Physics

  1. Physics

    New probe zooms in on midgets of magnetism

    A new microscope for peering at magnetic materials provides the first glimpses of how such materials behave on a scale of only tens of atoms.

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  2. Materials Science

    Scientists get a handle on crystal shape

    Researchers have discovered how the orientation of amino acid molecules can make a growing crystal take on either a right- or a left-handed form.

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  3. Physics

    Pitching Science

    A new computer model of baseball pitching helps give pitching robots humanlike abilities and may have enabled engineers to solve a half-century-old puzzle of baseball science.

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  4. Physics

    Stretching and twisting a bright idea

    A new, stretchy type of liquid-crystal component makes it possible to change a laser's color by simply pulling on the membrane—a much easier, cheaper means of adjustment than that used for today's complex and expensive tunable lasers.

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  5. Physics

    In a squeeze, nitrogen gets chunky

    Remarkable already for being a semiconductor and, perhaps, an explosive, a new, solid form of nitrogen made by crushing the ordinary gas to the highest pressures ever also stands out because it continues to survive when the pressure is released.

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  6. Physics

    Electrons trip on tiny semiconductor steps

    A first glimpse of how a semiconductor's surface alters electrons' magnetic fields, or spins, suggests that tiny steps in the surfaces are tripping up efforts to create so-called spintronics circuits from semiconductors.

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  7. Materials Science

    Nanotubes form dense transistor array

    Researchers have made an array of transistors out of carbon nanotubes.

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  8. Materials Science

    Future brightens for carbon nanotubes

    Researchers have made a lightbulb that depends on carbon nanotubes for its glow.

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  9. Physics

    Light shines in quantum-computing arena

    A new computing scheme using available technology and only classical physics appears to handle many tasks that researchers thought would be unsuited to any computers except the still-hypothetical ones that would exploit quantum physics.

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  10. Physics

    Device shifts molecules into slow motion

    Unlike other particle accelerators, which manipulate the speed and energy of charged particles, a new device accelerates neutral molecules such as ammonia.

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  11. Physics

    Lead blocks may catch nuclear killer

    New measurements of neutron bursts from blocks of lead may help researchers solve a decades-old cosmic whodunit.

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  12. Physics

    Maybe this watched pot already boiled

    Researchers smashing nuclei in hopes of producing a primordial state of matter called the quark-gluon plasma may have already made the stuff without realizing it.

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