Browse Physics

Ultrathin solar cells are cost efficient, but new theoretical tools are needed to understand how light interacts with cells thinner than its wavelength.

New calculations of hypothetical “black hole bombs” set an upper limit on the possible mass of the photon and on the existence of certain dark matter candidates.

Methods from statistical physics and graph theory help uncover the structure of human language.

An ultra-high-speed camera has captured the cooling of surface electrons in topological insulators.

Quantum calculations are a valuable predictive tool for designing better alloys.

New research has identified a rare form of magnetism at the interface between two different oxide compounds.

Cloaking mechanisms, analogous to those in optical metamaterials, can also hide regions that scatter electrons in semiconductors.

A network model reveals optimal configurations for withstanding random failure or targeted attacks.

The mystery of curved folds in origami artwork is partly unraveled by a mathematical modeling of the elastic forces in a folded ring structure.

Optical microscopes can be adapted to measure the mass of individual cells.

A proposed interferometry experiment could detect quantum states, called anyons, which are neither bosons nor fermions.

An excess of tau leptons in bottom meson decays signals a puzzling departure from the standard model.

Researchers explain where those X- and Y-shaped waves at the shore come from.

State of the art quantum measurements show that the original formulation of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle can be violated.

Controlling the surface termination of a material with a large spin-orbit effect could provide a way to select a particular spin state for spintronic devices.

A thin metal slab known as a superlens, which focuses light more sharply than its wavelength, could have an even higher resolution imaging rapidly varying electromagnetic fields.

Theorists consider the experimental signature of a quantum spin ice.

Experiments can see how motor proteins direct the movements of the cell’s cytoskeleton in a fluctuating environment.

A new metamaterial mirror comes with a control knob that varies the direction of the reflected light.

A new self-assembly process creates nanowires of germanium without the metal catalyst required in earlier experiments.