Latest

News

Critical research hit as COVID-19 forces physics labs to close

Major labs have shut their doors in response to the worldwide lockdown, but a few remain open and in some cases are carrying out critical work related to the COVID-19 pandemic

Condensed-matter physics pioneer Philip Anderson dies aged 96

Nobel laureate made many contributions to physics from high-temperature superconductivity to particle physics

An artist's impression of the ExoMars rover on the surface of Mars.

Mars rover launch delayed until 2022

Coronavirus outbreak called "the straw that broke the camel's back" after glitches with the rover's parachutes and electronics

American Physical Society cancels April Meeting due to coronavirus pandemic

Annual gathering of particle physicists will now be held as an online "virtual" event

Report recommends ways to help women in STEMM fields

US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine call for systematic, evidence-based actions to address the underrepresentation of women, especially women of colour

Photo of unopened material at the APS March meeting in Denver, March 2020

Delegates react after last-minute cancellation of American Physical Society March Meeting

Stoicism and anger among physicists after world's biggest physics meeting cancelled

Science in a digital world

To celebrate 30 years since Tim Berners-Lee first proposed the idea of a World Wide Web, this special collection explores how scientists are exploiting digital technologies to understand online behaviour and drive research progress

Research updates

Silicon-based light emitter is �?Holy Grail’ of microelectronics, say researchers

Hexagonal germanium and silicon-germanium have direct bandgaps

A man wearing a mask stands in front of a body of water with a city skyline in the distance.

Protective equipment against COVID-19 needs to go further, scientists say

Biophysics data on clouds of gas exhaled during coughs and sneezes could shape healthcare responses to the coronavirus pandemic

Machines sense and see in nanoseconds

Novel sensor array captures and computes optical signals at the same time, lowering delay caused by intermediate processing

How to transform bosons into fermions

Dynamical fermionization involves velocity, as well as position

New map pinpoints US power lines susceptible to space weather super-storms

Geoelectrical hazard map could reduce the risk of blackouts

How does respiratory motion impact pencil-beam scanning proton therapy?

Dose deterioration due to the interplay effect decreases as the number of treatment fractions increases, but not in cases with small tumour targets and relatively large motion

Features

Life in a carbon-neutral world

Cities and countries around the world are aiming to become net carbon neutral within the next few decades. Kate Ravilious asks, what will day-to-day life look like in such a...

COVID-19: how physics is helping the fight against the pandemic

With the world in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jon Cartwright investigates how physics-based techniques are helping scientists study viruses, including this latest no...

Time crystals enter the real world of condensed matter

Peter Hannaford and Krzysztof Sacha ask whether we can realize condensed-matter phenomena exhibited by ordinary spatial crystals in the time dimension

Navigating the terahertz gap

The terahertz region of the electromagnetic spectrum is exploited less than its neighbouring wavelengths but plays a vital role in astronomy, as Sidney Perkowitz explains

Turning water into watts

The oceans seem like an obvious source of renewable energy, but there are huge technical and financial hurdles to harnessing their vast power. Stephen Ornes investigates

Double slits with single atoms

Andrew Murray describes a new variant of the classic Young's double-slit experiments, but this time using photoelectrons emitted via two different paths from rubidium atoms ...

Sustainable futures

Explore our special collection of videos and articles highlighting the latest interdisciplinary research on local and global environmental challenges, plus solutions for creating more sustainable technologies and societies

From the blog

Physics in the pandemic: �?I hope the rest of the world can see hope from my experience’

As Wuhan emerges from lockdown, experimental physicist Tao Wang reflects on what “normal” life will look like in the future

Physics in the pandemic: �?I miss my group’s vibrant office discussions that propelled my research’

Shi En Kim is planning future experiments so she can hit the ground running when her lab reopens

Physics in the pandemic: �?It was like waiting for a tsunami that is sure to strike’

Mike Follows explains why his life as a physics teacher in Birmingham, UK, has become "pretty surreal"

Backpack computers for small animals, decade of LHC physics in numbers, post-manuscript-submission press conference

Excerpts from the Red Folder

Physics in the pandemic: �?My workplace probably looks more like a war zone now’

Sam Vennin is impressed by the collaborations developing between research groups and predicts that research will emerge from the current situation deeply transformed

Photo of an optical setup bathed in purplish light

Physics in the pandemic: �?My job is not amenable to working from home’

Atomic physicist Hannah Williams would normally be fixing lasers and machinery in her lab outside Paris. With France on lockdown, she’s searching for alternatives