Read article: Laser jocks reach the big time
Optoelectronics is flourishing in Scotland with new firms spinning off from local universities every month. Valerie Jamieson finds out why it is boom time for the region
Read article: Triumph of the small business
Matin Durrani looks at physics-based companies that have succeeded in dominating their market
Read article: Particles for profits
Technology transfer is alive and kicking in the high-energy physics community and has led to a wealth of applications in industry and medicine, as Valerie Jamieson discovers
Read article: Investors in people
What attributes and personal characteristics do you need to be a successful founding entrepreneur of a start-up firm? Valerie Jamieson talks to physicists who know what it takes
Read article: Avalanche physics ploughs ahead
Numerical models are providing detailed insights into the formation and dynamics of avalanches, explain Perry Barteft and Othmar Buser
Read article: Extrasolar planets
Andrew Collier Cameron explains how astronomers are searching for an Earth-like planet outside our solar system that could harbour life
Read article: Quantum mechanics with single atoms and photons
Some 100 years after the birth of quantum mechanics, physicists are still learning more about the interactions between light and matter
Read article: Max Planck: the reluctant revolutionary
100 years ago Max Planck published a paper that gave birth to quantum mechanics – but he didn't immediately realize the consequences of his work, says Helge Kragh
Read article: The search for extra dimensions
The idea that the universe is trapped on a membrane in some high-dimensional space-time may explain why gravity is so weak, and could be tested at high-energy particle accelerators
Read article: Quintessence
Cosmologists have proposed that a mysterious substance called quintessence can explain why our universe is accelerating. But what is it made of?
