New semiconductor turns billions of spin oscillators into a shared time crystal
Continuous time crystals inside a semiconductor can synchronize with one another, locking many separate spin oscillators into a…
New recycling process converts plastic waste into useful chemicals using only water and oxygen
Researchers developed a catalyst-free recycling method that uses only water and oxygen to break down durable plastics such…
Physicists use thorium-229 to power the world’s first working nuclear clock
A clock built from thorium-229 has crossed an important line, from a long-discussed concept to a working device.…
For the first time ever, scientists create particles out of empty space
The universe looks like it is mostly empty space. Remove the stars, planets, dust, and gas, and what…
Undergraduate students built a cavity detector to search for axion dark matter
Dark matter is supposed to be everywhere, threaded through the Milky Way and outnumbering ordinary matter by a…
Scientists develop laser-powered graphene propulsion for next-generation space travel
A laser hit the tiny black cube, and it lurched forward almost at once. That split-second jump, caught…
America’s nuclear spacecraft is heading to Mars, and it’s bringing helicopters
For decades, nuclear propulsion has been a fixture of aerospace engineering proposals and government studies, always promising, never…
New ‘vacuum ultraviolet’ laser is 100 to 1,000 times more efficient than existing tech
The vacuum ultraviolet region is the area of the electromagnetic spectrum lying between X-rays and visible light. It…
Cambridge scientists capture electrons leaping across solar materials in 18 femtoseconds
A tiny burst of motion inside a molecule may be enough to shove an electron across a solar…
New platinum-free photocatalyst turns sunlight and water into renewable energy
A small beaker of water can look ordinary. Under the right light, it can also become a quiet…
Prosthetic arm blurs the line between machine and human body
A virtual forearm can bend in a blink. It can also take its time, easing toward a target…
NYU physicists create visible time crystals levitated by sound
A strange form of matter called a time crystal has fascinated physicists for about a decade. These systems…