Materials science

Physicists recently mapped the hidden shape that underlies the quantum behaviors of a crystal, using a new method that’s expected to become ubiquitous.

The physicist Sidney Nagel delights in solving mysteries of the universe that are hiding in plain sight.

Three new species of superconductivity were spotted this year, illustrating the myriad ways electrons can join together to form a frictionless quantum soup.

In an atomically thin stack of semiconductors, a mechanism unseen in any natural substance causes electrons’ spins to align.

For 50 years, physicists have understood current as a flow of charged particles. But a new experiment has found that in at least one strange material, this understanding falls apart.

Physicists have long suspected that hunks of metal could vibrate in a peculiar way that would be all but invisible. Now physicists have spotted these “demon modes.”

The development of attosecond pulses of light allowed researchers to explore the frame-by-frame movement of electrons.

By treating molecules as geometric tessellations, scientists devised a new way to forecast how 2D materials might self-assemble.

The buckminsterfullerene revolution never came, but some researchers are eagerly exploring the properties of newfound carbon crystals known as fullertubes.