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Molecules can be placed in a wide variety of quantum states. How can these states be distinguished in measurements when theoretical models are unreliable? Which excitation process lies behind which measurement signal?

Quantum technologies are considered key technologies of the future. However, research in this field requires not only scientific expertise but sometimes also highly specialized laboratory conditions. Bose–Einstein condensates are a remarkable example, in which atoms move in lockstep, making quantum-mechanical effects visible not only at the level of individual atoms but also on a macroscopic scale. The first Bose–Einstein condensates were observed in ultracold atomic gases at temperatures close to absolute zero. The cooling required to achieve this was technically demanding, costly and restricted to specialized laboratories.

From spiders spinning their webs to the manufacturing of textiles, the formation of fibers from liquids plays an important role in both nature and industry. Yet accurately predicting the properties of such fibers remains a challenge. The fiber is often much thinner than the nozzle from which a polymer or solution is extruded. Factors such as temperature, flow conditions and chemical reactions ultimately determine a fiber's thickness and strength.

Hydrogen is the simplest element in the periodic table, consisting of just one proton and one electron. In chemistry, however, the smallest of atoms is anything but simple. First produced by Nobel laureate Irving Langmuir over a century ago, single hydrogen atoms (H•) are so reactive that they are almost impossible to prepare and use.

Neutrinos are persnickety particles. We couldn't really detect neutrinos from deep space until Francis Halzen had a brilliant, Nobel Prize-winning idea.

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Einstein Probe revealed nearly 10 minutes of soft X-ray activity following a short gamma-ray burst, exposing a phase of neutron star mergers that previous missions may have missed. The prolonged emission could have been powered by a newly formed magnetar and may provide a valuable new counterpart to gravitational-wave signals.

Neutrino expert Kirsty Duffy is our podcast guest The post Francis Halzen and IceCube: why neutrinos keep attracting Nobel prizes appeared first on Physics World.

Using data from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys, with help from artificial intelligence, an international team of scientists has discovered 70 new gravitational lenses—rare cosmic alignments that act as natural magnifying glasses. The new lenses further expand one of the largest collections of confirmed lenses to date and will allow scientists to study dark matter, galaxy evolution and the structure of the universe.

Donald Trump has again said he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, despite an unresolved war with Iran and analysts' assessment that his chances of winning are low.

Chemistry Nobel for Mirror-Image Molecules Twenty-five years after French chemists protested that he had been passed over, 95-year-old

Creating a quantum device often begins by intentionally damaging a crystal.

Author(s): Ryan WilkinsonWhen intense quantum light knocks electrons out of atoms, the statistics of the light can be transferred to the electrons. [Physics 19, s123] Published Wed Oct 07, 2026

Author(s): Anthony CiavarellaPairing superconducting qubits with microwave cavities could reduce the hardware requirements for quantum simulations of fundamental physics. [Physics 19, 135] Published Wed Oct 07, 2026

Francis Halzen, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, spoke with pride on Wednesday about his early promotion of artificial intelligence in his research on neutrinos.

A new type of advanced microscope (wide-field coherent multidimensional microscopy) has been developed. It uses a carefully designed sequence of ultrashort light pulses to study the behavior of high-tech materials, with potential practical applications in the study of innovative materials such as those used to build solar panels. This is the result of work by a research group of physicists from the Faculty of Sciences, Mathematics, Physics, and Natural Sciences at Università Cattolica's Brescia campus who, for the first time, have developed a "multidimensional microscope" that, in a sense, records the behavior of materials.

Researchers at South China University of Technology, in collaboration with the Dongguan Institute of Materials Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, have developed a novel supranano multi-precipitate microstructure in amorphous soft magnetic composites using Ar/O₂ plasma treatment. By facilitating magnetic-moment reversal, this approach significantly reduced coercivity while maintaining excellent overall performance.

photonicSENS was awarded the 2026 VISION Award at the VISION 2026 conference in Stuttgart. The company is recognized for its plenoptic camera technology which captures a full 2D image and a metric, per-pixel depth map in a single shot from a single sensor, with no projector, no scan axis, and no on-site calibration. Machine vision camera developer photonicSENS accepted the 2026 VISION Award on Oct. 7 in recognition of its innovative plenoptic camera technology. Courtesy of Messe Stuttgart. The winner was selected from five finalists who presented their innovations during a 1-h session at the Industrial Vision Days event on Oct. 1. The other four finalists were the Australian Institute of Technology, recognized for PHOTODEX, a...

Modern technological breakthroughs like lasers, MRI scanners, semiconductors and quantum computers rest on the study of quantum mechanics. However, the field has predominantly focused on (sub)atomic phenomena far removed from our human senses.

Unconventional superconductors can host unusual electronic states, but understanding what drives their superconductivity becomes difficult when different forms of order coexist. The kagome metal CsV3Sb5 has become a particularly debated example.

Today, many physicists are actively exploring how light could be used to link objects through quantum entanglement. By fully harnessing the effect, they hope to unlock a wide array of applications, from secure communication networks spanning vast distances to sensitive new tests of the fundamental laws of physics.

While lithium has been used as a first-line treatment for the long-term management of bipolar disorder for more than 70 years, scientists still do not fully understand how it produces its therapeutic effects in the brain.In a new study published in PLOS ONE, Surrey researchers used computational chemistry and quantum simulations to investigate whether part of the answer could lie in "nuclear spin"—a quantum property that makes an atom's nucleus behave like a tiny magnet, allowing it to influence nearby electrons and potentially change the outcome of chemical reactions.

Collisions between particles at high energies can sometimes produce new particles and shed light on interactions between the fundamental constituents of matter. Simulating these collisions and their underlying processes could yield valuable insights into how matter behaves at extremely small scales.

The prize recognizes Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai's discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis

Nature is the foremost international weekly scientific journal in the world and is the flagship journal for Nature Portfolio. It publishes the finest peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest, timeliness, accessibility, elegance and surprising conclusions. Nature publishes landmark papers, award winning news, leading comment and expert opinion on important, topical scientific news and events that enable readers to share the latest discoveries in science and evolve the discussion amongst the global scientific community.

According to stellar evolution models, there should be hundreds of millions of black holes floating around in our galaxy. But so far we’ve only found 70. That’s in large part because they are so hard to find, but a citizen science project from the University of Southampton is actively seeking out these hidden monsters with the help of tens of thousands of amateur astronomers through a project on Zooniverse called [Black Hole Hunters](https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/cobalt-lensing/black-hole-hunters).

Nature is the foremost international weekly scientific journal in the world and is the flagship journal for Nature Portfolio. It publishes the finest peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest, timeliness, accessibility, elegance and surprising conclusions. Nature publishes landmark papers, award winning news, leading comment and expert opinion on important, topical scientific news and events that enable readers to share the latest discoveries in science and evolve the discussion amongst the global scientific community.

Infleqtion, in collaboration with Honeywell Aerospace and UC Santa Barbara, has developed an integrated optical cavity that helps shrink quantum sensors down to handheld size. The University of California, Santa Barbara's (UCSB’s) Office of Technology & Industry Alliances facilitated the collaboration. Infleqtion’s engineering team and UCSB’s OCAQπ Group co-designed the prototype, then built it at the Honeywell Aerospace foundry using Honeywell Aerospace’s state-of-the-art silicon nitride photonic integration processes. The prototype is fabricated on a silicon nitride chip, and it reduces the space needed to keep lasers stable inside quantum systems. It is built using a manufacturing process common in...

Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai won the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for their efforts to resolve mysterious mirror images in chemical molecules.

The Nobel Committee recognized them for “the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.”

Researchers classify chiral spin liquids on the pyrochlore lattice and identify characteristic experimental signatures that could help uncover these elusive quantum states The post Finding the signatures of chiral spin liquids appeared first on Physics World.

Researchers propose a new way to search for physics beyond the Standard Model by studying quantum-entangled quark pairs produced in electron-positron collisions The post Using quantum entanglement to probe hidden properties of quarks appeared first on Physics World.

Research into molecules that regulate sleep and appetite or methods for editing genes could be among the contenders for the Nobel Prize in chemistry, to be announced Wednesday, commentators say.

Author(s): Michael SchirberNeutrino astronomy and the effort to build a cubic-kilometer-sized detector at the South Pole are recognized by the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics. [Physics 19, 138] Published Tue Oct 06, 2026

According to new research, "wandering" black holes may have left an imprint on the Universe as they traveled for billions of years.

In recent decades, astronomers have found evidence that supermassive black holes can really mess with their galaxies' evolution. They gobble up material intended for star formation, quenching the birth of stars. Conversely, jets streaming away from those hungry monsters can also energize gas-rich regions and enhance the chances of a galaxy birthing batches of stars in those areas.

Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is commonly associated with both health concerns and poor visibility. However, these two effects do not necessarily improve or worsen at the same time.

Four decades after the 1986 nuclear disaster, researchers at Leibniz University Hannover and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) examined six tiny, highly radioactive fragments that were released from the destroyed reactor in Ukraine in the wake of the incident. Analyses show that these "hot particles" are far more stable than had previously been assumed. The findings could allow for more precise assessments of the health risks posed by such radioactive particles. The paper is published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials.

Smectites are clay minerals that can contain large amounts of structural iron. Unlike iron oxides, they do not dissolve when their iron is reduced, so they can be reduced and reoxidized many times. This makes them a recyclable pool of redox-active iron that supports microbial respiration, transforms contaminants and influences nutrient and trace element cycling.

Creating a quantum device often begins by intentionally damaging a crystal. Scientists fire an ultrafast laser pulse into a material, knocking atoms out of place and leaving behind tiny imperfections called vacancies. Far from being flaws, these vacancies can behave as qubits—the fundamental building blocks of quantum information.

The world would look radically different without rulers and measuring tapes that fit into a pocket. Carpenters, fashion designers and engineers rely on these trusty tools to check the size of everything from a wooden board to a fabric swatch. But physicists who work with light lack that same convenience for one of the basic measurements of their craft. They routinely need to measure and compare the frequencies—colors—of the light waves they are using.

Astronomers have observed the longest-lasting central engine activity ever recorded from a gamma-ray burst. The burst occurred at a redshift of 0.8577, and the activity lasted about 27 days in the burst's own rest frame—around 20 days longer than the previous record. The paper, posted to the arXiv preprint server on Sept. 18, explores different mechanisms that could be powering this puzzling burst.

A research team led by the University of Osaka has directly observed, for the first time, an unusual heavy-fermion state forming at the boundary between a one-atom-thick material and a metal. Such states are closely linked to exotic quantum phenomena, including unconventional superconductivity, and the finding opens new possibilities for designing quantum materials through their interfaces.

Black holes, despite their extreme nature, are described by surprisingly few basic parameters: their mass, charge and spin. Two black holes may have formed for completely different reasons and passed through very different histories, yet still end up in the same final state. John Wheeler summarized this idea with the famous phrase "black holes have no hair."

Trump's chances of winning the Nobel Peace Prize are reportedly low, but experts warn his influence could still shape the 2026 race. Find out who decides the winner.

Physicists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider have captured the clearest evidence yet that quark-gluon plasma, the scorching-hot matter that filled the newborn universe, behaves like a true liquid. By tracking individual quarks as they blasted through the plasma, researchers saw them leave behind ripples, splashes, and swirling wakes much like a duck moving through water. The finding suggests this primordial “soup” is so dense that it can slow speeding quarks and respond collectively as a fluid.

Francis Halzen is a leader in the study of neutrinos, ghostly particles from across the universe that hint at exciting new physics

STOCKHOLM — Francis Halzen won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for his efforts to demystify a rare group of neutrinos, tiny cosmic particles that scientists believe offer clues to how the universe evolved. “It was a great surprise and I obviously didn’t expect it,” Halzen said, speaking to the committee by phone from Italy, in a call broadcast at the news conference to announce the winner. Halzen said it was predicted before that he would win the Nobel Prize but the announcement still made him feel “strange.” “I am working on a proposal, and I hope that this prize will help getting it approved,” he said to chuckles from the audience. Halzen paved the way for a new kind of astronomy The Nobel Committee for Physics also said Halzen’s work was instrumental to the construction of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica. “Francis Halzen realized that the ice at the South Pole could visualize these neutrino messengers from cosmos,” committee member Eva Olsson said during the

Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel have been awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in developing optogenetics — a technique which makes it possible to show how nerve cells shape memories, feelings, and behaviors in the living brain. Deisseroth, Hegemann, and Nagel were awarded 12 million SEK ($1.2 million) to be shared equally. After Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel discovered channelrhodopsin could make cells light-sensitive, Karl Deisseroth found that it could be applied to nerve cells, eventually creating a method to switch nerve cells on and off in living mice. Courtesy of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine/Mattias Karlén. In the early 2000s, Hegemann and...

Francis Halzen won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for his contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and his discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.

The Nobel was awarded “for the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

Astrophysicist wins for his work detecting cosmic neutrinos The post Francis Halzen wins Nobel Prize in Physics appeared first on Physics World.

A team led by University at Buffalo physicists has found a mathematical solution that shows how a frustrated

Dr. Karl Deisseroth spent hours fielding congratulatory calls after learning early Monday that he had won a Nobel Prize for medicine for helping to open a new field of brain science called optogenetics.

Author(s): John M. Mehlhaff, Alexander Y. Chen, Martin Luepker, and Yajie YuanThe first fully kinetic collisionless model of a rotating plasma accreting into a black hole reveals the role of pair creation and the plasma loading of the jet funnel. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 155201] Published Mon Oct 05, 2026

Galactic black holes are cosmic mitochondria, powerhouses of the universe. Most of the energy these supermassive black holes produce comes from the material surrounding them: superheated plasma in their accretion disks interacting with tremendous magnetic fields. But there is a more direct way to extract energy from a black hole. It's known as the Penrose process, and a new study asks whether we could discover a signature of this process.

The universe may be trapped in its own comfort zone, and a researcher in the College of Engineering and Computer Science has helped explain why it cannot seem to leave. A new study suggests the universe could be locked into its current state by the same kinds of quantum effects that scientists study when trying to preserve fragile information inside a quantum computer.

The bulk photovoltaic effect (BPVE), a photoelectric effect that generates photocurrent without a p–n junction, can persist even when a material's average crystal structure remains centrosymmetric, a study from Institute of Science Tokyo has found. Researchers demonstrated this in CuCrP2S6, a van der Waals material that transitions from a noncentrosymmetric to a centrosymmetric average structure. The finding challenges the conventional view of BPVE and suggests a new strategy for enhancing photoelectric conversion.

Even the most chaotic quantum systems keep a permanent mark of their own past—a "quantum birthmark"—that never fades. Researchers from Tampere University, Harvard University and TU Dresden discovered the feature in their recent study. Their findings shed new light on the elusive relationship between classical and quantum mechanics. Looking ahead, these quantum birthmarks, along with related phenomena known as "scars," could eventually be harnessed to power next-generation nanoelectronics.

For more than 70 years, fusion energy researchers have used a particular equation to judge whether a plasma would stay hot and dense enough—for long enough—to reach a point where it could sustain itself without any more external power added. While that equation marks the finish line, also known as ignition, it says nothing about the best way to reach it. New research from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) maps a path to ignition conditions using far less energy than any other path.

Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) are fluorescent carbon nanomaterials with potential applications in sensing, optoelectronics, displays, anticounterfeiting and environmental technologies. Their optical properties can be adjusted by modifying the carbon structure and surface chemistry, particularly through defect states and the incorporation of heteroatoms. However, achieving predictable and continuous tuning of photoluminescence from a single carbon precursor remains difficult.

Primordial black holes (PBHs) don't exist as far as we know. But if they did, these hypothetical objects would have formed in the early universe rather than from dying stars, and they may even make up dark matter. That's not the end of the weirdness. Their formation could have been even stranger if it occurred in a universe with a dark dimension, which is another theoretical construct. It posits that our space includes a hidden extra spatial dimension.

Supermassive black holes generate tremendous amounts of energy through their accretion disks and jets. But they can also generate energy through the magnetic Penrose process. A new study looks at how we might observe this process through multimessenger astronomy.

Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel are joint winners of the 2026 prize The post Inventors of optogenetics win Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine appeared first on Physics World.

Microblazars — a miniature version of blazars — may be responsible for mysterious ultra-high-energy particles.

Indu Satija celebrates the golden anniversary of Hofstadter’s butterfly The post Hofstadter’s butterfly turns 50: a fractal hiding in quantum matter appeared first on Physics World.

Many complex quantum systems rapidly lose the recognizable patterns of their initial states as their components interact. To describe patterns of regular and chaotic motion in specific systems, physicists can construct a mathematical map called an effective phase space.

Karl Deisseroth, Georg Nagel and Peter Hegemann developed optogenetics, which uses light and genetics to control individual cells

Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, Georg Nagel were awarded the prize for their work on light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.

Scientists have developed a new type of architecture for quantum computing chips, and it could pave the way for machines capable of large-scale processing.

Yukawa laid the foundation for an active post-war generation of particle physicists in Japan The post Particle physicist Hideki Yukawa: Japan’s first Nobel laureate appeared first on Physics World.

With nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, materials can be analysed to an atomic degree of precision. ETH Zurich is

An international team of astronomers—including researchers from ASTRON, JIVE, and the University of Amsterdam—has discovered the first so-called

When certain atoms are irradiated with laser light, they can produce laser pulses with extremely high frequencies in

Research into hormones that regulate appetite is on everybody's lips for the Nobel medicine prize, to be announced on Monday when the 2026 Nobel season kicks off.

Researchers at ETH Zurich and the Paul Scherrer Institute have produced an intense, cold beam of exotic atoms.

Dark matter could be a type of matter in the universe that does not emit, absorb or reflect detectable light and appears to interact very weakly with regular matter. Although physicists have observed gravitational effects attributed to dark matter, they have not yet been able to determine what it is made of.

An international team of astronomers, including researchers from the Department of Physics and the Hong Kong Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (HKIAA) at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), has discovered a previously hidden phase of high-energy activity following the merger of compact stars.

Charles Spencer says 12-year-old Prince Harry appeared to lack care after Princess Diana's funeral, while recalling the emotional journey to the Spencer family estate at Althorp.

Scientists at the University of Chicago have uncovered a surprising quantum state in the layered magnetic material Fe5GeTe2, where huge numbers of electrons move together unusually slowly while remaining quantum coherent. The behavior contradicts existing theoretical predictions about how the material’s magnetism should work and suggests scientists may need to rethink its underlying physics.

Microgravity poses severe health risks for astronauts. But could there be a solution?

Superconductors are materials that conduct electricity with no resistance and expel magnetic fields when cooled to ultralow temperatures. And depending on their quantum structure, they can also showcase strange properties like magnetic levitation. But now things are getting a little weirder.