Category Physics

Single crystals of the perovskite developed in this study; on the right a diagram showing the melting of the ferromagnetic state © M. Spina, E. Horváth/EPFL

EPFL scientists have developed a new perovskite material with unique properties to build next-gen hard drives. As we generate more and more data, we need storage systems, e.g. hard drives, with higher density and efficiency. But this also requires materials whose magnetic properties can be quickly and easily manipulated in order to write and access data on them. EPFL scientists have now developed a perovskite material whose magnetic order can be rapidly changed without disrupting it due to heating.

The lab of Laszló Forró synthesized a ferromagnetic photovoltaic material...

Scientists behind a theory that the speed of light is variable – and not constant as Einstein suggested – have made a prediction that could be tested.

Scientists behind a theory that the speed of light is variable – and not constant as Einstein suggested – have made a prediction that could be tested. Einstein observed that the speed of light remains the same in any situation, and this meant that space and time could be different in different situations.The assumption that the speed of light is constant, and always has been, underpins many theories in physics, such as Einstein’s theory of general relativity. In particular, it plays a role in models of what happened in the very early universe, seconds after the Big Bang.

But some researchers have suggested that the speed of light could have ...

Experiments with ultracold magnetic atoms reveal liquid-like quantum droplets that are 20 times larger than previously observed droplets.

In experiments with magnetic atoms conducted at extremely low temperatures, scientists have demonstrated a unique phase of matter: The atoms form a new type of quantum liquid or quantum droplet state. These quantum droplets may preserve their form in absence of external confinement because of quantum effects. “Our Quantum droplets are in the gas phase but they still drop like a rock,” explains experimental physicist Francesca Ferlaino.

In the laboratory, her team observed how macrodroplets formed in a quantum gas...

Credit: University of Manchester

Scientists working on a revolutionary telescope project have harnessed the power of distributed computing from the UK’s GridPP collaboration to tackle one of the Universe’s biggest mysteries – the nature of dark matter and dark energy. Researchers at The University of Manchester have used resources provided by GridPP – who represent the UK’s contribution to the computing grid used to find the Higgs boson at CERN – to run image processing and machine learning algorithms on thousands of images of galaxies from the international Dark Energy Survey, DES.

The team is part of the collaborative project to build the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), a new kind of telescope currently under construction in Chile and designed to conduct a 10-year survey of...