Thermal superinsulation, arising from nanoporous aerogels with pore sizes < 70 nm, involves ultralow heat conduction with a thermal conductivity lower than that of stationary air (24 mW·m⁻¹·K⁻¹). Ultra-flexibility, on the basis of nanofibrous aerogels, demonstrates remarkable flexibility with a compressive strain of approximately 90%, fracture strain of approximately 10% and bending angel of approximately 100%. In Science Bulletin, researchers from Harbin Institute of Technology now fabricate a ceramic aerogel with a unitary core–sheath fiber architecture based on microstructural design, which achieves superior thermal insulation (21.96 mW·m⁻¹·K⁻¹) while retaining nanofiber flexibility (compressive strain of 80% and a bending angle of 100%).

A research team from Peking University Yangtze Delta Institute of Optoelectronics has achieved the device-level implementation of a silica microsphere probe, demonstrating exceptional capabilities in high-sensitivity ultrasonic detection and ultrahigh-frequency vibrational spectroscopy. This advancement facilitates the transition of microsphere resonator technology from controlled laboratory environments to practical instrumentation, showing significant potential for applications in photoacoustic imaging, endoscopic sensing, and non-destructive evaluation.

With the rapid spread of generative AI, the demand for more energy-efficient methods of powering the hardware is becoming apparent. Now, researchers have succeeded in applying on-axis magnetron sputtering on thulium iron garnet (TmIG)—a promising material that can enable high-speed, low-power information rewriting at room temperature—to build more energy-efficient magnetic random-access memory.

Levitation has long been pursued by stage magicians and physicists alike. For audiences, the sight of objects floating midair is wondrous. For scientists, it’s a powerful way of isolating objects from external disturbances. This is particularly useful in case of rotors, as their torque and angular momentum, used to measure gravity, gas pressure, momentum, among other phenomena in both classical and quantum physics, can be strongly influenced by friction. Freely suspending the rotor could drastically reduce these disturbances – and now, researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have designed, created, and analyzed such a macroscopic device, bringing the magic of near-frictionless levitation down to earth through precision engineering. 

Researchers have created a polymer “Chinese lantern” that can snap into more than a dozen curved, three-dimensional shapes by compressing or twisting the original structure. This rapid shape-shifting behavior can be controlled remotely using a magnetic field, allowing the structure to be used for a variety of applications.