman scattering optofluidic molecular fingerprint spectroscopy detection system. Raman spectroscopy is a non-destructive analytical technique that allows for precise analysis of substances based on their unique molecular Raman spectral characteristics. However, traditional Raman spectroscopy techniques suffer from weak signal intensity, limiting their sensitivity in high-sensitivity detection applications. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) technology, on the other hand, can amplify Raman signals by several million ...

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Physics7 Feb 2025

Multi-photon bionic skin realizes high-precision haptic visualization for reconstructive perception

A new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances; DOI 10.29026/oea.2025.240152, discusses how multi-photon bionic skin realizes high-precision haptic visualization for reconstructive perception. Human palm skin contains more than 20,000 tactile vesicles, depending on the tactile vesicles in the skin depth, activation threshold, trigger mode and other tactile signal pickup differences, as well as cross-synergistic mechanism between them, so that the skin can obtain different types of tactile signals. And then through the brain nerve center on the tactile signal “calculation” ...

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Physics6 Feb 2025

Physicians committee research policy director speaks today at hearing on taxpayer funded animal cruelty

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Research Policy Director Elizabeth Baker from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a national medical ethics and health advocacy group of 17,000 physicians, spoke today, Feb. 6, at a Congressional hearing focused on ending federally funded animal cruelty in research. The U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation Chairwoman Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) announced the hearing in a news release on Monday, with plans to evaluate current animal cruelty funded by the federal government and explore opportunities ...

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Physics6 Feb 2025

Single-photon LiDAR delivers detailed 3D images at distances up to 1 kilometer

WASHINGTON — Researchers have designed a single-photon time-of-flight LiDAR system that can acquire a high-resolution 3D image of an object or scene up to 1 kilometer away. The new system could help enhance security, monitoring, and remote sensing by enabling detailed imaging even in challenging environmental conditions or when objects are obscured by foliage or camouflage netting. “Our system uses a single-photon detector approximately twice as efficient as detectors deployed in similar LiDAR systems ...

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Physics6 Feb 2025

Dusting for stars’ magnetic fingerprints

For the first time astronomers have succeeded in observing the magnetic field around a young star where planets are thought to be forming. The team was able to use dust to measure the three-dimensional structure “fingerprint” of the magnetic field. This will help improve our understanding of planet formation. Planets form in turbulent disks of gas and dust called protoplanetary disks around young stars. It is thought that the first step in planet formation is dust grains colliding and sticking together. The movement of ...

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Physics5 Feb 2025

Physicists measure a key aspect of superconductivity in “magic-angle” graphene

Superconducting materials are similar to the carpool lane in a congested interstate. Like commuters who ride together, electrons that pair up can bypass the regular traffic, moving through the material with zero friction. But just as with carpools, how easily electron pairs can flow depends on a number of conditions, including the density of pairs that are moving through the material. This “superfluid stiffness,” or the ease with which a current of electron pairs can flow, is a key measure of a material’s superconductivity. Physicists at MIT and Harvard University have now directly measured superfluid stiffness for the first time ...

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Physics4 Feb 2025

Innovative apatite nanoparticles for advancing the biocompatibility of implanted biodevices

Medical implants have transformed healthcare, offering innovative solutions with advanced materials and technologies. However, many biomedical devices face challenges like insufficient cell adhesion, leading to inflammatory responses after their implantation in the body. Apatite coatings, particularly hydroxyapatite (HA)—a naturally occurring form of apatite found in bones, have been shown to promote better integration with surrounding tissues. However, the biocompatibility of artificially synthesized apatite nanoparticles often falls short of expectations, primarily due to the nanoparticles’ limited ability to bind effectively with biological tissues. To overcome ...

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Physics3 Feb 2025

Researchers solve a fluid mechanics mystery

What began as a demonstration of the complexity of fluid systems became an art piece in the American Physical Society’s Gallery of Fluid Motion, and ultimately its own puzzle that the researchers just solved. Their new study is published in the journal Physical Review Letters. “We came up with this experiment because we were having a hard time convincing people of certain effects happening for the problem of drag reduction,” said assistant professor Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, whose research specialties include modeling flow and investigating drag — as ...

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Physics3 Feb 2025

The right kind of fusion neutrons

In physics, the term “isotropy” means a system where the properties are the same in all directions. For fusion, neutron energy isotropy is an important measurement that analyzes the streams of neutrons coming from the device and how uniform they are. This is critical because so-called isotropic fusion plasmas suggest a stable, thermal plasma that can be scaled to higher fusion energy gains, whereas anisotropic plasmas, those emitting irregular neutron energies, can lead to a dead end. A new Zap research paper, published last week ...

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Physics29 Jan 2025

New atom-based thermometer measures temperature more accurately

Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have created a new thermometer using atoms boosted to such high energy levels that they are a thousand times larger than normal. By monitoring how these giant “Rydberg” atoms interact with heat in their environment, researchers can measure temperature with remarkable accuracy. The thermometer’s sensitivity could improve temperature measurements in fields ranging from quantum research to industrial manufacturing. Unlike traditional thermometers, a Rydberg thermometer doesn’t need to be first adjusted or calibrated at the ...

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Physics23 Jan 2025

New optical memory unit poised to improve processing speed and efficiency

WASHINGTON — Researchers have developed a new type of optical memory called a programmable photonic latch that is fast and scalable. This fundamental memory unit enables temporary data storage in optical processing systems, offering a high-speed solution for volatile memory using silicon photonics. The new integrated photonic latch is modeled after a set-reset latch, a basic memory device used in electronic devices to store a single bit by switching between set (1) and reset (0) states based on inputs. “While optical communications and computing have seen significant progress over the past decades, data storage has been predominantly implemented using electronic memory,” ...

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Physics23 Jan 2025

JAMA names ten academic physicians and nurses to 2025 Editorial Fellowship Program

Chicago, January 23, 2025 —JAMA today announces a new cohort of ten academic physicians and nurses selected for the JAMA Editorial Fellowship Program, designed to engage early career clinical or health services researchers with JAMA’s editorial team to learn about editorial decision-making and enhance skills in scientific communication. Fellows were chosen based on their demonstrated interest in medical publishing, medical education or research, or a career in academic medicine, as well as their communication skills and knowledge of medical research and study design. The 2025 JAMA editorial fellows are: Hannah ...

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Physics22 Jan 2025

Compact comb lights the way for next-gen photonics

In the world of modern optics, frequency combs are invaluable tools. These devices act as rulers for measuring light, enabling breakthroughs in telecommunications, environmental monitoring, and even astrophysics. But building compact and efficient frequency combs has been a challenge—until now. Electro-optic frequency combs, introduced in 1993, showed promise in generating optical combs through cascaded phase modulation but progress slowed down because of their high power demands and limited bandwidth. This led to the field being dominated by femtosecond lasers and Kerr soliton microcombs, which, while effective, require complex tuning and ...

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Physics22 Jan 2025

Clarifying the mechanism of coupled plasma fluctuations using simulations

Background In nature, phenomena in which multiple fluctuations occur in a coupled manner are frequently observed. For example, in large earthquakes, cases of them occurring consecutively in adjacent regions have been reported. When multiple fluctuations occur in this coupled way, compared to a single fluctuation, the coupled ones release more energy, leading to larger-scale phenomena. In fusion plasmas, fluctuations caused by energetic particles exist and are known to degrade the confinement of energetic particles. ...

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Physics18 Jan 2025

New superconductor with hallmark of unconventional superconductivity discovered

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have discovered a new superconducting material. They combined iron, nickel, and zirconium, to create a new transition metal zirconide with different ratios of iron to nickel. While both iron zirconide and nickel zirconide are not superconducting, the newly prepared mixtures are, exhibiting a “dome-shaped” phase diagram typical of so-called “unconventional superconductors,” a promising avenue for developing high temperature superconducting materials which can be more widely deployed in society. Superconductors already play ...

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Physics17 Jan 2025

Elena Belova and Yevgeny Raitses recognized for groundbreaking plasma physics research

The diversity of plasma research at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) was readily apparent when the PPPL 2024 Distinguished Research Fellows were recently announced. Elena Belova and Yevgeny Raitses were awarded the honor at the Lab’s annual State of the Laboratory event. Belova, a theoretical physicist, won for her work developing highly complex simulations of plasmas in different fusion experiments. Raitses, a managing principal research physicist, was honored for his experimental work on ...

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Physics16 Jan 2025

‘Brand new physics’ for next generation spintronics

Our data-driven world demands more—more capacity, more efficiency, more computing power. To meet society’s insatiable need for electronic speed, physicists have been pushing the burgeoning field of spintronics. Traditional electronics use the charge of electrons to encode, store and transmit information. Spintronic devices utilize both the charge and spin-orientation of electrons. By assigning a value to electron spin (up=0 and down=1), spintronic devices offer ultra-fast, energy-efficient platforms. To develop viable spintronics, physicists must understand the quantum properties ...

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Physics14 Jan 2025

Rice researchers unlock new insights into tellurene, paving the way for next-gen electronics

HOUSTON – (Jan. 14, 2025) – To describe how matter works at infinitesimal scales, researchers designate collective behaviors with single concepts ⎯ like calling a group of birds flying in sync a “flock” or “murmuration.” Known as quasiparticles, the phenomena these concepts refer to could be the key to next-generation technologies. In a recent study published in Science Advances, a team of researchers led by Shengxi Huang, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and materials science and nanoengineering at Rice, describe how one such type of quasiparticle ⎯ polarons ⎯ behaves in tellurene, a nanomaterial first synthesized ...

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Physics14 Jan 2025

The American Association for Anatomy announces their Highest Distinctions of 2025

ROCKVILLE, MD—January 14, 2025—The American Association for Anatomy (AAA) is thrilled to announce the recipients of their 2025 Spring Awards. Each awardee will be formally recognized at the Anatomy Connected 2025 Closing Awards Ceremony on March 31, in Portland, Oregon. The Spring Awards include the three highest distinctions awarded by AAA: the Henry Gray Scientific Award, the A.J. Ladman Exemplary Service Award, and the Henry Gray Distinguished Educator Award. The winners of these awards, along with the others on this list, are gathered through a nomination process conducted by their peers ...

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Physics11 Jan 2025

New perspective highlights urgent need for US physician strike regulations

Key Takeaways: A new Perspective piece in The New England Journal of Medicine led by the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute examined the increasing frequency of physician strikes around the globe. The piece is one of the first to provide international lessons on balancing physician collective bargaining rights with patient protections in the U.S. The findings underscore the urgent need for regulatory reforms to address the increasing frequency of physician strikes and ensure the sustainability of the healthcare system. Boston, MA – A ...

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Physics10 Jan 2025

Revealing the “true colors” of a single-atom layer of metal alloys

Researchers Ibuki Taniuchi, Ryota Akiyama, Rei Hobara, and Shuji Hasegawa of the University of Tokyo have demonstrated that the direction of the spin-polarized current can be restricted to only one direction in a single-atom layer of a thallium-lead alloys when irradiated at room temperature. The discovery defies conventions: single-atom layers have been thought to be almost completely transparent, in other words, negligibly absorbing or interacting with light. The one-directional flow of the current observed in this study makes possible functionality beyond ...

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Physics9 Jan 2025

Physical neglect as damaging to children’s social development as abuse

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — While physical neglect is understudied compared to physical, sexual or emotional abuse, neglect is just as damaging to children’s social development, a new study indicates. More than 9,150 individuals, nearly 41% of whom retrospectively reported some form of maltreatment before age 12 or reaching the sixth grade, were included in the study, published in the journal Child Abuse and Neglect. The project explored the impact of abuse or neglect on three dimensions of children’s structural peer relationships — whether maltreated youth were less social/more withdrawn, less popular with or avoided by their peers and how ...

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Physics8 Jan 2025

A new ultrathin conductor for nanoelectronics

​​As computer chips continue to get smaller and more complex, the ultrathin metallic wires that carry electrical signals within these chips have become a weak link. Standard metal wires get worse at conducting electricity as they get thinner, ultimately limiting the size, efficiency, and performance of nanoscale electronics. In a paper published Jan. 3 in Science, Stanford researchers show that niobium phosphide can conduct electricity better than copper in films that are only a few atoms thick. Moreover, these films can be created and deposited at sufficiently low temperatures to be compatible with modern computer ...

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Physics8 Jan 2025

The hidden mechanics of earthquake ignition

A new study has unravelled the hidden mechanics of how earthquakes ignite, shedding light on the mysterious transition from quiet, creeping motion to the violent ruptures that shake the Earth. Using cutting-edge experiments and innovative models, the research reveals that slow, silent stress release is a prelude and a necessary trigger for seismic activity. By incorporating the overlooked role of fault geometry, the study challenges long-held beliefs and offers a fresh perspective on how and when earthquakes begin. These findings not only deepen our understanding of nature’s ...

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Physics7 Jan 2025

SLAC will play a key role in DOE’s new research centers for advancing next-generation microelectronics

Around the globe day and night, the microelectronics behind much of modern technology help run computers, medical devices and state-of-the-art instruments that power scientific discoveries. But all of that technology consumes energy, and adding artificial intelligence to the mix increases our energy needs dramatically. Some experts caution that this pace of energy usage is unsustainable. To tackle this challenge, the Department of Energy (DOE) has announced funding $179 million for three Microelectronics ...

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