Nature categorizes particles into two fundamental types: fermions and bosons. While matter-building particles such as quarks and electrons belong to the fermion family, bosons typically serve as force carriers—examples include photons, which mediate electromagnetic interactions, and gluons, which govern nuclear forces.
Solid-state batteries are seen as a game-changer for the future of energy storage. They can hold more power and are safer because they don’t rely on flammable materials like today’s lithium-ion batteries. Now, researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and TUMint. Energy Research have made a major breakthrough that could bring this future closer.
They have created a new material made from lithium, antimony, and a small amount of scandium. This material allows lithium ions to move more than 30 percent faster than any known alternative. That means record-breaking conductivity, which could lead to faster charging and more efficient batteries.
Led by Professor Thomas F. Fässler, the team discovered that swapping some of the lithium atoms for scandium atoms changes the structure of the material. This creates specific gaps, so-called vacancies, in the crystal lattice of the conductor material. These gaps help the lithium ions to move more easily and faster, resulting in a new world record for ion conductivity.
Some of the most promising materials for future technologies come in layers just one atom thick, such as graphene, a sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice, prized for its exceptional strength and conductivity. While hundreds of such materials exist, truly merging them into something new has remained a challenge. Most efforts simply stack these atom-thin sheets like a deck of cards, but the layers typically lack significant interaction between them.
An international team of researchers led by Rice University materials scientists has succeeded in creating a genuine 2D hybrid by chemically integrating two fundamentally different 2D materials—graphene and silica glass —into a single, stable compound called glaphene, according to a study published in Advanced Materials.
“The layers do not just rest on each other; electrons move and form new interactions and vibration states, giving rise to properties neither material has on its own,” said Sathvik Iyengar, a doctoral student at Rice and a first author on the study.
Statistical mechanics is one of the pillars of modern physics. Ludwig Boltzmann (1844–1906) and Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839–1903) were its primary formulators. They both worked to establish a bridge between macroscopic physics, which is described by thermodynamics, and microscopic physics, which is based on the behavior of atoms and molecules.
The Austrian physicist Boltzmann explained the second law of thermodynamics in statistical terms. He defined the entropy of a system based on the number of possible microstates it could assume.
Unlike Boltzmann, who focused more on the physics of gases and the distribution of particles in equilibrium, the American Gibbs developed a general mathematical formalism that could be extended to more complex systems. Together, their contributions formed the basis of a physics capable of modeling a wide variety of phenomena.
A team of scientists has unveiled a breakthrough that could one day propel computers to operate at speeds millions of times faster than today’s most advanced processors.
The discovery, led by researchers at the University of Arizona and their international collaborators, centers on harnessing ultrafast pulses of light to control the movement of electrons in graphene – a material just one atom thick.
The research, recently published in Nature Communications, demonstrates that electrons can be made to bypass barriers almost instantaneously by firing laser pulses lasting less than a trillionth of a second at graphene. This phenomenon, known as quantum tunneling, has long intrigued physicists, but the team’s ability to observe and manipulate it in real time marks a significant milestone.
From smartphones and TVs to credit cards, technologies that manipulate light are deeply embedded in our daily lives, many of which are based on holography. However, conventional holographic technologies have faced limitations, particularly in displaying multiple images on a single screen and in maintaining high-resolution image quality.
Recently, a research team led by Professor Junsuk Rho at POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology) has developed a groundbreaking metasurface technology that can display up to 36 high-resolution images on a surface thinner than a human hair. This research has been published in Advanced Science.
This achievement is driven by a special nanostructure known as a metasurface. Hundreds of times thinner than a human hair, the metasurface is capable of precisely manipulating light as it passes through. The team fabricated nanometer-scale pillars using silicon nitride, a material known for its robustness and excellent optical transparency. These pillars, referred to as meta-atoms, allow for fine control of light on the metasurface.