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Randomly textured lithium niobate gives snapshot spectrometer a boost

Fingerprint method can detect objects hidden in complex scattering media

Novel imaging technique can find objects buried within in opaque environments, including biological tissues

Scientists obtain detailed maps of earthquake-triggering high-pressure subsurface fluids

Advanced seismic imaging techniques could improve earthquake early warning models and aid the development of next-generation geothermal power

Phase shift in optical cavities could detect low-frequency gravitational waves

Global network could pinpoint astronomical sources

Research headlines

Two pairs of greyscale images showing a pattern of lines and an image of a ketchup packet. The left images are blurred, the right images are clearer

Motion blur brings a counterintuitive advantage for high-resolution imaging

New algorithm turns structured motion into sharper images

A photograph of the ring laser at the Geodetic Observatory Wettzell in Bavaria. It's mounted on a circular platform, which is itself mounted on a chunky-looking metal dais. There's a person in black clothing working on the laser at the back of the room, but most other things in the room are grey or white.

Optical gyroscope detects Earth’s rotation with the highest precision yet

With further improvements, the instrument could enable direct tests of relativistic effects

Cosmic muons monitor river sediments surrounding Shanghai tunnel

Real-time system also detects ebb and flow of tides

Artist's impression of the generation and detection of gravitational waves

LIGO could observe intermediate-mass black holes using artificial intelligence

Machine learning system reduces noise in interferometer mirrors

A map of the globe showing the distribution of earthquakes detected and alerted during the study. Most of South America is covered by the network, as are the US, Australia, and a broad swathe running from southern Europe and northern Africa through the Middle East and into India and south-east Asia. Yellow and occasionally red blobs appear in earthquake-prone areas within this band. There are also grey blobs, indicating detections with no alert, in Mexico, eastern China, Japan and parts of Indonesia.

Android phone network makes an effective early warning system for earthquakes

Smartphone-based approach could supplement existing seismic detector networks

Researchers inspect the new laser-driven FEL

New laser-plasma accelerator could soon deliver X-ray pulses

New design is more efficient at driving electrons

Cover image of the 2025 instrumentation and vacuuum briefing

Instrumentation & Vacuum Briefing

Science is done in just about every corner of the globe but many researchers lack access to the cutting-edge instrumentation available at large facilities such as synchrotron light sources and neutron-science centres. Widening this accessibility is an important theme running through this free-to-read briefing.

Explore more in instrumentation and measurement

A low vibration wire scanner fork for free electron lasers

Built on UHV Design’s Production Linear Shift Mechanism range (PLSM), new linear actuator allows heavy objects to be moved very smoothly, says UHV Design engineering director Jon...

A photo of the Matterhorn rising above an Alpine landscape. The colours are a little washed out, but do not appear artificially tinted

Nobel prizes you’ve never heard of: how an obscure version of colour photography beat quantum theory to the most prestigious prize in physics

Gabriel Lippmann received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1908 for a new method of colour photography that was never commercially successful. Margaret Harris finds out why

Composite image showing a carbon nanotube in the background, with graphs of the experiment's pulses and an electron-hole pair superimposed on top

Scientists image excitons in carbon nanotubes for the first time

New ultrafast optical microscope could aid the development of advanced optoelectronic devices and quantum technologies based on these nanomaterials

Spin-qubit control circuit stays cool

Cryogenic architecture supports tighter integration

Artist's representation of a quantum clock, shown as a traditional clock dial at the centre of a circle of wavepackets. A beam of light from the clock to one of the wavepackets represents measurement

How to keep the second law of thermodynamics from limiting clock precision

Certain types of quantum clocks could circumvent thermal dissipation, say physicists

A rainbow of colours exiting a circular object

Acoustic rainbows emerge from novel sound-scattering structure

New architecture could be used to create tailored devices that emit or receive only certain frequencies of sound

A diagram of the new telescope-microscope next to images of live cells imaged using fluorescence and bioluminescence. Objects in the fluorescence image are indistinct and blurred and overlaid with a sheen of green. Objects in the bioluminescence image show up sharply in blue against a black background.

New ‘telescope-microscope’ detects extremely low levels of light

Quantum image sensor-based device could be used to observe living cells

A photo of Joseph Carroll standing in a laboratory next to a large machine with many cables, pipes and valves running into it. He's wearing a white shirt and black jeans, and the walls of the lab are covered in white acoustic insulation material

New microscopy technique can identify topological superconductors

Scanning-tunnelling microscope with a superconducting tip could help uncover materials for next-generation quantum computers

New definition of second ticks closer after international optical-clock comparison

Fibre and satellites connections span two continents

New optical cryostat combines high cooling capacity, low vibrations and large sample area

Pulse-tube cryocooler and innovative design deliver shorter cooling times and larger experimental payloads

Micronozzle could give laser-driven particle accelerators a boost

Simulations suggest that new design could deliver gigaelectronvolt protons

Development and application of a 3-electrode setup for the operando detection of side reactions in Li-Ion batteries

Available to watch now: Discover an easy to implement cell setup that enables the quantitative and qualitative analysis of parasitic side reactions in lithium-ion batteries

Tiny laser delivers high-quality, narrowband light for metrology

Laser diode device enables rapid measurement

A series of images showing droplets of orange liquid separating and splitting on a grey background

Sound waves control droplet movement in microfluidic processor

Device could be transformative in biology, chemistry and lab-on-a-chip applications

Six people stand side-by-side in a laboratory in front of a large device that resembles a 5-foot-tall refrigerator with microscope equipment inside the top drawer

Laboratory-scale three-dimensional X-ray diffraction makes its debut

New device could make the technology accessible outside national and international synchrotron facilities

Shengxi Huang: how defects can boost 2D materials as single-photon emitters

Shengxi Huang explains why Picoquant’s instruments are helping her to develop 2D materials that are highly efficient sources of single photons

Photo of a metre-long measure made from marble and embedded in the stone wall of a building in Paris. A small plaque to the left of the metre is inscribed with the words "Metre Etalon" and describes its history in French.

The evolution of the metre: How a product of the French Revolution became a mainstay of worldwide scientific collaboration

Physics World corresponding editor Isabelle Dumé reports from a Paris symposium celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Metre Convention

Superconducting microwires detect high-energy particles

New detector offers temporal and spatial precision

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Related events

Medical physics | Virtual event Virtual International Day of Medical Physics 2025 7 November 2025
Condensed matter | Workshop SCFS25 10—14 November 2025 | Dresden, Germany
Quantum | Conference SPIE Quantum Catalyst 2025 12—13 November 2025 | Boulder, US

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