Physics

  1. Materials Science

    Inorganic tubes get smaller than ever

    Researchers have created the smallest stable, freestanding inorganic nanotubes yet.

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  2. Materials Science

    Novel nanotubes are now made-to-order

    Researchers have made nanotubes with specific sizes and traits by designing molecules that self-assemble.

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  3. Physics

    Surface reaction recorded in real time

    Ultrafast laser pulses may have for the first time revealed the incredibly rapid, step-by-step progress of a complete chemical reaction on a surface, at the actual speed at which it took place.

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  4. Physics

    Cold sliver may sense electron quiver

    By detecting vibrations of less than an atom's width of a tiny cantilever, physicists have made the most sensitive measurement of force ever by mechanical means.

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  5. Physics

    Moon may radio cosmic rays’ biggest hits

    Efforts to use the moon to detect the highest-energy cosmic rays get a boost from an experiment showing that gamma rays zipping through a giant sandbox cause the kind of microwave bursts moon-watchers are hoping to see.

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  6. Physics

    Frigid ‘dynamite’ assembles into superatom

    Although it's now the fifth element to be made into the strange state of ultracold matter known as Bose-Einstein condensate, helium may prove to be the most revealing so far because of unusually high energies within the newly condensed atoms.

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  7. Physics

    Some swell materials give up their secret

    The discovery of a previously overlooked crystal structure in the best so-called piezoelectric materials may explain their remarkable amount of swelling when zapped by an electric field.

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  8. Materials Science

    Crystals step up to a new surface

    Researchers have made crystals that reversibly change their surface shape when hit by light.

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  9. Materials Science

    SQUID can catch concealed corrosion

    A new technology that can detect corrosion deep within aluminum aircraft parts has revealed that high concentrations of salt don't corrode hidden joints any more than low levels of salt.

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  10. Physics

    Jiggling the Cosmic Ooze

    Spurred by the first tentative sightings after a decades-old search, physicists seeking the universe's mass-giving particle — the Higgs boson — have fired up the world's highest-energy particle collider to join the pursuit.

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  11. Materials Science

    Scientists belt out a novel nanostructure

    Researchers have used metal oxides to make microscopic ribbonlike structures that could prove useful for developing future nanoscale devices.

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  12. Physics

    When warming up causes cooling down

    Under the right circumstances, heating a tiny cluster of sodium atoms makes its temperature fall.

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