In materials science, the yield point represents a critical threshold where a material transitions from elastic to plastic deformation. Below this point, materials like glasses can return to their original shape after stress is removed. Beyond it, however, the deformation becomes permanent, reflecting irreversible changes in the material’s internal structure. Understanding this transition is essential for designing materials that can withstand mechanical stress without failure, an important consideration in fields such as civil engineering, aerospace and electronics.

Despite its importance, the yield point in amorphous materials like glasses has remained difficult to study due to the challenges in precisely controlling and measuring the stress and strain required to trigger it. Traditional mechanical testing methods often lack the resolution needed to observe the subtle atomic-scale changes that occur during yielding.

In this study, the authors present a novel approach using X-ray irradiation to induce yielding in germanium-selenium glasses. This method allows for fine-tuned control over the elasto-plastic transition, enabling the researchers to systematically investigate the onset of plastic deformation. By combining experimental techniques with theoretical modelling, they characterize both the thermodynamic behaviour and the atomic-level structural and dynamical responses of the glasses during and after irradiation.

One of the key findings is that glasses processed through this method become stable against further irradiation, an effect that could be highly beneficial in environments with high radiation exposure, such as space missions or nuclear facilities. This work not only provides new insights into the fundamental physics of yielding in disordered materials but also opens up potential pathways for engineering radiation-resistant glassy materials.

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Theories of glass formation and the glass transition by J S Langer (2014)

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Quantum repeaters are essential components of quantum networks, enabling long-distance entanglement distribution by temporarily storing quantum states. This temporary storage, facilitated by quantum memory, allows synchronization with other network operations and the implementation of error correction protocols, marking a significant advancement over classical repeaters, which merely amplify and retransmit signals. 

Unlike classical systems, quantum repeaters mitigate photon loss, a major source of error in quantum communication. However, widely known quantum repeater designs often suffer from limitations such as the need for high phase stability and an inability to generate strongly entangled states. 

In this work, the authors propose a novel protocol based on post-matching, a technique originally developed in quantum cryptography to verify and secure transmitted information. Their theoretical framework offers new insights into both quantum communication and cryptographic systems, contributing to the advancement of quantum information theory and technology. 

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Explore our Focus on Quantum Entanglement: State of the Art and Open Questions

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Nonlinearity refers to behaviour that deviates from a simple, proportional relationship and cannot be accurately described by linear equations. This concept is fundamental to understanding complex systems across various scientific disciplines, including meteorology, epidemiology, chemistry, and quantum mechanics. 

In the field of quantum optics, achieving nonlinearity at the single-photon level is essential for the development of advanced quantum information protocols. Such nonlinearity enables more precise control over information transmission, facilitates faster and more scalable quantum networks, and enhances the security of quantum communication. 

Rydberg atoms, which are atoms in highly excited states, exhibit strong long-range interactions. These interactions, particularly the Rydberg blockade effect, make them promising candidates for inducing strong nonlinear interactions between photons. However, a key challenge lies in achieving this nonlinearity in a controllable and efficient manner, rather than relying on probabilistic or inefficient methods. 

In this work, the authors introduce a novel approach for precisely engineering Rydberg states to enable continuous tuning of single-photon nonlinearity. This tunability represents a significant advancement, with potential applications spanning fundamental physics and the development of next-generation quantum technologies. 

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Probing quantum correlations in many-body systems: a review of scalable methods by Irénée Frérot, Matteo Fadel and Maciej Lewenstein (2023)

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Supersymmetry is a theoretical framework in which every fermion and boson has a corresponding partner particle, known as a superpartner. These superpartners share the same energy spectrum but differ in their spin properties. The transformations between these particles are governed by mathematical operators called supercharges. Although superpartners have not yet been observed experimentally, their discovery would have significant implications for fundamental physics. 

Twisted bilayer materials, such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides, have attracted attention for their unusual electronic and topological properties. In this study, the authors investigate how supersymmetry manifests in these systems by analysing different energy modes associated with twisted bilayers. 

They find that superpartners can exhibit both trivial and nontrivial topological energy bands. Furthermore, they demonstrate that supersymmetry can spontaneously break due to interactions between charged particles, known as Coulomb interactions. 

This research provides new insights into the interplay between topology, symmetry, and interactions in low-dimensional materials, and opens up new possibilities for exploring supersymmetry in condensed matter systems. 

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Desperately seeking supersymmetry (SUSY) by Stuart Raby (2004)

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The Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model is a theoretical framework used to describe systems of many interacting spins in an external magnetic field. It has been widely applied to study quantum phase transitions, entanglement, and collective spin behaviour. When extended to two modes, the model allows particles to tunnel between two degenerate energy levels, offering insights into quantum systems with multiple states. 

In this study, the authors propose a chiral two mode version of the model using a pair of surface acoustic wave cavities. The chirality in the system preserves the separation between the two modes and prevents them from mixing. By applying specially designed chiral optical drives, the researchers are able to simulate long range asymmetric spin interactions.

This setup enables the simulation of complex quantum phenomena such as time crystal behaviour and ion trap like interactions, without the need for traditional trapping techniques. The work presents a novel approach to engineering and exploring chiral quantum systems using acoustic hybrid platforms.  

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Time crystals: a review by Krzysztof Sacha and Jakub Zakrzewski (2018)

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Developing a unified theory for liquid behaviour has long been a challenge due to the complex interactions between particles and the constantly changing dynamic disorder within liquids. Current approaches rely on empirical equations of state derived from experiments, which are often specific to individual systems and cannot be easily transferred to others. Compared to the well-established thermodynamic models for solids and gases, our understanding of liquids remains significantly underdeveloped. 

In this study, the authors take a foundational step toward creating a general equation of state for liquids based on phonon theory. If successful, such a model could have wide-ranging applications in planetary science, industrial processes, chemical engineering, and condensed matter physics. 

The authors provide a detailed explanation of how they approached this complex problem and apply their theoretical framework to experimental data for argon and nitrogen. The results show strong agreement, suggesting that the model has the potential for broad applicability. 

This work represents a significant advance in the theoretical understanding of liquids and opens the door to a more unified and transferable approach to liquid thermodynamics. 

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Collective modes and thermodynamics of the liquid state by K Trachenko and V V Brazhkin (2015)

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One of the key challenges in building scalable quantum computers is managing noise during operations in order to improve accuracy. Decoherence, which arises from systematic errors and environmental interactions, disrupts quantum information and limits performance. 

Several strategies exist to reduce decoherence. One approach is dynamical decoupling, which averages out noise through carefully timed control pulses. Another is quantum error correction, which detects and corrects faults in a quantum computation. In this study, the authors explore a third approach by leveraging the symmetry of quantum systems to create decoherence-free subspaces. These subspaces isolate quantum information from environmental noise. 

The authors investigate how these decoherence-free subspaces can be integrated with existing error protection techniques. They construct a logical qubit within a decoherence-free subspace using a specially designed pulse sequence. When combined with dynamical decoupling, this method improves the fidelity of quantum states by up to 23% compared to physical qubits. 

This research presents a practical and effective way to incorporate decoherence-free subspaces into quantum error management, offering a promising path toward more reliable quantum computing. 

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Quantum algorithms for scientific computing by R Au-Yeung, B Camino, O Rathore and V Kendon (2024)

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Time crystals are an intriguing state of matter in which a system exhibits periodic motion even in its lowest energy state. This challenges conventional expectations in physics. These systems arise when time translation symmetry is broken, a principle that normally ensures physical laws remain unchanged over time. 

Unlike ordinary systems, time crystals can exhibit persistent oscillations without absorbing net energy over time. This makes them a subject of great interest in condensed matter physics and a promising candidate for future technologies such as quantum computing, sensing, superconductivity, and energy storage. 

Time crystals can be classified as either discrete or continuous. An external periodic force drives discrete time crystals, while continuous time crystals emerge from the collective and self-sustained oscillations of particles. 

In this study, the authors demonstrate a method for converting a continuous time crystal into a discrete one using a process known as subharmonic injection locking. This technique synchronizes the system’s oscillations with a fraction of the driving frequency. It enables the first observation of a transition between continuous and discrete time crystal states in a system that is not in equilibrium. 

This research provides new insights into the behaviour of time crystals and introduces a powerful approach for controlling and manipulating these unusual phases of matter. 

Do you want to learn more about this topic?

Time crystals: a review by Krzysztof Sacha and Jakub Zakrzewski (2018)

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A strange metal is a type of material that exhibits unusual electrical properties, challenging our conventional understanding of how metals conduct electricity.

In these metals, electrons lose their individual identities, acting collectively in a soup, in which all particles are connected through quantum entanglement. 

Prof. Chung, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University

Many so-called high temperature superconductors, such as doped cuprates, transition from their superconducting state to a strange metal state as they increase in temperature beyond a critical point. (Note that ‘high’ in this context means above −196.2 °C, the boiling point of liquid nitrogen!)

It has long been thought that revealing the mystery of the strange metal state is the key to understanding the mechanism for high-temperature conductivity. This could lead to understanding what would be required to make a truly room temperature superconductor.

In this new paper, the researchers used a cutting-edge theoretical framework to provide a microscopic description of the strange metal state, focusing on how local charge fluctuations near a critical transition, play a key role.

Their theoretical predictions for quantities such as the specific heat coefficient and the single-particle spectral function in the strange metal state agree well with experimental observations.

This work therefore brings us much closer to understanding how superconductivity emerges from the strange metal state in the cuprates – an open problem in condensed matter physics since the 1990s.

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Most complex carbon molecules – such as those necessary for life – actually exist in two forms. The normal one and its mirror image. The left-handed version and the right-handed version.

Despite containing the same atoms, these two molecules usually have vastly different properties. For example, one might be used as a therapeutic drug, while the other could be inactive or even harmful.

Separating them is therefore very important for several reasons, particularly in the fields of chemistry, biology, and medicine. However, due to the lack of differences in the physical properties of the two molecules, this is usually quite difficult.

When any molecule is exposed to light, its quantum energy levels are split apart because of the interaction.

In this paper, the team found that when this light is circularly polarised, the splitting is different for the two mirrored molecules. They also went on to find that this effect led to different photochemical reactions for each molecule, further providing ways to distinguish them.

These effects could then be used as new methods for separating these mirrored molecules in medicine and beyond.

 

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Ever since graphene was first studied in the 2000s, scientists have been interested 2D materials because of their new and interesting electrical and optical properties as well as their potential applications in superconductivity, magnetism and next generation electronics.

In recent years, a new family of these materials has emerged, with a strange new feature: correlated flat bands. Electrons in these bands have the same energy regardless of their movement or position within the material.

In this new work, the researchers used cutting edge theory and computer simulation techniques to understand these types of materials with and predict their properties. In particular, they focused on the interplay between smectic order and topological order.

The term smectic is used when talking about liquid crystals (that’s the same liquid crystal that you find in an LCD TV) . The word just means a state in which the particles are oriented in parallel and arranged in well-defined planes. It’s heavily influenced by the individual particles’ shape structure and charge.

Topological order on other hand is a global type of particle arrangement and is caused by the collective entanglement of all the particles in a system as a whole. It’s very much a quantum phenomenon, and is therefore sometimes unintuitive, strange, and complex.

Usually, these two different types of order are seen to compete with each other, but this study looks at what happens if they exist together.

Based on the results, the team expects several new phase transitions to occur in these systems.

Ultimately, experiments will be required to confirm their predictions. What’s for certain though, is that given how comprehensive this work is, the experimentalists now have a lot of work to do.

The post The different ways of ordering electrons in two dimensional materials. appeared first on Physics World.

Shear-induced structural transitions happen when the structure of a material changes due to the application of force. It’s a phenomenon observed in various systems, including metals like aluminium and iron, molecular crystals such as ice and quartz, and even the Earth’s mantle.

A better understanding of how it works could lead to an improvement in the processing and fabrication of materials with more control on defect formation.

Measuring microscopic processes like this is usually challenging because electron microscopy cannot resolve individual atoms’ motions in bulk solids, and the strong shear force makes things especially difficult.

Here, the researchers used colloidal crystals, allowing them to observe transitions at the single-particle level. As a soft material (one that can easily be deformed), colloid crystals are particularly well-suited for this type of study.

They found that under certain conditions, a liquid layer formed around the growing new crystal structure. This phenomenon is known as “virtual melting” because it occurs well below the effective melting temperature. This liquid layer facilitates the transition by reducing the strain energy at the interface between the old and new crystal structures.

Virtual melting has been proposed in theory and simulation, but had never been directly observed in experiments before. The team’s results not only represent the first experimental observation of this process but also help us to better understand under what circumstances it takes place.

The study has potential applications across various fields, including metallurgy, materials science, and geophysics. The concept of virtual melting could also provide new a new way of thinking about stress relaxation and phase transitions in other systems.

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Protons and neutrons in atomic nuclei are themselves made up of fundamental particles known as quarks. These quarks are held together by the strong interaction via force carriers called gluons.

When heavy atomic nuclei collide at high energies close to the speed of light, these constituent particles can break free from each other. The resulting substance, called a quark–gluon plasma, exhibits collective flowlike behaviour much like an everyday liquid.  Unlike a normal viscous liquid however, these near-perfect fluids lose very little energy as they flow.

Researchers are very interested quark–gluon plasmas because they filled the entire Universe just after the Big Bang before matter as we know it was created.

The CMS Collaboration of scientists at CERN routinely create this state of matter for a very brief moment by colliding large nuclei with each other.  In this paper, the researchers used sound waves as a way of understanding the plasma’s fundamental properties.

Sound is a longitudinal wave that produces compressions and rarefactions of matter in the same direction as its movement. The speed of these waves depends on the medium’s properties, such as its density and viscosity. It can, therefore, be used as a probe of the medium.

The team were able to show that the speed of sound in their quark–gluon plasma was nearly half the speed of light – a measurement they made with record precision compared to previous studies.

The results will help test our theories of the fundamental forces that hold matter together, allowing us to better understand matter in the very early Universe as well as future results at particle colliders.

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Historically, the majority of studies in condensed matter physics have focused on Hermitian systems – closed systems that conserve energy. However, in reality, dissipative processes or non-equilibrium dynamics are commonly present and so real-world systems are anything but Hermitian.

Recently however people have begun to study non-Hermitian systems in detail and have found a range of interesting topological properties. The term topology was originally used to refer to a branch of mathematics describing geometric objects. Here, however, it means the study of the electron band structure in solids, as well as periodic motion more generally.

Topological arguments are often used to determine universal material properties such as conductivity or magnetic susceptibility. For example, topological insulators are insulating in the bulk but have conducting surface or edge states and can be used in a range of applications, such as quantum computing.

Previous work on non-Hermitian band topology has been restricted to one system at a time, or one property at a time. There’s been no way to link between materials or scenarios and no generalisation.

A research team formed of scientists from the Freie Universität Berlin, the Perimeter Institute, and Stockholm University have now brought everything together by using symmetry arguments to build a general, comprehensive theoretical framework for these exciting new systems.

Predictions made by the authors’ analysis will lead to a better understanding of condensed matter physics and hopefully to new developments in a range of fields including optics, acoustics, and electronics.

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A molecular machine is an assembly of molecular components that produces mechanical movements in response to specific stimuli, similar to everyday objects like hinges and switches.

The power of what can be accomplished with these machines in biology is huge. They are responsible for everything from muscle contraction to DNA replication.

Attaining the same precise control over molecular motion with artificial molecular machines, is currently an active area of research.

Researchers from the August Chełkowski Institute of Physics have been studying one component of these machines – rotary molecular motors. As the name suggests, these machines convert chemical or electrochemical energy into mechanical work by rotating one part relative to another.

The team built their motors out of phenylene molecules within a solid crystal and studied them with a technique called broadband dielectric spectroscopy.

This measures how a material responds to a varying electrical field.  In addition to imaging rotational motion, it can detect interactions between the molecular machine and its environment.

The team found several key markers within their data that reflected the strength of these interactions and therefore how well the molecular rotors were able to rotate. Using these markers will be important in optimising the design of future molecular rotors and brings us one step closer towards artificial molecular machines.

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New techniques have recently allowed the study of the behaviour of electrons in a similar way to how photons are studied in traditional optics. This emerging area of research – called quantum electron optics – focuses on manipulating and controlling electron waves to create phenomena such as interference and diffraction.

These wavelike electrons are fundamentally quantum in nature. This means that they can emit light in unique ways when shaped and modulated by lasers.

In this work, the team found that the rate of light emission by electrons does not depend on the shape of the electron wave, while the quantum state of the emitted light does.

Essentially, this means that by changing the shape of the electron wave, they can control the characteristics of the light produced. The emitted light exhibits non-classical quantum properties, differing significantly from the light we encounter daily, which follows classical physics rules.

To produce a much stronger photon signal, the researchers also took advantage of superradiance, where multiple electrons emit light in a coordinated manner, resulting in a much stronger emission than the sum of individual emissions. Another purely quantum effect.

The excitement around this research is based on its potential to advance quantum computing and communication by providing new tools for controlling the many quantum states that are required to make them work.

It could also lead to the development of new light sources with special properties, useful in a whole range of scientific and technological applications.

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Quantum systems tend to become less “quantum-y” as they interact with their environment. So when developing a mathematical description, it’s usually simpler just to view them as being closed off from their surroundings.

But ‘open’ systems are more realistic and sometimes even more interesting. Open quantum systems can be modelled using the so-called Lindblad equation, which describes the quantum evolution with time as both energy and coherence are lost to the environment.

Scientists from Tsinghua University have expanded the Lindblad equation to track the time evolution in an open system of a quantum property that that has become the hottest topic in condensed-matter physics: topology. Topology has formed the basis of numerous exotic states of matter over the last few decades. Now researchers show that an open system can undergo a topological transition as a result of dissipation, or loss.

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Ensuring that different clocks are giving the same time is crucial to enable electronic systems to talk to each other. But what is the cost of this synchronisation at the thermodynamic level?

To answer this question, scientists from the East China Normal University in Shanghai studied two tiny resonating membranes inside an optical cavity. Such optomechanical systems can exhibit quantum properties even on a macroscopic scale, and so they’re an ideal platform for studying ultrasensitive metrology and nonequilibrium thermodynamics. Each of the membranes represented a nanomechanical clock, and the two could be synchronised by increasing their coupling strength by adding more light to the cavity. In this way, the team was able to measure the dependence of the degree of synchronisation on the overall entropy cost.

They hope that this experimental investigation will serve as a starting point to explore synchronisation in navigation-satellite and fibre-optic systems with the aim of improving clock performance.

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The Earth is not a perfect sphere. This makes very precise modelling of our planet’s gravitational field rather tricky. To simplify the maths, scientists can consider a so-called Brillouin sphere: the smallest planet-centred sphere that completely encloses the mass composing the planet. In the case of the Earth, the Brillouin sphere touches the Earth at a single point—the top of Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador. The gravitational field outside the sphere can be accurately simulated by combining a series of simple equations called a spherical harmonic expansion.

But does this still hold true for the field inside the Brillouin sphere, which by definition includes the planet’s surface? Scientists from Ohio State University and the University of Connecticut say “no”. The team presented an analytical and numerical study that demonstrates clearly how and why the spherical harmonic expansion leads to prediction errors.

However, all is not lost. Their ultra-accurate simulations of the gravity field offer guidance toward a new mathematical foundation of gravity modelling. An upgraded simulator, which accounts for density variations within planets, will allow rigorous testing of proposed alternative ways to represent the gravity field beneath the Brillouin sphere.

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Periodic changes in celestial bodies provide astronomers with a great deal of information about the universe. Sporadic alterations in a star’s brightness could be a signature of it being part of a binary system or indicate the presence of an orbiting planet. And the periodic rotation of objects in the Kuiper Belt tells us about planet formation and the development of our solar system. But these changes are rarely perfectly regular, so astronomers have developed a range of statistical methods to characterize aperiodic observations.

Now, mathematical statisticians from North Carolina State University have compared the robustness of these various methods for the first time. The team investigated the success of four different methods using the same simulated data, and were able to develop a list of recommended usage and limitations that will be essential guidance for all observation astronomers.

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The World Health Organization has added the variant, known formally as XFG, to its monitoring list. A dry, irritated throat is among its main symptoms.

Are you in the field of AI for science? Now, you have a new place to share your latest work to the world.  IOP Publishing has partnered with the Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory in China to launch a new “diamond” open-access journal to showcase how artificial intelligence (AI) is driving scientific innovation. AI for Science (AI4S) will publish high-impact original research, reviews, and perspectives to highlight the transformative applications and impact of AI.

The launch of the interdisciplinary journal AI4S comes as AI technologies become increasingly integral to scientific research — from drug discovery to quantum computing and materials science.

AI is one of the most dynamic and rapidly expanding areas of research so much so that in the last five years the topic has expanded by nearly ten times the rate of general scientific output.  

Gian-Marco Rignanese from École Polytechnique de Louvain (EPL) in Belgium, who is the editor-in-chief of Al4S, says he is “very excited” by AI’s transformative potential for science. “It is really disrupting the way research is being performed. AI excels at processing and analyzing large volumes of data quickly and accurately,” he says. “This capability enables researchers to gain insights – or identify patterns – that were previously difficult or impossible to obtain.”

Rignanese adds that AI is also accelerating simulations making them “closer to the real world” and large language models and neuro-linguistic programming are changing our way to apprehend the existing literature. “Generative AI holds a lot of promises,” he says.

Rignanese, whose research focuses on investigating and designing advanced materials for electronics, energy storage and energy production in which he uses first-principles simulations and machine learning, says that AI4S “not only targets high standards in terms of quality of the published research” but that it also recognizes the importance of sharing data and software.

The journal recognizes the rapid and multifaceted growth of AI. Notably, in 2025 both the chemistry and physics Nobel prizes went to the science of AI. Research funding is also increasing, with both the US Department of Energy (DOE) and National Science Foundation (NSF) allocating more resources to this field in 2025 than ever before.

In China, AI is emerging as a major priority in which the science community is poised to become a driving force in global development. Reflecting this, AI4S is co-led by editor-in-chief Weihua Wang from the Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory. Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory is a new and leading institute for advanced materials research and innovation that is preparing to focus intensively on AI in the near future.

“Our primary goal with AI for Science is to provide a global forum where scientists can share their cutting-edge research, innovative methodologies, and transformative perspectives,” says Wang “The field of AI in scientific research is not only expanding but also evolving at an unprecedented pace, making it vital for professionals to connect and collaborate.”

Wang expressed his optimistic vision for the future of AI in scientific research. “We want AI for Science to be instrumental in creating a more connected and collaborative global community of researchers,” he adds. “Together, we can harness the transformative power of AI to address some of the world’s most pressing scientific challenges and make the field even more impactful.”

Wang notes that the inspiration behind the journal is the potential impact of AI on scientific discovery. “We believe that AI has the power to revolutionize the way research is conducted,” he says. “By providing a space for open dialogue and collaboration, we hope to enable scientists to leverage AI technologies more effectively, ultimately accelerating innovation and improving outcomes across various fields.”

The scope of AI4S is broad yet focused, catering to a wide array of interests within the scientific community. Wang explains that the journal covers various topics. These include: AI algorithms adapted for scientific applications; AI software and toolkits designed specifically for researchers; the importance of AI-ready datasets; and the development of embodied AI systems. These topics aim to bridge the gap between AI technology and its applications across disciplines like materials science, biology, and chemistry.

AI4S is also setting new standards for author experience. Submissions are reviewed by an international editorial board together with the support of a 22-member advisory board composed of leading scientists and engineers. The journal also promises a rapid turnaround in which once accepted, articles are published within 24 hours and assigned a citable digital object identifier (DOI). In addition, from 2025 to 2027, all article publication charges are fully waived, paid for by the Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory.

AI4S joins a growing number of journals focused on machine learning and AI. This includes the IOP’s Machine Learning Series: Machine Learning: Science and Technology; Machine Learning: Engineering; Machine Learning: Earth; and Machine Learning: Health.

“AI is a new approach to science which is really exciting and holds a lot of promises,” adds Rignanese, “so I am convinced that there is room for a journal accompanying this new paradigm.”

For more information or to submit your manuscript, click here.

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Ekaterina Shanina, a PhD student at the University of California, Davis, has won the Physics in Medicine & Biology Early Career Researcher Award for her research paper describing a novel brain phantom for positron emission tomography (PET).

Shanina’s study was chosen by Physics in Medicine & Biology’s editorial board as the “best paper” (based on the quality of scientific content and peer review ratings) in the journal’s Early Career Researcher Focus Collection 2024 – a programme established to support and highlight the work of emerging researchers in the medical physics and biomedical engineering community.

“The initiative recognises that early-career researchers often produce cutting-edge, high-impact work but may not yet have widespread visibility,” says Emma Harris, a guest editor on the collection. She explains that while the collection itself showcases a broad range of high-quality work, the award was introduced to further recognise an outstanding contribution from an early-career author – defined this year as someone who completed their PhD in 2018 or later.

“The award serves to highlight exceptional research that stands out for originality, rigour or impact,” says Harris, from the UK’s Institute of Cancer Research and Royal Marsden NHS Trust. “[It will] promote prestige and visibility to the awardee within the international research community, and provide a tangible form of encouragement and recognition that can support academic career progression.”

A new phantom for high-performance PET

In her award winning paper, PICASSO: a universal brain phantom for positron emission tomography based on the activity painting technique, Shanina describes a unique PET phantom called PICASSO and shows how it can be used to model realistic static and dynamic neuroimaging PET studies with excellent quantitative accuracy.

PET imaging offers an invaluable tool for studying the brain, prompting recent interest in developing advanced high-resolution PET scanners dedicated to brain imaging. Such developments create an associated requirement for appropriate imaging phantoms to evaluate and optimize scanner performance. The PICASSO phantom aims to meet these needs.

“UC Davis has been collaborating with Yale University and United Imaging Healthcare to develop a new high-performance brain PET scanner called the NeuroEXPLORER,” Shanina explains. “This scanner has high spatial resolution, which renders the most commonly used anthropomorphic brain phantom – the Hoffman phantom – unsuitable for evaluating its performance. At the same time, we wanted to explore the activity painting technique to create this unconventional phantom for PET imaging.”

Most physical PET phantoms need to be filled with a radioactive solution, which means that they can only model one type of tracer and making changes to the phantom structure is challenging. Such phantoms also require walls to separate different regions, which interferes with quantitative image evaluation, and designs with complex internal cavities are hard to fill without residual air bubbles.

“Our PICASSO phantom overcomes many of these limitations,” says Shanina.

It works by moving a ²²Na point source around within the field-of-view of a PET scanner to “paint” one high-statistics dataset. The motion of the radioactive source is controlled by a robotic arm and contrast levels are defined by computationally sampling the acquired dataset. This approach can efficiently generate phantoms with arbitrary static and dynamic activity distributions in the brain (or other body regions) using a single PET acquisition.

“PICASSO uses a single dataset acquired with a sealed point source to efficiently generate a variety of activity distributions of various complexities and with arbitrarily fine features,” Shanina explains. “There’s no need for cumbersome phantom preparation, there are no cold walls or air bubbles, and the data contain some of the scanner parameters that are difficult to model analytically. We can even use it to model dynamic studies, which is a very challenging task for conventional phantoms.”

Since the paper was published last year, Shanina and colleagues have extended the two-dimensional PICASSO phantom into a 3D version that can generate whole-brain images. “We are also working on an exciting new application for the phantom, using it to model different time-of-flight resolutions of PET scanners,” she says. “To our knowledge, you cannot do this with any other phantoms that are not simulations.”

Shanina tells Physics World that she is “honoured and humbled” to win the Early Career Researcher Award. “I am very happy that this work keeps attracting people’s attention and interest,” she says. “Of course, I don’t do this all by myself. I am very grateful to have Simon Cherry and Jinyi Qi as my advisors supporting and encouraging me on this journey.”

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A Falcon 9 launched a European satellite July 1 with a dual mission to collect weather data and monitor atmospheric pollution.

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The funding was awarded through a Tactical Funding Increase (TACFI) agreement

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IRVINE, Calif. – July 1, 2025 – CAPSTONE™ (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment), owned and operated by Advanced Space, proudly celebrates its three-year anniversary. Serving as […]

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Two distinctive features of materials known as quantum double-exchange ferromagnets are purely due to quantum spin effects and multiorbital physics, with no need for the lattice vibrations previously invoked to explain them. This theoretical result could lead to new insights into these technologically important materials, as it suggests that some of their properties may arise from interactions hitherto regarded as less important.

Quantum double-exchange ferromagnets have interested scientists since the late 1980s, when physicists led by Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg found that their electrical resistance depends strongly on the magnitude of an external magnetic field. This phenomenon is known as giant magnetoresistance (GMR), and its discovery led to an enormous increase in the storage capacity of modern hard-disk drives, which incorporate GMR structures into their magnetic field sensors. It also led, in 2007, to a Nobel Prize for Fert and Grünberg.

Modelling strategies

Despite these successes, however, physicist Jacek Herbrych of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at Wrocław University of Science and Technology in Poland, who led the new research effort, says that these materials remain somewhat mysterious. “They are theoretically complex, and even today, there is no exact solution to fully solve these systems,” he says.

The key question, Herbrych continues, is how Coulomb interactions between many individual electrons lead to the electron spins in these ferromagnets becoming aligned. “Physicists broadly distinguish two mechanisms,” he explains. “For insulating ferromagnets, the Goodenough-Kanamori rules (based on electron shell occupancy and geometrical arguments) can predict spin alignment. For metallic ferromagnets, the double-exchange mechanism is more appropriate.”

In this latter case, Herbrych explains, the electrons’ motion and the alignment of their spins are intrinsically linked, and the electrons often occupy multiple orbitals. This means they need to be modelled in a fundamentally different way.

The approach Herbrych and his colleagues took, which they describe in Rep. Prog. Phys., was conceptually simple, using a basic yet realistic model of interacting electrons to predict the quantum behaviour of electron spins. “In quantum mechanics, ‘simple’ can quickly become complex, however,” Herbrych notes. “Materials in which the double-exchange mechanism dominates typically exhibit multiorbital behaviour, as mentioned. A minimal model must therefore include electron mobility (or ‘itinerancy’), Coulomb interactions and orbital degrees of freedom.”

Two distinctive features

Herbrych and colleagues identified the two-orbital Hubbard-Kanamori model and the Kondo lattice model with interactions as fitting these requirements. They then used these models to explore two distinctive features of quantum double-exchange ferromagnets.

Both features involve magnons, which are collective oscillations of the materials’ spin magnetic moments. In basic “toy” models of ferromagnets, magnons exhibit a well-defined energy-momentum correspondence known as the dispersion relation. Quantum double-exchange ferromagnets, however, experience a phenomenon known as magnon mode softening: at short wavelengths, their magnons become nearly dispersionless, or momentum independent. “This implies that there are fundamental differences between long- and short-distance spin dynamics,” Herbrych says. “Magnons can travel over long distances but appear localized at short scales.”

The second distinctive feature is called magnon damping. This occurs when magnons lose coherence, meaning that the standard picture of spin flips propagating through the material’s lattice breaks down. “It was previously thought that Jahn-Teller phonons (lattice vibrations) were responsible for these features, and that a classical spin model with phonons would do, but our work challenges this view,” says Herbrych. “We show that these phenomena can arise purely from quantum spin effects and multiorbital physics, without requiring lattice vibrations.”

This is, he tells Physics World, “a remarkable result” as it suggests that some experimental features of quantum double-exchange ferromagnets may arise from interactions previously considered secondary.

Limitations and extensions

The researchers’ present work is restricted to one dimension, and they acknowledge that extending it to two or three dimensions will be a challenge. “Still, our approach offers a conceptual framework that can be approximately extended to higher dimensions,” Herbrych says. “The results not only provide insights into the physics of strongly correlated systems, but also into the interplay of competing phases, such as ferromagnetism, orbital order and superconductivity, observed in these materials.”

The post New mechanism explains behaviour of materials exhibiting giant magnetoresistance appeared first on Physics World.

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