Browse Physics

Published June 22, 2009

Magnetism Quantum Information

The demonstration of all-optical spin-echo measurements may provide a route toward decoupling spins from noise sources.

Published June 15, 2009

Superconductivity

Calculations suggest that the height of the pnictogen atom in iron-based pnictide superconductors determines the symmetry of the superconducting gap.

Published June 15, 2009

Magnetism Quantum Mechanics Strongly Correlated Materials

The finding of a new duality theory could contribute to solving problems in quantum magnetism.

Published June 15, 2009

Biological Physics

The shapes of “binding proteins” contribute to the ease with which they can diffuse along DNA until they reach a specific sequence.

Published June 8, 2009

Optics

Is the intracavity field of a laser necessarily a coherent state?

Published June 8, 2009

Quantum Information

A system familiar in condensed matter—particles on a hexagonal lattice—could be a useful initial state for a one-way quantum computer.

Published June 8, 2009

Materials Science

CuO in thin-film form could be a prototype material for exploring magnetism that is similar to what is found in high-temperature superconductors.

Published June 1, 2009

Materials Science Superconductivity

Following diamond and silicon, germanium is the third elemental semiconductor to host superconductivity at ambient pressure.

Published June 1, 2009

Nuclear Physics

Phase separation could be an experimentally observable signature of the predicted critical point in dense quark matter.

Published May 26, 2009

Astrophysics Cosmology Particles & Fields

Detectors buried beneath the Antarctic ice place stringent limits on the presence of dark matter particles, called neutralinos, in the sun.

Published May 26, 2009

Graphene

Scanning tunneling spectroscopy establishes the dominant mechanism of electron scattering when graphene is placed on a substrate.

Published May 26, 2009

Materials Science

The ability to hole-dope Bi₂Se₃ is an important step toward exploring the thermoelectric properties of this material.

Published May 22, 2009

Nanophysics

A molecular network on a copper surface serves as a template for growing nanowires of uniform size from a range of metals.

Published May 18, 2009

Metamaterials

A compact lens made from an acoustic metamaterial can focus ultrasonic waves to half a wavelength.

Published May 11, 2009

Optics

A unified framework can describe light-matter interactions in a broad range of optomechanical systems, from single laser-cooled atoms to micromechanical mirrors.

Published May 11, 2009

Nuclear Physics

An algebraic version of Bohr’s collective model is shown to be an effective tool for the analysis of rotational and vibrational spectra in nuclei.

Published May 11, 2009

Mesoscopics

Giant jumps in the current-voltage characteristics of disordered films could be the first evidence that electron transport in insulators can occur in the absence of phonons.

Published May 4, 2009

Quantum Mechanics

How screening affects the Coulomb interaction has long been considered a solved problem, but an analysis indicates there is an error in the widely used analytical approach.

Published May 4, 2009

Materials Science Nonlinear Dynamics Quantum Mechanics

Neutron scattering measurements indicate that intrinsic localized modes are found in thermal equilibrium in NaI, a simple ionic crystal.

Published April 27, 2009

Magnetism Superconductivity

Density-functional calculations provide a comprehensive picture of how magnetic order evolves with doping in two iron pnictide compounds.

Published April 27, 2009

Nanophysics

First-principles calculations predict that a thin layer of VO₂ sandwiched between TiO₂ layers has electronic states that exhibit both linear and quadratic dispersion.

Published April 20, 2009

Gravitation Quantum Mechanics

Finding a quantum theory of gravity remains one of the great unsolved problems in modern physics. Two papers present a quantum gravity theory that, while making different assumptions than general relativity, still reproduces Einstein’s theory in certain limits.

Published April 20, 2009

Nanophysics

A critical thickness below which thin films of the metallic ferromagnet SrRuO₃ become insulating and lose their ferromagnetic properties has been determined.

Published April 20, 2009

Optics

Simulations of optical speckle reveal topological scaling laws that apply to a wide range of physical systems.

Published April 14, 2009

Graphene

Adding a third layer to bilayer graphene leads to a drastic modification of its electronic energy band structure.