Atoms

Atoms are known for forming bonds and breaking apart, but because this happens on such a tiny scale, it’s difficult to study and record. Now, researchers have managed to capture atoms forming and breaking bonds on video for the first time.

At the atomic scale, things happen much faster than we can see. Now Harvard researchers have slowed things down by cooling molecules to almost absolute zero – the coldest chemical reaction ever recorded, capturing never-before seen molecular actions.

Researchers have taken advantage of defects to make silver much stronger while still being conductive – breaking a theoretical limit in the process.

The universe is believed to be expanding at an accelerating rate, thanks to a mysterious force dubbed dark energy. But how exactly does this force work?

Since electronics are always shrinking, engineers need to find ways to make smaller components too. Now, scientists from the University of Leeds have managed to make the thinnest gold ever created, measuring just two atoms thick. That makes it functionally two-dimensional, joining graphene.

If you throw a particle at a wall, there’s a chance that it will suddenly appear on the other side. This is thanks to a phenomenon known as quantum tunneling, and now a team of physicists has measured just how long that process takes.

In recent tests run by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), experimental atomic clocks have achieved record performance in three metrics, meaning these clocks could help measure the Earth’s gravity more precisely or detect elusive dark matter.

The tractor beam is a long-time staple of sci-fi, but now Australian researchers have created a real-world version. While it won’t exactly be capturing enemy spaceships anytime soon, the device can use light to pull in and trap atoms, which may be handy for quantum communications or memory systems.

Waiting for water to boil is a minor inconvenience that we’ve all experienced. Maybe next time try the world’s most powerful X-ray laser, which has now been used to boil water to 100,000° C in 75 millionths of a billionth of a second, turning it into a new plasma-like state of matter in the process.

At the heart of an atomic clock are, as the name suggests, atoms of a specific type. Now, physicists at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have found that lutetium atoms could make for more stable atomic clocks.

Graphene hogs all the headlines about two-dimensional materials, but it might just be the beginning. Researchers have now isolated a 2D form of the soft metal gallium, dubbed "gallenene," which could make for efficient, thin metal contacts in electronic devices.

Ball lightning has been consistently reported for centuries, and yet we still know very little about it. Now, scientists have created quantum ball lightning by knotting together the magnetic spins of atoms, which could help unlock the secrets of the phenomenon, or make more stable fusion reactors.