Latest Nature Physics Stories

Physicists study single-atom lasersRainer Blatt's and Piet Schmidt's research team from the University of Innsbruck have successfully realized a single-atom laser, which shows the properties of a classical laser as well as quantum mechanical properties of the atom-photon interaction. The scientists have published their findings in the journal Nature Physics.The first laser was developed 50 years ago. Today we cannot imagine life without the artificially produced light waves - lasers have...

Desktop experiments could point the way to dark matter discovery, complementing grand astronomical searches and deep underground observations. According to recent theoretical results, small blocks of matter on a tabletop could reveal elusive properties of the as-yet-unidentified dark matter particles that make up a quarter of the universe, potentially making future large-scale searches easier. This finding was announced today by theorists from the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy...

Friction in human relations is all too obvious and prevalent, but friction in physics has had a "secret life" of its own that has now been revealed by scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.In an article appearing in the journal Nature (with a further reference to it in Nature Physics), the scientists show how frictional strength evolves from extremely short to long time scales. The new information could be useful in assessing a wide range of natural and man-made phenomena...

Theoretical spectroscopy and computational model reveal hidden ordered stateElectrons in complex matter sometimes arrange themselves into strange patterns, which remain shrouded in mystery. Finding the organizing principles and classifying their phases is an important challenge in understanding condensed matter.One such material is URu2Si2. "URu2Si2 is a man-made compound based on uranium, which undergoes an unknown phase transition," said Kristjan Haule of the Center for Materials...

Neutron scattering experiments performed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory give strong evidence that, if superconductivity is related to a material's magnetic properties, the same mechanisms are behind both copper-based high-temperature superconductors and the newly discovered iron-based superconductors.The work, published in a recent Nature Physics, was performed at ORNL's Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) and High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) along with the ISIS...

Natural cavities act like mirrors in light-emitting plasticsWhen University of Utah scientists discovered a new kind of laser that was generated by an electrically conducting plastic or polymer, no one could explain how it worked and some doubted it was real. Now, a decade later, the Utah researchers have found these "random lasers" occur because of natural, mirror-like cavities in the polymers, and they say such lasers may prove useful for diagnosing cancer."Nobody knew how it...

The remarkable feat of tying light in knots has been achieved by a team of physicists working at the universities of Bristol, Glasgow and Southampton, UK, reports a paper in Nature Physics this weekThe remarkable feat of tying light in knots has been achieved by a team of physicists working at the universities of Bristol, Glasgow and Southampton, UK, reports a paper in Nature Physics this week.Understanding how to control light in this way has important implications for laser technology used...

Göttingen scientists develop an autonomous walking robot that flexibly switches between many different gaits by using "chaos control"Even simple insects can generate quite different movement patterns with their six legs. The animal uses various gaits depending on whether it crawls uphill or downhill, slowly or fast. Scientists from Göttingen have now developed a walking robot, which - depending on the situation - can flexibly and autonomously switch between different gaits....

"T-rays" may make X-rays obsolete as a means of detecting bombs on terrorists or illegal drugs on traffickers, among other uses, contends a Texas A&M physicist who is helping lay the theoretic groundwork to make the concept a reality. In addition to being more revealing than X-rays in some situations, T-rays do not have the cumulative possible harmful effects.Alexey Belyanin focuses his research on terahertz, otherwise known as THz or T-rays, which he says is the most under-developed and...

Rice lab makes solid material transparent to terahertz wavesVery often in science, the unexpected discovery turns out to be the most significant. Rice University Professor Junichiro Kono and his team weren't looking for a breakthrough in the transmission of terahertz signals, but there it was: a plasmonic material that would, with adjustments to its temperature and/or magnetic field, either stop a terahertz beam cold or let it pass completely.The finding by Kono, a professor in electrical and...