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Category: physics

Hydroxyl adsorption identified as key factor in electrocatalytic ammonia production

Compared with the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process, renewable energy-driven electrocatalytic nitrate reduction reaction (NO3−RR) provides a low-carbon route for ammonia synthesis under mild conditions. Using nitrate from wastewater as the nitrogen source and water as the hydrogen source, this route has the potential to produce ammonia sustainably while mitigating water pollution.

Copper (Cu)-based catalysts show a good performance for NO3−RR to ammonia. However, they suffer from issues including high overpotential, competing nitrite (NO2–) formation, and low overall energy efficiency.

In a study published in ACS Catalysis, a team led by Prof. Bao Xinhe and Prof. Gao Dunfeng from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with Prof. Wang Guoxiong from Fudan University, proposed hydroxyl (*OH) as a selectivity descriptor for via NO3−RR over Cu catalysts.

Dusty structure explains near vanishing of faraway star

Stars die and vanish from sight all the time, but astronomers were puzzled when one that had been stable for more than a decade almost disappeared for eight months.

Between late 2024 and early 2025, one star in our galaxy, dubbed ASASSN-24fw, dimmed in brightness by about 97%, before brightening again. Since then, scientists have been swapping theories about what was behind this rare, exciting event.

Now, an international team led by scientists at The Ohio State University may have come up with an answer to the mystery. In a new study recently published in The Open Journal of Astrophysics, astronomers suggest that because the color of the star’s light remained unchanged during its dimming, the event wasn’t caused by the star evolving in some way, but by a large cloud of dust and gas around the star that occluded Earth’s view of it.

Low-power ‘microwave brain’ on a chip computes on both ultrafast data and wireless signals

Cornell University researchers have developed a low-power microchip they call a “microwave brain,” the first processor to compute on both ultrafast data signals and wireless communication signals by harnessing the physics of microwaves.

Detailed in the journal Nature Electronics, the processor is the first true microwave neural network and is fully integrated on a silicon microchip. It performs real-time frequency domain computation for tasks like radio signal decoding, radar target tracking and digital data processing, all while consuming less than 200 milliwatts of power.

“Because it’s able to distort in a programmable way across a wide band of frequencies instantaneously, it can be repurposed for several computing tasks,” said lead author Bal Govind, a doctoral student who conducted the research with Maxwell Anderson, also a doctoral student. “It bypasses a large number of signal processing steps that digital computers normally have to do.”

What happened before the Big Bang? Computational method may provide answers

We’re often told it is “unscientific” or “meaningless” to ask what happened before the Big Bang. But a new paper by FQxI cosmologist Eugene Lim, of King’s College London, UK, and astrophysicists Katy Clough, of Queen Mary University of London, UK, and Josu Aurrekoetxea, at Oxford University, UK, published in Living Reviews in Relativity, proposes a way forward: using complex computer simulations to numerically (rather than exactly) solve Einstein’s equations for gravity in extreme situations.

Brightest-ever fast radio burst allows researchers to identify its origin

An international team of astronomers has observed one of the brightest fast radio bursts (FRBs) ever detected—and pinpointed its location in a nearby galaxy (NGC 4141). FRB 20250316A has been nicknamed RBFLOAT, which stands for Radio Brightest FLash Of All Time. The finding and the discovery of the location surprised the team and revealed new insight into FRBs, which are one of astrophysics’ biggest mysteries.

Defect engineering accelerates carrier relaxation in GaN-based LEDs

A study conducted by researchers from the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics (CIOMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has demonstrated how nitrogen vacancies (VN) resolve asymmetric carrier injection in GaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs), providing a practical way to improve device efficiency.

Photonic origami folds glass into microscopic 3D optical devices

Researchers have developed a technique to fold glass sheets into microscopic 3D photonic structures directly on a chip—a process they call photonic origami. The method could enable tiny, yet complex optical devices for data processing, sensing and experimental physics.

“Existing 3D printers produce rough 3D structures that aren’t optically uniform and thus can’t be used for high-performance optics,” said research team leader Tal Carmon from Tel Aviv University in Israel.

“Mimicking the way a pinecone’s scales bend outward to release seeds, our laser-induced technique triggers precise bending in ultra-thin glass sheets and can be used to create highly transparent, ultra-smooth 3D microphotonic devices for a variety of applications.”

Singularities are Inevitable, Physicist Claims

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According to Einstein’s theories, the universe started with a Big Bang singularity and is slowly expanding until it disperses into nothingness. But physicists have also come up with theories claiming that the Big Bang was non-singular and can repeat, restarting the cycle over again. These are called “cyclic models,” and they’ve re-emerged into the spotlight now that there’s mounting evidence that dark energy is weakening over time. However, a physicist from UC Berkeley recently published a paper which he claims “categorically rules out” cyclic models. Let’s take a look.

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Physicists create stable, ‘breathing’ solitons in settings without energy conservation

Solitonic waves—waves that keep their shape and direction of motion for a long time—have intrigued physicists for almost two centuries. In real-world circumstances, these waves eventually die out due to energy loss. A team of UvA physicists have now discovered how a particular type of interaction can be used to create very stable solitons, even in circumstances where energy is not conserved.

In 1834, John Scott Russell observed an unusual phenomenon in the Union Canal in Scotland. After a moving boat had come to a halt, the water wave that the boat had caused continued moving through the canal, keeping virtually the same speed and the same shape.

It took more than half a century, until the work of Dutch mathematicians Diederik Korteweg and Gustav de Vries in 1895, before the phenomenon that Russell observed had been explained in all its mathematical detail. What Russell had seen was a “solitary wave,” a phenomenon now better known as a soliton.

Gold survives impossible heat, defying physics limits

Gold was superheated to 19,000 Kelvin without melting, defying physics and unlocking new possibilities in high-energy research. Physicists have heated gold to over 19,000 Kelvin, more than 14 times its melting point, without melting it, smashing the long-standing “entropy catastrophe” limit. Using an ultra-fast laser pulse at SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source, they kept the gold crystalline at extreme heat, opening new frontiers in high-energy-density physics, fusion research, and planetary science.

Scientists have simultaneously broken a temperature record, overturned a long-held theory and utilized a new laser spectroscopy method for dense plasmas in a groundbreaking article published on July 23 in the journal Nature.

In their research article, “Superheating gold beyond the predicted entropy catastrophe threshold,” physicists revealed they were able to heat gold to over 19,000 Kelvin (33,740 degrees Fahrenheit), over 14 times its melting point, without it losing its solid, crystalline structure.

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