News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

Graphene Flagship researchers reach the ultimate level of light confinement -- the space of one atom. This will pave the way to ultra-small optical switches, detectors and sensors.

Army scientists, with a team of researchers from the University of Maryland and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, have created a water-based zinc battery that is simultaneously powerful, rechargeable and intrinsically safe.

Some Illinois researchers working on artificial muscles are seeing results even the fittest individuals would envy, designing muscles capable of lifting up to 12,600 times their own weight. Assistant professor of mechanical science and engineering Sameh Tawfick, Beckman postdoctoral fellow Caterina Lamuta, and Simon Messelot recently published a study on how to design super strong artificial muscles in the journal Smart Material and Structures. The new muscles are made from carbon fiber-reinforced siloxane rubber and have a coiled geometry.

A quantum simulation of topological phases of matter at finite temperature has be realized for the first time by a group of researchers from Universidad Complutense, IBM, ETH Zurich, MIT and Harvard University. These findings open the door to unexpected applications in robust quantum technologies against thermal fluctuations such as quantum computers or memories.

Army researchers have developed an artificial intelligence and machine learning technique that produces a visible face image from a thermal image of a person's face captured in low-light or nighttime conditions. This development could lead to enhanced real-time biometrics and post-mission forensic analysis for covert nighttime operations.

Predicting the behaviour of electrons in a material is not easily done. Physicists from the University of Geneva, ETH Zurich and EPFL replaced the electrons with ultra-cold neutral lithium atoms that they had circulated in a one-dimensional quantum tube. The scientists were able to confirm an unusual state of matter that retains its insulation regardless of the level of attraction between the particles. This work opens the way to new materials with atypical properties.

The ALPHA experiment at CERN, led by Swansea University scientists, has carried out the most precise and accurate measurement ever done on antimatter.

A Swansea University nanomaterials expert has been looking at how small gold particles survive when subjected to very high temperatures.