Lasers that emit extremely short light pulses are highly precise and are used in manufacturing, medical applications, and research. The problem: efficient short-pulse lasers require a lot of space and are expensive. Researchers at the University of Stuttgart have developed a new system in cooperation with Stuttgart Instruments GmbH. It is more than twice as efficient as previous systems, fits in the palm of a hand, and is highly versatile. The scientists describe their approach in the journal Nature. 

MIT physicists observed key evidence of unconventional superconductivity in magic-angle graphene. The findings could lead to the development of higher-temperature superconductors.

The research group led by Prof. Young-Jin Kim has demonstrated a nanometer-resolution displacement sensing methodology by actively modulating deep-UV beams generated via third-harmonic conversion of an 800 nm femtosecond laser. Instead of manipulating the deep-UV beam directly, the fundamental near-IR beam was pre-modulated and its phase profile was coherently transferred to the generated deep-UV harmonic, enabling stable and real-time control in an absorption-dominated wavelength region where conventional modulators do not operate. The team further realized high-visibility periodic beam patterns and tuned their pitch and orientation to induce moiré amplification against semiconductor periodic patterns, detecting displacement signals that were invisible to direct optical imaging. The demonstration provides a first practical route to active beam modulation-based precision metrology in the deep-UV band and is expected to extend toward EUV and X-ray regimes for future 3 nm node linewidth metrology, attosecond science, and real-time bio-imaging applications. This study has been published in PhotoniX (Q1, IF 19.1) on November 6 and supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea.

Carbon fibers (CFs) are advanced materials that benefit various applications, including light-weight components for aircraft, automobiles and wind turbine blades. At present, the predominant feedstock is expensive polyacrylonitrile. A team of scientists used cheap coal and waste plastics to produce liquefied coals, which were subsequently fabricated into general-purpose and high-performance carbon fibers. This process has the potential to decrease the price of CFs and contribute to environmental and economic sustainability. Their work is published in Industrial Chemistry & Materials on October 3, 2025.

At its deepest physical foundations, the world appears to be nonlocal: particles separated in space behave not as independent quantum systems, but as parts of a single one. Polish physicists have now shown that such nonlocality – arising from the simple fact that all particles of the same type are indistinguishable – can be observed experimentally for virtually all states of identical particles.