Engineers studying nanodefects suspected of causing early failures of electrical materials

Scientists are working to understand how those nanoscale defects, when subject to extreme electric fields, evolve into material failures. Those failures turn insulators, which do not conduct electricity, into materials that allow some current to flow.

Polarized light: A simple route to highly chiral materials

Researchers have successfully created chiral nanostructures from particles of gold. The trick was to use circularly polarized light to generate electric fields, which localize differently depending on LCP or RCP. This in turn drove the chiral deposition of a dielectric material.

Unexpected behaviour of atom clouds challenges existing theories

Experiments with ultra-cold atoms have shown surprising results: coupled atom clouds synchronize within milliseconds. This effect cannot be explained by standard theories.