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Molecular engineering and battery recycling: developing new technologies in quantum, medicine and energy

Asian woman wearing glasses sat at a desk with a computer monitor showing plastic displays

Organic magic: Ji-Seon Kim on how carbon-based semiconductors are shaping our present and future

Ji-Seon Kim talks about the transformative potential of carbon-based semiconductors and the benefits of tangible experiences in the lab

Vapourware and unobtanium: why overselling is not (always) a good idea

Honor Powrie warns of the danger of “overselling” in the world of business

Research headlines

Photo of Jian-Xiang Qiu and Suyang Xua posing with the apparatus they used to detect axion quasiparticles. The apparatus comprises lasers and other components mounted on an optical table. They're wearing laser safety glasses.

Axion quasiparticle appears in a topological antiferromagnet

New finding could aid the search for fundamental axions, say physicists

Photo showing four blue-gloved hands pulling at the corners of the battery, which resembles a coil of black gel on a clear plastic surface. The gel and the surface are visibly deformed by being pulled.

Fluid electrodes make soft, stretchable batteries

New structure might be used in next-generation wearable electronics

Artist's image showing robot arms controlling a group of spins (represented by an array of red arrows all pointing up) that are sandwiched between two layers of CrS material (represented by ball-and-stick models). A blue lightning-like line in the middle represents electric field control

Layer-spintronics makes its debut

New technique does away with the need for strong magnetic fields to control spin currents

Two-dimensional metals make their debut

New structures could be used to study fundamental physics phenomena and to make electronic devices

Ezra Marker, Raiden Speelman, and Franz Geiger in front of their spectrometer. They're all smiling and wearing matching navy blue long-sleeve T-shirts with the slogan "this is my laser shirt" written on the chest pocket in light blue. A Northwestern University banner hangs in the background and two monitors displaying graphs and a dashboard can also be seen.

Splitting water takes more energy than theory predicts – and now scientists know why

Flips in the orientation of water molecules explain sluggish reaction speeds

Hydrogels rapidly switch from soft to hard to create smart medical bandage

Soft hydrogels can be moulded into a desired shape and then rapidly fixed into a high-strength version of that structure

Videos

Eco chic: clothing made from trees, inspired by spiders

Innovation in diamond applications from Element Six

Researchers at the Centre for Print Research

Bristol print innovators make a strong impression

Physics World Careers

The 2025 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.

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Driving skills and innovation in the UK’s semiconductor industry

This podcast features the director of Swansea’s Centre for Integrative Semiconductor Materials

Diagram of battery-based cation intercalation desalination by Faradaic deionization

Materials
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Intercalation-based desalination and carbon capture for water and climate sustainability

Join the audience for a live webinar at 6 p.m. BST/1 p.m. EDT on 7 May 2025, sponsored by The Electrochemical Society

A water droplet spreading and contracting on a flat plate of Teflon

Sliding droplets generate electrical charge as they stick and unstick

Newly observed depinning phenomenon could aid the development of more efficient energy harvesters and help keep next-generation fuel-handling systems safe

Materials
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Designer van der Waals materials for quantum optical emission

Join the audience for a live webinar at 4 p.m. BST/5 p.m CEST on 9 July 2025, sponsored by PicoQuant

A physicist holding a nuclear photovoltaic battery

Photovoltaic battery runs on nuclear waste

Device could be used to power microelectronics like microchips

Photo showing a person's gloved hand using a pair of tweezers to hold a square of transparent material. Below the material is a beaker full of what looks like blood, but is actually water containing red food dye. The material looks to have been recently dipped in the dye, and the dye has clung to a spiral pattern "painted" onto the material with a zwitterionic coating. In the background are various objects indicating that this is happening in a laboratory.

Zwitterions make medical implants safer for patients

New coating material inhibits the build-up of proteins, reducing risk of blood clots

Photo of Feng Nei in the lab with his zinc alloy prototype. He's wearing glasses and a white lab coat and holding the prototype with metal tweezers, and is slightly out of focus so the emphasis is on the prototype, which is in focus. A rack of blue-lidded chemical bottles is on a shelf in the background.

Novel zinc alloys could make bone screws biodegradable

New coarser-grained alloys are strong enough to challenge stainless steel and titanium as materials for orthopaedic implants, say researchers

A new way to recycle perovskite solar cells, without requiring environmentally hazardous solvents

Perovskite solar cells can be completely recycled

New finding could pave the way to a sustainable perovskite solar economy

Predicting the risk of pregnancy complications

Nanosensor predicts risk of complications in early pregnancy

A flower-shaped nanosensor detects biomarkers in the blood associated with the risk of gestational diabetes and other pregnancy complications

A photo of a mantis shrimp, taken face-on, showing its goggly blue eyes, thin red antennae, body, and two greenish-yellow appendages dangling on either side of its body. These are the dactyl clubs.

‘Phononic shield’ protects mantis shrimp from its own shock waves

Patterned armour-like structure filters out damaging frequencies, say researchers

19-2-25 Low-Res_Juan Carlos Sobarzo & Scott Waitukaitis cropped

Memory of previous contacts affects static electricity on materials

Important clue found in the mystery of inconsistent triboelectric series

A polar bear lies on a slab of sea ice with its front paws dangling over a patch of open water, motionless but looking poised to strike

Scientists discover secret of ice-free polar-bear fur

Findings could lead to more environmentally-friendly anti-icing surfaces and lubricants

Confocal microscope image showing cables formed by bacterial cells. The cells appear to be glowing green against a black background and the cables resemble a pile of partially wadded-up rubber bands or strings

Bacterial ‘cables’ form a living gel in mucus

Finding could help treat bacterial infections in patients with cystic fibrosis, say biophysicists

Schematic showing the proposed interaction between an enveloped virus and titania nanoparticles

Nanoparticles demonstrate new and unexpected mechanism of coronavirus disinfection

Titania nanoparticles damage enveloped viruses by directly binding with membrane phospholipids – a previously unknown mode of antiviral action

Two images from a simulation showing protons at energies of 100 keV and 10 keV penetrating different layers of a solar cell. Both images mark out the six layers of the solar cell, with the organic layer as the third layer down. The proton penetration is shown white on the black background, and for the 100 keV image, it takes the appearance of a pine tree in a snow storm as the protons trace out a cascade of triangles through all of the solar cell's layers. The 10 keV protons image looks like a hairy-looking ball concentrated in the silver top layer with stray strands stretching into the organic layer

Organic photovoltaic solar cells could withstand harsh space environments

Study challenges long-standing belief that OPV devices systematically degrade when irradiated

quantum-circuit-concept-1206098096-iStock_Quardia

Thousands of nuclear spins are entangled to create a quantum-dot qubit

Quantum feedback algorithm turns a problem into a solution

Artist's image showing blue and red spikes (representing the quasiparticles) emerging from two parallel dark grey honeycomb-patterned surfaces (representing carbon) and pairing up

New class of quasiparticle appears in bilayer graphene

"Fractional excitons" form in 2D carbon structure at high magnetic fields

Photo of the three NUS researchers who were part of the multidisciplinary research team that developed the Janus graphene nanoribbons. They're standing on a grassy slope and holding a model of a nanoribbon

Two-faced graphene nanoribbons could make the first purely carbon-based ferromagnets

New asymmetric structures have ferromagnetic states on a single zigzag edge

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