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Category: materials – Page 5

Uranium Energy vs. Oklo: Which Nuclear Fuel Play Wins in 2026?

In May, Oklo was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for advanced negotiations under the Surplus Plutonium Utilization Program, which makes designated surplus plutonium available to private industry for conversion into fuel under strict requirements.

In contrast, Uranium Energy Corporation is positioned at the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle. The company is a U.S.-based uranium miner that uses in situ recovery (ISR), a low-impact mining method that uses oxygenated groundwater to dissolve uranium underground and then pumps it to the surface.

Uranium Energy uses a “hub-and-spoke” platform, meaning it operates processing plants that serve as central hubs for processing material extracted from multiple nearby mining sites (the spokes). The company currently controls two active ISR central processing production platforms in the U.S., in Wyoming and Texas.

New optical method reveals internal dynamics of elusive Wigner crystals

Researchers at the University of Basel and the Technical University of Munich have developed a new method to reveal the collective motion of electrons in one of the most elusive states of matter: the Wigner crystal. Using light, the physicists were able to uncover previously inaccessible properties of this fragile quantum state.

When electrons confined to a two-dimensional plane interact strongly with one another, they can stop moving independently and instead form a periodic lattice resembling the atomic arrangement in an ordinary crystal.

This ordered state, known as a Wigner crystal, has fascinated scientists for decades because its order does not arise from the internal structure of the host material, but from interactions among the electrons themselves.

Distant time crystals oscillate in unison, paving the way for spin networks

In January 2024, physicists at TU Dortmund University demonstrated a continuous time crystal in a semiconductor whose oscillations remained stable for hours. In a new study published in Nature Communications, Professor Alex Greilich and his team show that many such time crystals can form in the same material and synchronize their electron-nuclear spin oscillations.

Time crystals are systems whose internal dynamics repeat periodically in time without being driven by a periodic external signal. In the TU Dortmund experiment, they are created in a semiconductor made of gallium arsenide containing small amounts of indium and silicon, which provides localized electrons. At temperatures close to −270°C (−454°F), each electron interacts with about one million surrounding nuclear spins.

A pump laser aligns the electron spins, which transfer their polarization to the nuclear spins. In a weak magnetic field, the nuclear-spin polarization begins to rotate. The resulting feedback between the electron and nuclear spins sustains the oscillations, while a second laser is used to observe them.

Scientists Catch a Hidden Electronic State Forming Almost Instantly

Researchers observed a hidden state triggered by light forming within 30 femtoseconds.

A pulse of light sent a metal-organic framework into a hidden electronic state in just 30 femtoseconds. By watching the transformation almost as it happened, researchers uncovered a fleeting intermediate stage that appears to guide the material into its new state.

The work was conducted by researchers at the Institute of Science Tokyo, Tohoku University, and Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan. Combining ultrafast laser spectroscopy with theoretical calculations allowed them to identify the transient electronic state and clarify its role in the rapid transition. The results could improve efforts to control material properties using light.

A Photonic Crystal in Time

Metamaterial-based device working at terahertz frequencies could be turned into a new type of laser.

Boron layers could set a superconductivity record, theoretical study predicts

Scientists in China predict that stacking two microscopic layers of boron could set a new record for superconductivity. Superconductors are materials that conduct electricity with zero resistance. Traditional types need temperatures close to absolute zero to work, requiring complex and expensive cooling equipment.

However, in this new research published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the team predicted a single-element superconductor that works at a much less extreme temperature. If replicated in the real world, it could mean much lower cooling costs and a major step toward improving the efficiency of power grids and technologies like medical MRI scanners and maglev trains.

Currently, the best-known elemental superconductor, scandium, reaches 36 Kelvin (K) (−237°C [-395°F]) only at about 260 gigapascals of pressure. In the new study, scientists predict a threshold of 68 K (−205°C [-337°F]) for the stacked boron layers.

Physicists watch a material’s electrons assemble, and reassemble, into coexisting phases

A tall glass of ice water isn’t just a thirst quencher; it’s also an everyday example of coexisting phases. Water can exist simultaneously in both liquid and solid phases. As it turns out, this phase duality can also exist in more exotic quantum materials, in ways that are far more complicated to tease apart.

A new study by MIT physicists sheds light on how two different phases of electron behavior can emerge and coexist in the same quantum material.

Their results, reported in the journal Nature Physics, can help explain how some materials host superconductivity, magnetism and other electronic phases. Untangling such phases and understanding how they emerge will help engineers control electronic behavior and design high-performance quantum devices.

Observing key material properties atom by atom for the first time

Many material properties depend on how electrons are arranged inside a material. Their distribution determines, for example, whether a material conducts electricity or displays magnetic behavior. Understanding how electrons organize themselves at the atomic scale is therefore one of the major challenges in materials science. Now, a team led by researchers at the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) has developed a new technique that, for the first time, reveals how electrons are organized inside materials with an unprecedented level of detail.

Until now, available techniques could only provide an overall picture of electronic structure. They could not reveal in detail how electrons vary from one atom to another, either at the surface or deeper within the material. “This type of instrument is like opening a box that until now has been closed,” says Jaume Gàzquez, ICMAB-CSIC researcher and one of the corresponding authors of the paper published in Nature Materials. “We can now observe phenomena that simply could not be seen before.”

The work was carried out in collaboration with the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Uppsala University (Sweden), the University of Washington (United States), and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (United States). The project brought together expertise in advanced microscopy, theoretical simulations and materials synthesis.

Never-before-seen woven structure that forms naturally inside a crystal discovered

For the first time, scientists have observed a three-dimensional woven structure forming naturally inside a crystal, revealing a previously unknown way in which matter can organize itself.

Published in Light: Science & Applications, the study reports the observation of a three-dimensional woven fabric of interlaced nano-dipole ensembles that emerges spontaneously in a ferroelectric crystal as it cools through its phase transition. Unlike conventional ferroelectric crystals, in which ferroelectric domains consist of aligned electric dipoles, the dipoles in this material spontaneously weave over and under one another, creating an intricate three-dimensional network that resembles woven fabric—a type of organization never before observed in a solid crystal.

The researchers also found that they could change small parts of the woven network using a tightly focused green laser. The light locally untangles the woven pattern without affecting the rest of the crystal. Heating the crystal and cooling it again restores the woven structure, but with a new pattern.

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