Browse Physics

Shock waves in solids can propagate as a single structure made up of two zones with different mechanical properties.

Under very high pressures hydrogen may combine with platinum to produce new structural phases and high-temperature superconductivity.

New research explains how a novel type of rechargeable battery is able to sequester defects, so that ions can move more easily between electrodes.

A theoretical approach shows how particles need to be designed such that they self-assemble into a particular structure.

Levitation technique provides a way to solidify pharmaceutical drugs in a highly soluble form.

Colloids containing ellipsoidal particles have two distinct glass transitions.

Researchers fabricated a material that generates an electric field due to a stretched atomic structure, and they modified its properties by changing its growth conditions. Similar materials may be useful in nanotechnology.

State-of-the-art x-ray scattering demonstrates sudden avalanche-like structural changes in cobalt.

Experiments suggest that the celebrated “boson peak”—a low-frequency vibrational feature characteristic of amorphous materials—may be related to a well-known phonon singularity in ordered crystalline materials.

Scratching steel and other materials is unexpectedly dominated by a process of cutting rather than pressing, according to new experiments and analytical modeling.

A new x-ray scattering technique successfully probes the elastic properties of thin semiconductor films.

How a material’s structure affects the conduction of ultrahot electrons is being explored with one of the world’s most powerful lasers.

Simulations provide a guide to identifying atoms in high-resolution images of carbon nanomaterials.

Thermodynamic arguments and a one-dimensional model help explain why the grain boundaries in an annealed polycrystalline material have an unexpectedly simple statistical distribution.

To better interpret the information in images, electron microscopists are looking more closely at how an electron beam scatters inside of a specimen.

Combining a manganite electrode with a ferroelectric tunnel junction could show an impressive tunneling effect.

Structural changes in an alloy may lead to a clearer picture of glass transitions in liquid metals.

An x-ray free electron laser setup converts the diffraction pattern of randomly positioned and oriented particles into an image of a single particle.

Properties of vibrations in a pillar in a 1400-year-old Sicilian cathedral correlate with those of very small, nearby earthquakes, suggesting new ways of monitoring the gradual damage that such quakes can inflict on old buildings.

The voltage created in inclined thin anisotropic films illuminated by laser light is significantly affected by a photovoltaic component.