materials science

Animals sculpt the optical properties of their tissues at the nanoscale to give themselves “structural colors.” New work is piecing together how they do it.

Federica Coppari uses the world’s most powerful laser to recreate the cores of distant worlds.

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.