Ερευνητές πέτυχαν την πρώτη κβαντική τηλεμεταφορά μεταξύ φωτονίων – Βήμα προς το κβαντικό διαδίκτυο

Καλλιτεχνική απεικόνιση κβαντικής τηλεμεταφοράς μεταξύ φωτονίων BlueQubit

Η ασφάλεια της ψηφιακής ζωής παραμένει εύθραυστη, καθώς οι κυβερνοεπιθέσεις γίνονται ολοένα πιο σύνθετες χάρη στην τεχνητή νοημοσύνη.

Η κβαντική κρυπτογραφία προβάλλει ως μια πιθανή απάντηση στο παραπάνω πρόβλημα: αξιοποιεί θεμελιώδεις αρχές της κβαντικής φυσικής για τη μετάδοση πληροφοριών με τρόπο που καθιστά σχεδόν αδύνατη την υποκλοπή χωρίς να εντοπιστεί ο δράστης. Ωστόσο, η ανάπτυξη της τεχνολογίας που απαιτείται για ένα λειτουργικό κβαντικό διαδίκτυο εξακολουθεί να προσκρούει σε σημαντικά επιστημονικά εμπόδια, αναφέρει το SciTechDaily.

 

NASA launches IMAP mission to provide real-time space weather forecasts

24 Sep 2025 Michael Banks

Cosmic mapper The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe will spend two years studying the solar wind and its interaction with the interstellar medium. (Courtesy: NASA)

NASA has launched a two-year mission to study the boundary of the heliosphere, a huge protective bubble in space created by the Sun. The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) took off today aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The mission is now on a four-month journey to Lagrange point 1 (L1) – a point in space about 1.6 million kilometres from the Earth towards the Sun.

The solar wind is a stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun into space that helps to form the heliosphere. IMAP will study the solar wind and its interaction with the interstellar medium to better understand the heliosphere and its boundaries, which begin about 14 billion kilometres from Earth. This boundary offers protection from harsh radiation from space and is key to creating and maintaining a habitable solar system.

 

China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft return delayed by space debris impact

07 Nov 2025 Michael Banks

Space delay: The crewed Shenzhou-20 spacecraft was launched on 24 April for a six-month mission to China’s Tiangong space station. (Courtesy: China Manned Space Agency)

China has delayed the return of a crewed mission to the country’s space station over fears that the astronaut’s spacecraft has been struck by space debris. The craft was supposed to return to Earth on 5 November, but the China Manned Space Agency says it will now carry out an impact analysis and risk assessment before making any further decisions about when the astronauts will return.

The Shenzhou programme involves taking astronauts to and from China’s Tiangong space station, which was constructed in 2022, for six-month stays.

 

SEMICON Europa 2025 presents cutting-edge technology for semiconductor R&D and production

12 Nov 2025 Sponsored by SEMICON Europa 2025 exhibitors

Europe’s largest event for electronics manufacturing comes to Munich on 18−21 November, 2025. Here are some of the companies and product innovations to look out for on the exhibition floor

Europe’s finest SEMICON Europa 2025 will showcase the continent’s semiconductor prowess. (Courtesy: iStock/Alexander Sikov)

“Global collaborations for European economic resilience” is the theme of SEMICON Europa 2025. The event is taking place in Munich, Germany, from 18 to 21 November, and it will attract 25,000 semiconductor professionals who will enjoy presentations from over 200 speakers.

The TechARENA portion of the event will cover a wide range of technology-related issues, including new materials, future computing paradigms, and the development of hi-tech skills in the European workforce. There will also be an Executive Forum, featuring leaders from industry and government, which will cover topics including silicon geopolitics and the application of artificial intelligence in semiconductor manufacturing.

 

Ten-ion system brings us a step closer to large-scale qubit registers

17 Nov 2025 Nohora Hernández 

Team effort. Based at the University of Innsbruck, Ben Lanyon’s group has created a novel qubit register by trapping ten ions. (Courtesy: Victor Krutyanskiy/University of Innsbruck)

Researchers in Austria have entangled matter-based qubits with photonic qubits in a ten-ion system. The technique is scalable to larger ion-qubit registers, paving the way for the creation of larger and more complex quantum networks.Ions in motion. Each ion (large object) is moved one at a time into the “sweet spot” of the optical cavity. Once there, a laser beam drives the emission of a single photon (a small object) that is entangled with the ion. The colours indicate ion–photon entanglement. (Courtesy: Universität Innsbruck/Harald Ritsch)

 

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center hit by significant downsizing

13 Nov 2025

Under threat: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has closed a third of its buildings since September. (Courtesy: NASA)

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) appears poised to lose a significant portion of its budget as a two-decade reorganization plan for the center is being accelerated. The move, which is set to be complete by March, has left the Goddard campus with empty buildings and disillusioned employees. Some staff even fear that the actions taken during the 43-day US government shutdown, which ended on 12 November, could result in the end of much of the centre’s activities.

Based in Greenbelt, Maryland, the GSFC has almost 10,000 scientists and engineers, about 7000 of whom are directly employed by NASA contractors.

 

Designing better semiconductor chips: NP hard problems and forever chemicals

13 Nov 2025 Margaret Harris

Like any major endeavour, designing and fabricating semiconductor chips requires compromise. In addition to trade-offs between cost and performance, designers also consider carbon emissions and other environmental impacts.

In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast, Margaret Harris reports from the Heidelberg Laureate Forum where she spoke to two researchers who are focused on some of these design challenges.

 

Classical gravity may entangle matter, new study claims

11 Nov 2025

Inducing entanglement Can classical gravity entangle particles? (Courtesy: iStock/Denis Pobytov)

Gravity might be able to quantum-entangle particles even if the gravitational field itself is classical. That is the conclusion of a new study by Joseph Aziz and Richard Howl at Royal Holloway University of London. This challenges a popular view that such entanglement would necessarily imply that gravity must be quantized. This could be crucial in the ongoing effort to develop a theory of quantum gravity that unifies quantum mechanics with Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

“When you try to quantize the gravitational interaction in exactly the same way we tried to mathematically quantize the other forces, you end up with mathematically inconsistent results – you end up with infinities in your calculations that you can’t do anything about,” Howl tells Physics World.

 

• Superconductivity
 
• Research update

Ternary hydride shows signs of room-temperature superconductivity at high pressures

07 Nov 2025 Isabelle Dumé

Crystal structure In the new high-Tc superconductor, lanthanum and scandium atoms constitute the MgB2-type sublattice, while the surrounding hydrogen atoms form two types of cage-like configurations. (Courtesy: Guangtao Liu, Jilin University)

Researchers in China claim to have made the first ever room-temperature superconductor by compressing an alloy of lanthanum-scandium (La-Sc) and the hydrogen-rich material ammonia borane (NH3BH3) together at pressures of 250–260 GPa, observing superconductivity with a maximum onset temperature of 298 K. While these high pressures are akin to those at the centre of the Earth, the work marks a milestone in the field of superconductivity, they say.

Superconductors conduct electricity without resistance, and many materials do this when cooled below a certain transition temperature, Tc. In most cases, this temperature is very low – for example, solid mercury, the first superconductor to be discovered, has a Tc of 4.2 K.

 

Indefinite causal order: how quantum physics is challenging our understanding of cause and effect

09 Sep 2025 Hamish Johnston

Part of our International Year of Quantum Science and Technology coverage

In the fourth of our series of truly weird quantum effects, Hamish Johnston becomes a casual observer of the bizarre situation in which the causal order of events are in a quantum superposition

(Courtesy: Shutterstock/Hakim Graphy)

The concept of cause and effect plays an important role in both our everyday lives and in physics. If you set a ball down in front of a window and kick it hard, a split second later, the ball will hit the window and smash it. What we don’t observe is a world where the window smashes on its own, thereby causing the ball to be kicked – that would seem rather nonsensical. In other words, kick before smash, and smash before kick, are two different physical processes, each having a unique and definite causal order.

But, does definite causal order also reign supreme in the quantum world, where concepts like position and time can be fuzzy? Most physicists are happy to accept the paradox of Schrödinger’s cat – a thought experiment in which a cat hidden in a box is simultaneously dead and alive at the same time, until you open the box to check.

 

China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak smashes fusion confinement record

23 Jan 2025 Michael Banks

Record breaker: The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak based in Hefei, China, has sustained a high-pressure plasma for over 1000 seconds (Courtesy: Hefei Institute of Physical Science)

Update 20/02/2025: On 18 February, officials at France’s atomic energy commission (CEA) announced that its WEST Tokamak reactor, which is based in Cadarache, France, had maintained a steady-state high-confinement plasma for 1336 seconds.

A fusion tokamak in China has smashed its previous fusion record of maintaining a steady-state plasma. This week, scientists working on the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) announced that they had produced a steady-state high-confinement plasma for 1066 seconds, breaking EAST’s previous 2023 record of 403 seconds.

 

Space ice reveals its secrets

07 Aug 2025 Isabelle Dumé

Structure amid disorder: Visual representation of the structure of low-density amorphous ice. Many tiny crystallites (white) are concealed in the amorphous material (blue). (Courtesy: Michael B Davies, UCL and University of Cambridge)

The most common form of water in the universe appears to be much more complex than was previously thought. While past measurements suggested that this “space ice” is amorphous, researchers in the UK have now discovered that it contains crystals. The result poses a challenge to current models of ice formation and could alter our understanding of ordinary liquid water.

Unlike most other materials, water is denser as a liquid than it is as a solid. It also expands rather than contracts when it cools; becomes less viscous when compressed; and exists in many physical states, including at least 20 polymorphs of ice.

 

How hot can you make a solid before it melts?

19 Aug 2025 Isabelle Dumé

Heating up: Researchers at SLAC's Matter in Extreme Conditions (MEC) instrument used a laser to superheat a sample of gold. They then sent a pulse of ultrabright X-rays from the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) through the sample to measure the speed, and thus the temperature, of the atoms vibrating in the sample. (Courtesy: Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

Gold can remain solid at temperatures over 14 times its melting point, far beyond a long-accepted theoretical limit dubbed the “entropy catastrophe.” This finding is based on temperature measurements made using high-resolution inelastic X-ray scattering, and according to team leader Thomas White of the University of Nevada, US, it implies that the question “How hot can you make a solid before it melts?” has no good answer.

“Until now, we thought that solids could not exist above about three times their melting temperatures,” White says. “Our results show that if we heat a material rapidly – that is, before it has time to expand – it is possible to bypass this limit entirely.”

 

New mechanism explains the behaviour of materials exhibiting giant magnetoresistance

01 Jul 2025 Isabelle Dumé

Correspondence: Single-particle (left) dispersion of electrons is intrinsically tied to the dynamics of spins/magnons (right panel) in double-exchange ferromagnets. (Courtesy: J Herbrych)

Two distinctive features of materials known as quantum double-exchange ferromagnets are purely due to quantum spin effects and multiorbital physics, with no need for the lattice vibrations previously invoked to explain them. This theoretical result could lead to new insights into these technologically important materials, as it suggests that some of their properties may arise from interactions hitherto regarded as less important.

Quantum double-exchange ferromagnets have interested scientists since the late 1980s, when physicists led by Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg found that their electrical resistance depends strongly on the magnitude of an external magnetic field. This phenomenon is known as giant magnetoresistance (GMR), and its discovery led to an enormous increase in the storage capacity of modern hard-disk drives, which incorporate GMR structures into their magnetic field sensors. It also led, in 2007, to a Nobel Prize for Fert and Grünberg.

 

Antiferromagnets could be better than ferromagnets for some ultrafast, high-density memories

30 Sep 2025 Isabelle Dumé

How it works On the left is a schematic illustration of memory device consisting of a chiral antiferromagnet Mn3Sn / nonmagnetic metal heterostructure. On the right is a scanning electron microscope image of the fabricated device with a Mn3Sn nanodot and a nonmagnetic metal channel. (Courtesy: Yutaro Takeuchi et al)

While antiferromagnets show great promise for spintronics applications, they have proven more challenging to control compared to ferromagnets. Researchers in Japan have now succeeded in switching an antiferromagnetic manganese–tin nanodot using electric current pulses as short as 0.1 ns. Their work demonstrates that these materials can be utilized to create efficient, high-speed, high-density memories that operate at gigahertz frequencies, thereby outperforming ferromagnets in this range.

In antiferromagnets, spins can flip quickly, potentially reaching frequencies well beyond the gigahertz. Such rapid spin flips are possible because neighbouring spins in antiferromagnets align antiparallel to each other thanks to strong interactions among the spins. This is different from ferromagnets, which have parallel electron spins.

 

‘Breathing’ crystal reversibly releases oxygen

09 Sep 2025 Isabelle Dumé

Schematic illustration of oxygen-breathing Scientists have developed a special type of crystal with oxygen-breathing abilities that could be used in clean energy technologies and next-generation electronics. (Courtesy: Hyoungjeen Jeen/Pusan National University)

A new transition-metal oxide crystal that reversibly and repeatedly absorbs and releases oxygen could be ideal for use in fuel cells and as the active medium in clean energy technologies such as thermal transistors, smart windows, and new types of batteries. The “breathing” crystal, discovered by scientists at Pusan National University in Korea and Hokkaido University in Japan, is made from strontium, cobalt, and iron and contains oxygen vacancies.

Transition-metal oxides exhibit a wide range of electrical properties that can be tuned from insulating to superconducting. This means they can find applications in areas as diverse as energy storage, catalysis, and electronic devices.

 

Electrochemical loading boosts deuterium fusion in a palladium target

25 Aug 2025

Thunderbird Reactor The benchtop particle accelerator has revealed how electrolysis can enhance deuterium fusion. (Courtesy: University of British Columbia/Berlinguette Lab)

Researchers in Canada have utilized electrochemistry to enhance the rate of nuclear fusion within a metal target bombarded with high-energy deuterium ions. While the process is unlikely to lead to a new source of energy – it consumes far more energy than it produces – further research could provide new insights into fusion and other areas of science.

Although modern fusion reactors are huge projects sometimes costing billions, the first evidence for an artificial fusion reaction – observed by Mark Oliphant and Ernest Rutherford in 1934 – was a simple experiment in which deuterium nuclei in a solid target were bombarded with deuterium ions.

 

General Fusion lays off staff due to ‘unexpected and urgent financing constraints’

06 May 2025 Michael Banks

Hot stuff: General Fusion’s Lawson Machine 26 employs magnetized target fusion technology. (Courtesy: General Fusion)

The Canadian firm General Fusion is set to lay off about 25% of its 140-strong workforce and scale back the operation of its fusion device, dubbed Lawson Machine 26 (LM26). The announcement was made in an open letter published on 5 May by the company’s chief executive Greg Twinney. The move follows what the firm says is an “unexpected and urgent financing constraint”.

Founded in 2002 by the Canadian plasma physicist Michel Laberge, General Fusion is based in Richmond, British Columbia. It is one of the first private fusion companies and has attracted more than $325 million in funding from both private investors, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and the Canadian government.

 

Radioactive BEC could form a ‘superradiant neutrino laser’

04 Oct 2025

Cool and creative Building a superradiant neutrino laser would be a significant challenge. (Courtesy: iStock/Vitacops)

Radioactive atoms in a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) could form a “superradiant neutrino laser” in which the atomic nuclei undergo accelerated beta decay. A hypothetical laser has been proposed by two US researchers, who claim that it could be built and tested. While such a neutrino laser has no obvious immediate applications, further developments could potentially assist in the search for background neutrinos from the Big Bang – an important goal of neutrino physicists.

Neutrinos – the ghostly particles produced in beta decay – are notoriously difficult to detect or manipulate because of the weakness of their interaction with matter. They cannot be used to produce a conventional laser because they would pass straight through mirrors unimpeded. More fundamentally, neutrinos are fermions rather than bosons such as photons. This prevents neutrinos from forming a two-level system with a population inversion, as only one neutrino can occupy each quantum state in a system.

 

Is materials science the new alchemy for the 21st century?

06 Oct 2025 Honor Powrie

It can be challenging to define exactly what materials science is all about. But Honor Powrie believes the field is the most rewarding and challenging in all of science, with its practitioners striving to create “new gold”

Stuff that matters Whether it's metals, ceramics, bioplastics or the auxetic materials in this Nike running shoe, the world is being transformed thanks to materials science. (Courtesy: Ethan Jull, University of Leeds)

For many years, I’ve been a judge for awards and prizes linked to research and innovation in engineering and physics. It’s often said that it’s better to give than to receive, and it’s certainly true in this case. But another highlight of my involvement with awards is learning about cutting-edge innovations I either hadn’t heard of or didn’t know much about.

 

Deep-blue LEDs get a super-bright, non-toxic boost

21 Aug 2025 Isabelle Dumé

Deep blue: Scientists have developed hybrid copper iodide crystals that emit deep-blue light. (Courtesy: Kun Zhu/Jing Li Lab/Rutgers University)

A team led by researchers at Rutgers University in the US has discovered a new semiconductor that emits bright, deep-blue light. The hybrid copper iodide material is stable, non-toxic, and can be processed in solution, having already been integrated into a light-emitting diode (LED). According to its developers, it could find applications in solid-state lighting and display technologies.

Creating white light for solid-state lighting and full-colour displays requires bright, pure sources of red, green, and blue light. While stable materials that efficiently emit red or green light are relatively easy to produce, those that generate blue light (especially deep-blue light) are much more challenging. Existing blue-light emitters based on organic materials are unstable, meaning they lose their colour quality over time.

 

New metalaser is a laser researcher’s dream

11 Aug 2025 Isabelle Dumé

Tailored profiles: The working principle of the new metalaser. The designed geometric phase profile is introduced to the metasurface by rotating the hole in each silicon nitride nanodisk. Then the laser emission can be tailored to a focal spot, focal line, doughnut or even a holographic image. (Courtesy: Q Song)

A new type of nanostructured lasing system, called a metalaser, emits light with highly tunable wavefronts – a feat that had previously proved impossible to achieve with conventional semiconductor lasers. According to the researchers in China who developed it, the new metalaser can generate speckle-free laser holograms and could revolutionize the field of laser displays.

The first semiconductor lasers were invented in the 1960s, and many variants have since been developed. Their numerous advantages – including small size, long lifetimes, and low operating voltages – mean they are routinely employed in applications ranging from optical communications and interconnects to biomedical imaging and optical displays.

 

Laser-driven implosion could produce megatesla magnetic fields

20 Aug 2025 Isabelle Dumé

High field: Sawtooth-like inner blades on the cylindrical target induce off-axis charged flows under ultra-intense laser irradiation, driving strong loop currents and generating sub-megatesla magnetic fields. (Courtesy: Masakatsu Murakami)

Magnetic fields so strong that they are typically only observed in astrophysical jets and highly magnetized neutron stars could be created in the laboratory, say physicists at the University of Osaka, Japan. Their proposed approach relies on directing extremely short, intense laser pulses into a hollow tube housing sawtooth-like inner blades. The fields created in this improved version of the established “microtube implosion” technique can be used to simulate effects that occur in various high-energy-density processes, including nonlinear quantum phenomena and laser fusion, as well as astrophysical systems.