Business and innovation

Transactions: personal reflections on the business of physics

From Post-it Notes to microwaves – why serendipity lies at the heart of innovation

Could ammonia be the secret to shipping carbon-free?

Climate change is a ‘Pascal’s wager’: so how will you act?

Careers in industry

Multidisciplinary collaboration: the engine-room of opportunity

Ask me anything: Giulia Thompson

The head of system physics within global linac engineering at Elekta gives her advice to physics graduates

Ask me anything: Sadik Hafizovic

The chief executive and founder of Zurich Instruments gives his advice to physics graduates

Ask me anything: James McKenzie

The vice-president of business at the Institute of Physics gives his advice to physics graduates

Nanotechnology Briefing

Take a look inside the free-to-read digital edition of Physics World‘s briefing issue on nanotechnology. Covering the latest innovations and commercial developments, this issue explores some of the nanoscale technologies that are set to drive future business growth

Latest articles

Multidisciplinary collaboration: the engine-room of opportunity

From Post-it Notes to microwaves – why serendipity lies at the heart of innovation

Accidental discoveries lie at the heart of many technological innovations. James McKenzie runs through his favourites

Tools that were originally designed to enhance optical microscopy proved key to developing Opsydia's laser-etching system.

Making their mark

How fundamental research on adaptive optics led Martin Booth, Patrick Salter and Andrew Rimmer to start a company that uses lasers to create microscopic marks inside diamonds

The blue solution

Powerful blue lasers are producing the high-quality copper welds needed to make batteries for electric vehicles, as Richard Stevenson reports

Some like it cold: cryogenic innovation forges quantum opportunities

Cryogenics specialist ICEoxford has reinforced its international reputation for product innovation with a 2020 Queen’s Award for Enterprise

Could ammonia be the secret to shipping carbon-free?

James McKenzie wonders if ammonia could hold the key to greener shipping

Novel tools aim to accelerate physics research

Learn about some of the product innovations that were due to be announced at the American Physical Society's March Meeting

Ask me anything: Giulia Thompson

The head of system physics within global linac engineering at Elekta gives her advice to physics graduates

Start-up stories

A man holding the LOOMIA electronic layer, which is a piece of flexible blue fabric containing electronic circuitry

Pushing e-textiles towards the ‘plain of productivity’

Intellegens chief technology officer Gareth Conduit (right) and chief executive officer Ben Pellegrini (second from right) with colleagues (left to right) Robert Parini, Tom Whitehead, Sue Flatman and Jamie Smith.

Neural networks extract information from sparse datasets

The core quantum technologies team at Zurich Instruments.

Big stuff with little qubits

Physics World Careers

The 2020 edition of Physics World Careers is packed full of advice for early career scientists. Including a range of valuable advice, informative case studies and recruiter profiles, it demonstrates the variety of jobs that use a physics degree.