Superconductors are famous for carrying electricity without resistance, but a new study shows they can also reshape the crystals in which they are housed. Scientists at Okayama University, Japan, have discovered that the topological superconductor Cu_xBi₂Se₃ can distort its crystal lattice when it reaches the superconducting state. Using synchrotron X-ray diffraction, the team detected structural changes linked to the unusual spin-triplet pairing in this material, revealing a new way superconductivity interacts with crystal structure.

A research team from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has developed FastTrack, a new machine learning-based framework dedicated  to evaluate ion migration barriers in crystalline solids. By combining machine learning force field (MLFFs) with three-dimensional potential energy surface (PES) sampling and interpolation, FastTrack enables accurate prediction of atomic migration barriers within mere minutes. Unlike traditional methods such as density functional theory (DFT) and nudged elastic band (NEB), which can take hours or days per calculation. FastTrack offers a speedup of over 100 times without sacrificing accuracy, closely matching experimental and quantum-mechanical benchmarks. This powerful tool automatically identifies diffusion pathways, visualizes energy landscapes, and provides detailed microscopic insights into ion migration mechanisms, crucial for designing more efficient batteries, fuel cells, and other energy storage and conversion devices.

Skeletal muscle regeneration research is hindered by the "photodamage-imaging quality" trade-off in three-photon microscopy (3PM). A team from Zhejiang University developed the Multi-Scale Attention Denoising Network (MSAD-Net) to address this: combining MSAD-Net with 3PM reduces excitation power to 1.0–1.5 mW (1/4–1/2 of conventional levels) and scanning time to 2–3 μs/pixel (1/6–1/4 of standard), while maintaining 0.9932 SSIM and real-time denoising (80ms/frame). The system enables five-channel deep in vivo imaging of mouse muscle, uncovering key roles of macrophages and blood vessels in muscle stem cell-mediated repair.