When fractions of a second make all the difference: Empa researchers developed a process for manufacturing advanced thin films in which sophisticated timing enables high-quality functional layers at low process temperatures. The new method has applications in the semiconductor industry as well as in future quantum and photonics technologies.

On May 22, the latest experimental campaign concluded at the world’s most powerful nuclear fusion device of the stellarator type. Through collaboration between researchers from Europe and the USA, Wendelstein 7-X achieved, among other milestones, a world record in a key parameter of fusion physics: the triple product. This value now exceeds previous tokamak records for long plasma durations.

The new pellet injector from U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Lab enabled long plasma duration with good energy confinement.

Diagnostics from DOE’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory provided crucial data.

Often, physics can be used to make sense of the natural world. Increasingly though, scientists are looking at biological systems to spark new insights in physics. By studying squid skin, researchers have identified the first biological instance of a physical phenomenon called ‘hyperdisorder’, bringing new understanding into how growth can affect physics.

Published in PRX, an interdisciplinary team from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) studied the effect of growth on pattern development within squid skin cells. By combining experimental imaging methods with theoretical modeling, they found new insights into the unusual arrangement of these cells, and created a general model of hyperdisorder applicable to a wide variety of growing systems.