Category Physics

Physicists trace the sun’s magnetic engine, 200,000 kilometers below its surface

Above: Diagram of the Sun’s interior and outer atmosphere, showing the core, radiative and convection zones — separated by the tachocline — and surface features such as sunspots, flares, the chromosphere and corona. Credit: NASA

Every eleven years, the sun’s magnetic field flips. Sunspots—dark, cooler regions on the sun’s surface that mark intense magnetic activity and often trigger solar eruptions—appear at mid-latitudes and migrate toward the star’s equator in a butterfly-shape pattern before fading as the cycle resets. While this spectacle on the star’s surface has long been visible to astronomers, where this powerful cycle begins inside the star has remained hidden until now.

Researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) have analyzed nearly three dec...

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Mechanically activated liquid metal powder lets users draw circuits on paper

Mechanochemically activated liquid metal powders for sustainable, reconfigurable electronics
Advanced Functional Materials (2025). DOI: 10.1002/adfm.202527396

What if electronic circuits could be created simply by drawing lines with a pencil on paper or leaves—and then immediately applied to soft robots or skin-attached health monitoring devices? Korean researchers have developed an electronic materials technology that forms electrically conductive liquid metal in a fine powder form, allowing circuits to be drawn directly on a wide variety of surfaces.

This technology presents new possibilities for next-generation flexible electronics, including applications on paper and plastic as well as in soft robotic systems and wearable devices. The research was published in Advanced Functional Materials.

A research team led by Distinguished Professor Inkyu Park from the Departm...

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Novel AI semiconductor uses hydrogen ions for learning and memory

New AI semiconductor uses hydrogen to remember and learn
Credit: ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (2026). DOI: 10.1021/acsami.5c21475

A research team led by Lee Hyun Jun and Noh Hee Yeon from the Division of Nanotechnology at DGIST has succeeded in implementing the world’s first two-terminal-based artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor that precisely controls hydrogen with electrical signals to enable self-learning and memory. The team’s work appears in Advanced Science.

Whereas modern AI requires the rapid processing of vast amounts of data, the separation of computation and memory in conventional computers results in speed degradation and high power consumption...

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No battery needed: Single organic device can act as both indoor solar cell and a photodetector

Dongguk University researchers develop breakthrough material for powering next-generation smart devices
The proposed material facilitates bifunctionally driven organic photonic conversion devices for next-generation applications. Credit: Associate Professor Jea Woong Jo from Dongguk University and Associate Professor Jae Won Shim from Korea University

Next-generation optoelectronic systems (devices that convert light to electrical energy) leverage organic semiconductor-based indoor energy-autonomous architectures for cutting-edge applications. Notably, organic semiconductors possess mechanical flexibility, solution processability, and bandgap-tunable optoelectronic properties, making them highly lucrative for indoor power generation via organic photovoltaics (OPVs), as well as for spectrally selective photodetection through organic photodetectors (OPDs)...

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