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Quantum dots reveal hidden light waves on metal surfaces

Photographs can reveal things that are otherwise impossible for the naked eye to see, be they distant galaxies or microscopic cells. Researchers at Osaka Metropolitan University have developed a practical and versatile imaging technique that makes another usually invisible phenomenon visible: surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), light waves that travel along metal surfaces.

The new method, published in the journal Nano Letters, could boost the development of next-generation optical and plasmonic technologies.

SPPs are electromagnetic waves that travel along the boundary between a metal and a dielectric material, such as air or glass. Unlike ordinary light, which spreads freely through three-dimensional space, SPPs remain tightly confined to this interface, allowing them to be guided and manipulated at the nanoscale. This unique property makes them fundamental to emerging technologies including ultrasensitive sensors, optical circuits and quantum devices.

Quantum Zeno effect could freeze computations as qubit systems scale up

The promise of quantum computing is to solve complex problems faster and more energy-efficiently than today’s supercomputers—from optimizing logistics to simulating molecules. This goal is coming within reach as the number of qubits—the computational units of quantum computing—increases.

But in addition to the technological challenges of scaling, there is another, less-considered issue: In the New Journal of Physics, researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) demonstrate that, in extreme cases, the so-called quantum Zeno effect can nearly halt computational processes as the number of qubits increases—a dreaded phenomenon comparable to a traditional computer “freezing.”

“The quantum Zeno effect is a previously overlooked obstacle to a certain class of quantum computers,” says Dr. Gernot Schaller, head of Quantum Technologies at HZDR’s Institute of Theoretical Physics. These so-called adiabatic quantum computers operate according to a special principle: Their qubits are always in their ground state, the lowest energy state. To solve a computational problem, the qubits’ energy landscape is gradually altered—slowly enough for them to adapt continuously and follow the changing ground state. Once the transformation is complete, the ground state immediately encodes the solution to the problem.

Oxygen collisions at the LHC show new indications of extreme state of matter

All four main LHC experiments have found new signs that oxygen and neon collisions may create the extreme state of matter that existed during the first microseconds after the Big Bang.

One year after the first-ever collisions of oxygen at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the main LHC collaborations—ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb—have each reported signs of the state of matter known as quark–gluon plasma (QGP) produced in these collisions.

QGP is a state of matter that forms under intense pressure and at temperatures more than 100,000 times hotter than the center of the sun. Under these extreme conditions, composite particles break down into quarks and the gluons that ordinarily hold them together. Scientists believe this was the state of the universe in the first microseconds after the Big Bang. In the present-day universe, nearly 14 billion years later, they can recreate and study QGP with high-energy nuclear collisions at the LHC.

Gold-catalyzed chemical reaction advances next-generation anticancer prodrugs

Anticancer prodrugs have attracted significant attention from the medical and scientific communities in recent years because of their potential to improve treatment precision while reducing side effects. These drugs are engineered to remain inactive until they are activated at specific sites or under particular physiological conditions within the body, at which point they release their therapeutic effect.

This targeted approach helps minimize damage to healthy tissues that often occurs when conventional chemotherapy agents attack cancer cells, addressing the longstanding challenge of collateral toxicity in cancer treatment.

However, achieving precise drug activation within the body’s highly complex biological environment remains a considerable challenge. Existing chemical strategies and activation technologies continue to face a number of technical limitations and obstacles, highlighting the need for further innovation in this field.

Magnetic clues inside atomic nuclei help explain how elements form in stars

A scientific team led by Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, has identified the origin of a mysterious excess of low-energy gamma rays emitted by the nucleus zinc-70. They found that the excess is caused by magnetic transitions within the nucleus. The study, “Magnetic Character of the Low-Energy Enhancement in 70 Zn,” published in Nature, sheds light on a long-standing puzzle in nuclear physics and has far-reaching implications for astrophysics.

The collaboration included scientists from 25 institutions in the United States, Canada, Italy, Germany, Norway and South Korea.

Algorithms create foundry-ready photonic circuits

Photonic microchips can process data at extremely high speeds and are embedded in a wide variety of today’s technologies. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) and Harvard University have now succeeded in developing three functional components for such chips that are up to 500 times smaller than conventional designs. The researchers used inverse design, a computer algorithm, to achieve this. The results are published in Nature Communications.

Photonic microchips are among the key technologies of modern data processing. Their miniaturization and extremely fast data processing relative to electronic components make them essential building blocks in telecommunications, large-scale AI data centers, precision measurement and quantum technologies. Light is guided through micrometer-wide waveguides across chips only a few millimeters wide.

Photonic microchips incorporate various components, such as grating couplers, which couple light between fibers and the chip, and ring resonators, tiny circular structures that temporarily store light and strongly increase light intensity inside the chip.

Physicists turn to the universe’s ‘piano notes’ to detect hidden particles

It’s been said that a finely tuned ear knows the size and shape of a piano by merely listening to the instrument’s notes. An international team of physicists has now devised an analogous approach to detect the universe’s hidden particles at high energies—opening a potential pathway for discovering new laws of physics.

The work, which will appear in the journal Physical Review Letters, outlines how effective field theory (EFT) coefficients, which quantify how new laws of physics would influence known particle interactions at low energies, can be transformed into information about the nature of these hidden particles. CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, the scientists note, already searches for values of EFT coefficients through its measurement of particle collisions, thereby providing ready-to-use data for this approach.

“Like deducing the shape and mechanism of a piano from the sound of its notes, this breakthrough provides the means to use collider measurements to deduce the details of hidden particles at high energies,” explains Grant Remmen, the James Arthur Postdoctoral Fellow at New York University and one of the paper’s authors. “This solves a classic open problem in particle physics in an elegant and useful way, providing powerful and sharp mathematical tools that bridge high-energy theory and particle physics experiments.”

Prize honors discovery of altermagnetism as a third fundamental class of magnetism

One of Europe’s highest distinctions in condensed matter physics has been awarded for a discovery that is reshaping our understanding of magnetism: The 2026 Europhysics Prize of the European Physical Society (EPS) Condensed Matter Division goes to Professor Jairo Sinova of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), Dr. Libor Šmejkal and Professor Tomas Jungwirth for their discovery of altermagnetism—a previously unknown fundamental class of magnetism.

The prize recognizes their work establishing that nature hosts a third elementary form of collinear magnetism in addition to ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism. The discovery overturns a century-old understanding of magnetic order and has opened an entirely new research field with major implications for quantum materials, condensed matter physics and future information technologies.

“This award recognizes a fundamental discovery that challenged one of the most established paradigms in condensed matter physics,” said Sinova, director of the Spin Phenomena Interdisciplinary Center (SPICE) at Mainz University. “Discovering that an entirely new magnetic phase had remained hidden for more than 100 years demonstrates that even the most mature scientific fields can still hold fundamental surprises.”

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