Geometry of intricately fabricated glass makes light trap itself

Light interacts with itself to form self-sustaining waves in an artificial topological material.

Fluorocarbon bonds are no match for light-powered nanocatalyst

Engineers have created a light-powered catalyst that can break the strong chemical bonds in fluorocarbons, a group of synthetic materials that includes persistent environmental pollutants.

Purifying water with a partly coated gold nanoparticle

'Janus' nanorods convert light to heat that can destroy pollutants.

Design method may boost semiconductor performance by better handling heat

Researchers report that a fabrication technique may offer a path toward mastering the often chaotic flow of heat carriers at the nanoscale in silicon and other semiconductors.

Strainoptronics: A new way to control photons

Researchers create first efficient 2D material photodetector for telecom wavelengths.

Robotic soft matter mimics living creatures (w/video)

When hit with light, the film-thin materials come alive -- bending, rotating and even crawling on surfaces.

World's fastest Bose-Einstein condensate

Researchers have created a Bose-Einstein condensate with record speed, creating the fascinating phase of matter in about 100 femtoseconds.

A fresh twist in chiral topology

Electrons in chiral crystals, solid-state materials with definite handedness, can behave in unexpected ways. An interdisciplinary research team has realized now a theoretically predicted peculiar electronic state in a chiral compound, PtGa, from the class of topological materials.