materials science

The zoo of spontaneously emerging particlelike entities known as quasiparticles has grown quickly and become more and more exotic. Here are a few of the most curious and potentially useful examples.

An unexpected superconductor was beginning to look like a fluke, but a new theory and a second discovery have revealed that emergent quasiparticles may be behind the effect.

Inside cells, droplets of biomolecules called condensates merge, divide and dissolve. Their dance may regulate vital processes.

Has physics reached the limits of what we can discover — or are the possibilities only just beginning?

Researchers have shown how to effectively transform one material into another using a finely shaped laser pulse.

Push or crush a new class of materials, and they’ll undergo record-breaking temperature changes.

Sometimes a mirror that reflects 99.9999% of light isn’t good enough.

Glass is anything that’s rigid like a crystal, yet made of disordered molecules like a liquid. To understand why it exists, researchers are attempting to create the perfect, still-hypothetical “ideal glass.”

Mathematicians have studied knots for centuries, but a new material is showing why some knots are better than others.