The XMG 14 Evo (Е25) can be described as a compact and light workstation if you configure it with more RAM and a Ryzen 9 CPU. The cooling is capable, and it allows impressively high clocks even in 3D rendering. The perfect upgradability and the surprisingly solid port selection make this compact laptop easy to recommend.

Chieftec's The Cube is the third offering of its cuboid line-up, which first saw the light of day nearly a decade ago. While the first two were aimed at gamers and professionals, The Cube mimics the design of a speaker, to fit into a living room or audiophile setups. But will a case with this kind of history still live up to the needs and requirements of the modern user?

Physicists working on the Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus (ALPHA) experiment at CERN have trapped and accumulated 15,000 antihydrogen atoms in less than 7 h. This accumulation rate is more than 20 times the previous record. Large ensembles of antihydrogen could be used to search for tiny, unexpected differences between matter and antimatter – which if discovered could point to physics beyond the Standard Model.

According to the Standard Model every particle has an antimatter counterpart – or antiparticle. It also says that roughly equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created in the Big Bang. But, today there is much more matter than antimatter in the visible universe, and the reason for this “baryon asymmetry” is one of the most important mysteries of physics.

The Standard Model predicts the properties of antiparticles. An antiproton, for example, has the same mass as a proton and the opposite charge. The Standard Model also predicts how antiparticles interact with matter and antimatter. If physicists could find discrepancies between the measured and predicted properties of antimatter, it could help explain the baryon asymmetry and point to other new physics beyond the Standard Model.

Powerful probe

Just as a hydrogen atom comprises a proton bound to an electron, an antihydrogen antiatom comprises an antiproton bound to an antielectron (positron). Antihydrogen offers physicists several powerful ways to probe antimatter at a fundamental level. Trapped antiatoms can be released in freefall to determine if they respond to gravity in the same way as atoms. Spectroscopy can be used to make precise measurements of how the electromagnetic force binds the antiproton and positron in antihydrogen with the aim of finding differences compared to hydrogen.

So far, antihydrogen’s gravitational and electromagnetic properties appear to be identical to hydrogen. However, these experiments were done using small numbers of antiatoms, and having access to much larger ensembles would improve the precision of such measurements and could reveal tiny discrepancies. However, creating and storing antihydrogen is very difficult.

Today, antihydrogen can only be made in significant quantities at CERN in Switzerland. There, a beam of protons is fired at a solid target, creating antiprotons that are then cooled and stored using electromagnetic fields. Meanwhile, positrons are gathered from the decay of radioactive nuclei and cooled and stored using electromagnetic fields. These antiprotons and positrons are then combined in a special electromagnetic trap to create antihydrogen.

This process works best when the antiprotons and positrons have very low kinetic energies (temperatures) when combined. If the energy is too high, many antiatoms will be escape the trap. So, it is crucial that the positrons and antiprotons to be as cold as possible.

Sympathetic cooling

Recently, ALPHA physicists have used a technique called sympathetic cooling on positrons, and in a new paper they describe their success.  Sympathetic cooling has been used for several decades to cool atoms and ions. It originally involved mixing a hard-to-cool atomic species with atoms that are relatively easy to cool using lasers. Energy is transferred between the two species via the electromagnetic interaction, which chills the hard-to-cool atoms.

The ALPHA team used beryllium ions to sympathetically cool positrons to 10 K, which is five degrees colder than previously achieved using other techniques. These cold positrons boosted the efficiency of the creation and trapping of antihydrogen, allowing the team to accumulate 15,000 antihydrogen atoms in less than 7 h. This is more than a 20-fold improvement over their previous record of accumulating 2000 antiatoms in 24 h.

Science fiction

“These numbers would have been considered science fiction 10 years ago,” says ALPHA spokesperson Jeffrey Hangst, who is a Denmark’s Aarhus University.

Team member Maria Gonçalves, a PhD student at the UK’s Swansea University, says, “This result was the culmination of many years of hard work. The first successful attempt instantly improved the previous method by a factor of two, giving us 36 antihydrogen atoms”.

The effort was led by Niels Madsen of the UK’s Swansea University. He enthuses, “It’s more than a decade since I first realized that this was the way forward, so it’s incredibly gratifying to see the spectacular outcome that will lead to many new exciting measurements on antihydrogen”.

The cooling technique is described in Nature Communications.

The post Sympathetic cooling gives antihydrogen experiment a boost appeared first on Physics World.

The Sun frequently ejects high-energy bursts of plasma that then travel through interplanetary space. These so-called coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are accompanied by strong magnetic fields, which, when they interact with the Earth’s atmosphere, can trigger solar storms that can severely damage satellite systems and power grids.

In the early days of the solar system, the Sun was far more active than it is today and ejected much bigger CMEs. These might have been energetic enough to affect our planet’s atmosphere and therefore influence how life emerged and evolved on Earth, according to some researchers.

Since it is impossible to study the early Sun, astronomers use proxies – that is, stars that resemble it. These “exo-suns” are young G-, K- and M-type stars and are far more active than our Sun is today. They frequently produce CMEs with energies far larger than the most energetic solar flares recorded in recent times, which might not only affect their planets’ atmospheres, but may also affect the chemistry on these planets.

Until now, direct observational evidence for eruptive CME-like phenomena on young solar analogues has been limited. This is because clear signatures of stellar eruptions are often masked by the brightness of their host stars and flares on these. Measurements of Doppler shifts in optical lines have allowed astronomers to detect a few possible stellar eruptions associated with giant superflares on a young solar analogue, but these detections have been limited to single-wavelength data at “low temperatures” of around 10⁴ K. Studies at higher temperatures have been few and far between. And although scientists have tried out promising techniques, such as X-ray and UV dimming, to advance their understanding of these “cool” stars, few simultaneous multi-wavelength observations have been made.

A large Carrington-class flare from EK Draconis

On 29 March 2024, astronomers at Kyoto University in Japan detected a large Carrington-class flare – or superflare – in the far-ultraviolet from EK Draconis, a G-type star located approximately 112 light-years away from the Sun. Thanks to simultaneous observations in the ultraviolet and optical ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum, they say they have now been able to obtain the first direct evidence for a multi-temperature CME from this young solar analogue (which is around 50 to 125 million years old and has a radius similar to the Sun).

The researchers’ campaign spanned four consecutive nights from 29 March to 1 April 2024. They made their ultraviolet observations with the Hubble Space Telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and performed optical monitoring using three ground-based telescopes in Japan, Korea and the US.

They found that the far-ultraviolet and optical lines were Doppler shifted during and just before the superflare, with the ultraviolet observations showing blueshifted emission indicative of hot plasma. About 10 minutes later, the optical telescopes observed blueshifted absorption in the hydrogen Hα line, which indicates cooler gases. According to the team’s calculations, the hot plasma had a temperature of 100 000 K and was ejected at speeds of 300–550 km/s, while the “cooler” gas (with a temperature of 10 000 K) was ejected at 70 km/s.

“These findings imply that it is the hot plasma rather than the cool plasma that carries kinetic energy into planetary space,” explains study leader Kosuke Namekata. “The existence of this plasma suggests that such CMEs from our Sun in the past, if frequent and strong, could have driven shocks and energetic particles capable of eroding or chemically altering the atmosphere of the early Earth and the other planets in our solar system.”

“The discovery,” he tells Physics World, “provides the first observational link between solar and stellar eruptions, bridging stellar astrophysics, solar physics and planetary science.”

Looking forward, the researchers, who report their work in Nature Astronomy, now plan to conduct similar, multiwavelength campaigns on other young solar analogues to determine how frequently such eruptions occur and how they vary from star to star.

“In the near future, next-generation ultraviolet space telescopes such as JAXA’s LAPYUTA and NASA’s ESCAPADE, coordinated with ground-based facilities, will allow us to trace these events more systematically and understand their cumulative impact on planetary atmospheres,” says Namekata.

The post Plasma bursts from young stars could shed light on the early life of the Sun appeared first on Physics World.

Je l'ai vu passer partout, voilà les explications techniques (en anglais).

En bref, non, pas pour un usage en chatbot, car si le M5 va 25% plus vite que le M4, l'accélération énorme (jusqu'à 4 fois plus rapide) promise n'est que pour l'ingestion des Tokens du Prompt (l'entrée donc), pas pour le traitement subséquent.

Avec mon prompt maintenant célèbre "Que faire un week-end de vacances à Limoges?" il n'y aura aucune accélération visible, hors les meilleures perfs du M5 face au M4, grâce à sa meilleure bande-passante mémoire. Mais pas nécessairement un meilleur week-end !

Donc en général, non, MLX sous macOS 26.2 n'accélèrera pas grand chose...

En ce moment, profitez du Black Friday : soutenez MacBidouille et partagez vos trouvailles

Astronomers have long puzzled over the cause of a mysterious “glow” of very high energy gamma radiation emanating from the centre of our galaxy. One possibility is that dark matter – the unknown substance thought to make up more than 25% of the universe’s mass – might be involved. Now, a team led by researchers at Germany’s Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) says that a flattened rather than spherical distribution of dark matter could account for the glow’s properties, bringing us a step closer to solving the mystery.

Dark matter is believed to be responsible for holding galaxies together. However, since it does not interact with light or other electromagnetic radiation, it can only be detected through its gravitational effects. Hence, while astrophysical and cosmological evidence has confirmed its presence, its true nature remains one of the greatest mysteries in modern physics.

“It’s extremely consequential and we’re desperately thinking all the time of ideas as to how we could detect it,” says Joseph Silk, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University in the US and the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris and Sorbonne University in France who co-led this research together with the AIP’s Moorits Mihkel Muru. “Gamma rays, and specifically the excess light we’re observing at the centre of our galaxy, could be our first clue.”

Models might be too simple

The problem, Muru explains, is that the way scientists have usually modelled dark matter to account for the excess gamma-ray radiation in astronomical observations was highly simplified. “This, of course, made the calculations easier, but simplifications always fuzzy the details,” he says. “We showed that in this case, the details are important: we can’t model dark matter as a perfectly symmetrical cloud and instead have to take into account the asymmetry of the cloud.”

Muru adds that the team’s findings, which are detailed in Phys. Rev. Lett., provide a boost to the “dark matter annihilation” explanation of the excess radiation. According to the standard model of cosmology, all galaxies – including our own Milky Way – are nested inside huge haloes of dark matter. The density of this dark matter is highest at the centre, and while it primarily interacts through gravity, some models suggest that it could be made of massive, neutral elementary particles that are their own antimatter counterparts. In these dense regions, therefore, such dark matter species could be mutually annihilating, producing substantial amounts of radiation.

Pierre Salati, an emeritus professor at the Université Savoie Mont Blanc, France, who was not involved in this work, says that in these models, annihilation plays a crucial role in generating a dark matter component with an abundance that agrees with cosmological observations. “Big Bang nucleosynthesis sets stringent bounds on these models as a result of the overall concordance between the predicted elemental abundances and measurements, although most models do survive,” Salati says. “One of the most exciting aspects of such explanations is that dark matter species might be detected through the rare antimatter particles – antiprotons, positrons and anti-deuterons – that they produce as they currently annihilate inside galactic halos.”

Silvia Manconi of the Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Hautes Energies (LPTHE), France, who was also not involved in the study, describes it as “interesting and stimulating”. However, she cautions that – as is often the case in science – reality is probably more complex than even advanced simulations can capture. “This is not the first time that galaxy simulations have been used to study the implications of the excess and found non-spherical shapes,” she says, though she adds that the simulations in the new work offer “significant improvements” in terms of their spatial resolution.

Manconi also notes that the study does not demonstrate how the proposed distribution of dark matter would appear in data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope’s Large Area Telescope (LAT), or how it would differ quantitatively from observations of a distribution of old stars. Forthcoming observations with radio telescopes such as MeerKat and FAST, she adds, may soon identify pulsars in this region of the galaxy, shedding further light on other possible contributions to the excess of gamma rays.

New telescopes could help settle the question

Muru acknowledges that better modelling and observations are still needed to rule out other possible hypotheses. “Studying dark matter is very difficult, because it doesn’t emit or block light, and despite decades of searching, no experiment has yet detected dark matter particles directly,” he tells Physics World. “A confirmation that this observed excess radiation is caused by dark matter annihilation through gamma rays would be a big leap forward.”

New gamma-ray telescopes with higher resolution, such as the Cherenkov Telescope Array, could help settle this question, he says. If these telescopes, which are currently under construction, fail to find star-like sources for the glow and only detect diffuse radiation, that would strengthen the alternative dark matter annihilation explanation.

Muru adds that a “smoking gun” for dark matter would be a signal that matches current theoretical predictions precisely. In the meantime, he and his colleagues plan to work on predicting where dark matter should be found in several of the dwarf galaxies that circle the Milky Way.

“It’s possible we will see the new data and confirm one theory over the other,” Silk says. “Or maybe we’ll find nothing, in which case it’ll be an even greater mystery to resolve.”

The post Flattened halo of dark matter could explain high-energy ‘glow’ at Milky Way’s heart appeared first on Physics World.

It is book week here at Physics World and over the course of three days we are presenting conversations with the authors of three fascinating and fun books about physics. Today, my guest is the physicist Daniel Whiteson, who along with the artist Andy Warner has created the delightful book Do Aliens Speak Physics?.

Is physics universal, or is it shaped by human perspective? This will be a very important question if and when we are visited by an advanced alien civilization. Would we recognize our visitors’ alien science – or indeed, could a technologically-advanced civilization have no science at all? And would we even be able to communicate about science with our alien guests?

Whiteson, who is a particle physicist at the University of California Irvine, tackles these profound questions and much more in this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast.

The post Talking physics with an alien civilization: what could we learn? appeared first on Physics World.

Are you a science writer attending the 2025 World Conference of Science Journalists (WCSJ) in Pretoria, South Africa? To mark the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, Physics World (published by the Institute of Physics) and Physics Magazine (published by the American Physical Society) are teaming up to host a special Quantum Pitch Competition for WCSJ attendees.

The two publications invite journalists to submit story ideas on any aspect of quantum science and technology. At least two selected pitches will receive paid assignments and be published in one of the magazines.

Interviews with physicists and career profiles – either in academia or industry – are especially encouraged, but the editors will also consider news stories, podcasts, visual media and other creative storytelling formats that illuminate the quantum world for diverse audiences.

Participants should submit a brief pitch (150–300 words recommended), along with a short journalist bio and a few representative clips, if available. Editors from Physics World and Physics Magazine will review all submissions and announce the winning pitches after the conference. Pitches should be submitted to physics@aps.org by 8 December 2025, with the subject line “2025WCSJ Quantum Pitch”.

Whether you’re drawn to quantum materials, computing, sensing or the people shaping the field, this is an opportunity to feature fresh voices and ideas in two leading physics publications.

The post International Quantum Year competition for science journalists begins appeared first on Physics World.

A 3D-printed structure called a kagome tube could form the backbone of a new system for muffling damaging vibrations. The structure is part of a class of materials known as topological mechanical metamaterials, and unlike previous materials in this group, it is simple enough to be deployed in real-world situations. According to lead developer James McInerney of the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, US, it could be used as shock protection for sensitive systems found in civil and aerospace engineering applications.

McInerney and colleagues’ tube-like design is made from a lattice of beams arranged in such a way that low-energy vibrational modes called floppy modes become localized to one side. “This provides good properties for isolating vibrations because energy input into the system on the floppy side does not propagate to the other side,” McInerney says.

The key to this desirable behaviour, he explains, is the arrangement of the beams that form the lattice structure. Using a pattern first proposed by the 19^th century physicist James Clerk Maxwell, the beams are organized into repeating sub-units to form stable, two-dimensional structures known as topological Maxwell lattices.

Self-supporting design

Previous versions of these lattices could not support their own weight. Instead, they were attached to rigid external mounts, making it impractical to integrate them into devices. The new design, in contrast, is made by folding a flat Maxwell lattice into a cylindrical tube that is self-supporting. The tube features a connected inner and outer layer – a kagome bilayer – and its radius can be precisely engineered to give it the topological behaviour desired.

The researchers, who detail their work in Physical Review Applied, first tested their structure numerically by attaching a virtual version to a mechanically sensitive sample and a source of low-energy vibrations. As expected, the tube diverted the vibrations away from the sample and towards the other end of the tube.

Next, they developed a simple spring-and-mass model to understand the tube’s geometry by considering it as a simple monolayer. This modelling indicated that the polarization of the tube should be similar to the polarization of the monolayer. They then added rigid connectors to the tube’s ends and used a finite-element method to calculate the frequency-dependent patterns of vibrations propagating across the structure. They also determined the effective stiffness of the lattice as they applied loads parallel and perpendicular to it.

The researchers are targeting vibration-isolation applications that would benefit from a passive support structure, especially in cases where the performance of alternative passive mechanisms, such as viscoelastomers, is temperature-limited. “Our tubes do not necessarily need to replace other vibration isolation mechanisms,” McInerney explains. “Rather, they can enhance the capabilities of these by having the load-bearing structure assist with isolation.”

The team’s first and most important task, McInerney adds, will be to explore the implications of physically mounting the kagome tube on its vibration isolation structures. “The numerical study in our paper uses idealized mounting conditions so that the input and output are perfectly in phase with the tube vibrations,” he says. “Accounting for the potential impedance mismatch between the mounts and the tube will enable us to experimentally validate our work and provide realistic design scenarios.”

The post New cylindrical metamaterials could act as shock absorbers for sensitive equipment appeared first on Physics World.

À l'occasion du Black Friday, notre partenaire Surfshark propose des promotions conséquentes sur ses produits dès aujourd’hui et pendant les prochaines semaines.

Retrouvez-les à l’adresse suivante : https://surfshark.com/fr/deals

Surfshark est un VPN (réseau privé virtuel) qui vous permet de naviguer en toute sécurité et anonymat sur Internet. Grâce à un chiffrement avancé et une interface simple à utiliser, même les débutants peuvent protéger facilement leurs données personnelles et leur vie privée en ligne.

Vous pouvez protéger tous vos appareils : un seul abonnement peut être activé sur un nombre illimité d’appareils Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV et plus encore sans aucune limitation de bande passante. Aucun autre service ne facilite autant la protection complète d’un foyer.

N’oublions pas ses outils de confidentialité intégrés, comme :

• CleanWeb : bloque pubs et trackers
• MultiHop (double VPN)
• Kill Switch
• Protection complète possible avec Surfshark One+ (antivirus, protection d’identité et surveillance de fuite de données)

Surfshark est donc maintenant en offre promotionnelle, vous permettant d'économiser 88 % sur un forfait de 2 ans. Un seul abonnement pouvant être utilisé sur un nombre illimité d'appareils sans contrôle de débit - Mac, iPhone, et Apple TV inclus.

Voici en détails l’offre VPN Black Friday 2025 Surfshark :

• Surfshark VPN : abonnement de 2 ans pour 1,99€/mois + 3 mois supplémentaires gratuits
• Surfshark One : abonnement de 2 ans pour 2,19€/mois + 3 mois gratuits (inclut VPN, antivirus et fonctionnalités avancées de protection)
• Surfshark One+ : abonnement de 2 ans pour 4,19€/mois + 3 mois gratuits

C’est l’un des tarifs les plus bas jamais proposés pour un VPN dit "premium".

Les deux Mac les plus attendus pour 2026 sont les MacBook Air M5 et le MacBook A18.

MacBook Air M5

La génération M5 amène de bien meilleures performances face au M4.
Les MacBook Air sont le cœur de marché des Mac.
Le MacBook Air M5 est donc très attendu.

Je pense que c'est une erreur, le MacBook Air M4 est un excellent produit, aucun besoin d'attendre, et en revanche le MacBook Air M5 avec sa puissance de traitement théorique pourrait ne pas répondre aux attentes, ni même égaler le M4 sur des charges de travail lourdes sur la durée!

Le M5 a un TDP proche de 28W, quand 22W sur le M4.
Si sur le MacBook Pro 14" ventilé activement ça ne pose pas problème, rien n'est moins sûr sur un MacBook Air refroidi passivement: comme avec le M3 on pourrait être très très déçu.

MacBook A18 12" ou 13"

Ce que moi j'attend le plus: un Mac simplifié de différentes manières, avec un SoC équivalent au M1, lequel rempli encore aujourd'hui parfaitement sa fonction, et plus abordable.

Les matériaux, la présentation, l'écran, les microphones et haut-parleurs, les entrées-sorties, et évidemment comparé au MacBook Air M4 (ou futur M5) : il y aura des compromis différents !

Mais ça devrait rester un Mac et dans les usages simples en 16Go/512Go donner toute satisfaction en usage informatique, tout comme un MacBook Air 13" M1 16Go/512Go le fait.
Probablement un écran moins bon, enfin ça serait appelé un excellent écran sur un PC pas cher, microphones et haut parleurs encore moins bons (plus mauvais), et la présentation peut-être cheap.

Puis les entrées-sorties, on se souvient du MacBook 12" et son port (son seul port) USB Type C avec son second port mini-Jack 3.5mm pour casque.
Adaptateur Apple USB Type C -> HDMI + USB + alimentation obligatoire!
Je ne doute pas que Apple remette le couvert, et peut-être même se débarrasse du port pour casque au passage, au nom de la courageuse modernité... Apple a un superbe courage !

Mais en restant un Mac, en étant très abordable et pas mal performant quand-même, qui me suffirait comme machine secondaire. Avec des adaptateurs. Pas un, plusieurs. À payer en sus.
Le prix d'entrée moins cher, les adaptateurs en sus, le chargeur en sus, et un seul port pas si fiable que ça sur la durée...

Physics Around the Clock: Adventures in the Science of Everyday Living
By Michael Banks

Why do Cheerios tend to stick together while floating in a bowl of milk? Why does a runner’s ponytail swing side to side? These might not be the most pressing questions in physics, but getting to the answers is both fun and provides insights into important scientific concepts. These are just two examples of everyday physics that Physics World news editor Michael Banks explores in his book Physics Around the Clock, which begins with the physics (and chemistry) of your morning coffee and ends with a formula for predicting the winner of those cookery competitions that are mainstays of evening television. Hamish Johnston

• 2025 The History Press
• You can hear from Michael Banks talking about his book on the Physics World Weekly podcast

 

Quantum 2.0: the Past, Present and Future of Quantum Physics
By Paul Davies

You might wonder why the world needs yet another book about quantum mechanics, but for physicists there’s no better guide than Paul Davies. Based for the last two decades at Arizona State University in the US, in Quantum 2.0 Davies tackles the basics of quantum physics – along with its mysteries, applications and philosophical implications – with great clarity and insight. The book ends with truly strange topics such as quantum Cheshire cats and delayed-choice quantum erasers – see if you prefer his descriptions to those we’ve attempted in Physics World this year. Matin Durrani

• 2025 Pelican
• You can hear from Paul Davies in the November episode of the Physics World Stories podcast

 

Can You Get Music on the Moon? the Amazing Science of Sound and Space
By Sheila Kanani, illustrated by Liz Kay

Why do dogs bark but wolves howl? How do stars “sing”? Why does thunder rumble? This delightful, fact-filled children’s book answers these questions and many more, taking readers on an adventure through sound and space. Written by planetary scientist Sheila Kanani and illustrated by Liz Kay, Can you get Music on the Moon? reveals not only how sound is produced but why it can make us feel certain things. Each of the 100 or so pages brims with charming illustrations that illuminate the many ways that sound is all around us. Michael Banks

• 2025 Puffin Books

 

A Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0
By Bill Bryson

Alongside books such as Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time and Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, British-American author Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything is one of the bestselling popular-science books of the last 50 years. First published in 2003, the book became a fan favourite of readers across the world and across disciplines as Bryson wove together a clear and humorous narrative of our universe. Now, 22 years later, he has released an updated and revised volume – A Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0 – that covers major updates in science from the past two decades. This includes the discovery of the Higgs boson and the latest on dark-matter research. The new edition is still imbued with all the wit and wisdom of the original, making it the perfect Christmas present for scientists and anyone else curious about the world around us. Tushna Commissariat

• 2025 Doubleday

The post Breakfast physics, delving into quantum 2.0, the science of sound, an update to everything: micro reviews of recent books appeared first on Physics World.

In this episode of Physics World Stories, theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author Paul Davies discusses his latest book, Quantum 2.0: the Past, Present and Future of Quantum Physics. A Regents Professor at Arizona State University, Davies reflects on how the first quantum revolution transformed our understanding of nature – and what the next one might bring.

He explores how emerging quantum technologies are beginning to merge with artificial intelligence, raising new ethical and philosophical questions. Could quantum AI help tackle climate change or tackle issues like hunger? And how far should we go in outsourcing planetary management to machines that may well prioritize their own survival?

Davies also turns his gaze to the arts, imagining a future where quantum ideas inspire music, theatre and performance. From jazz improvized by quantum algorithms to plays whose endings depend on quantum outcomes, creativity itself could enter a new superposition.

Hosted by Andrew Glester, this episode blends cutting-edge science and imagination in trademark Paul Davies style.

 

The post Quantum 2.0: Paul Davies on the next revolution in physics appeared first on Physics World.

💾

Photodetectors convert light into electrical signals and are essential in technologies ranging from consumer electronics and communications to healthcare. They also play a vital role in scientific research. Researchers are continually working to improve their sensitivity, response speed, spectral range, and design efficiency.

Since the discovery of graphene’s remarkable electrical properties, there has been growing interest in using graphene and other two-dimensional (2D) materials to advance photodetection technologies. When light interacts with these materials, it excites electrons that must travel to a nearby contact electrode to generate an electrical signal. The ease with which this occurs depends on the work functions of the materials involved, specifically, the difference between them, known as the Schottky barrier height. Selecting an optimal combination of 2D material and electrode can minimize this barrier, enhancing the photodetector’s sensitivity and speed. Unfortunately, traditional electrode materials have fixed work functions which are limiting 2D photodetector technology.

PEDOT:PSS is a widely used electrode material in photodetectors due to its low cost, flexibility, and transparency. In this study, the researchers have developed PEDOT:PSS electrodes with tunable work functions ranging from 5.1 to 3.2 eV, making them compatible with a variety of 2D materials and ideal for optimizing device performance in metal-semiconductor-metal architectures. In addition, their thorough investigation demonstrates that the produced photodetectors performed excellently, with a significant forward current flow (rectification ratio ~10⁵), a strong conversion of light to electrical output (responsivity up to 1.8 A/W), and an exceptionally high I_light/I_dark ratio of 10⁸. Furthermore, the detectors were highly sensitive with low noise, had very fast response times (as fast as 3.2 μs), and thanks to the transparency of PEDOT:PSS, showed extended sensitivity into the near-infrared region.

This study demonstrates a tunable, transparent polymer electrode that enhances the performance and versatility of 2D photodetectors, offering a promising path toward flexible, self-powered, and wearable optoelectronic systems, and paving the way for next-generation intelligent interactive technologies.

Do you want to learn more about this topic?

Two-dimensional material/group-III nitride hetero-structures and devices by Tingting Lin, Yi Zeng, Xinyu Liao, Jing Li, Changjian Zhou and Wenliang Wang (2025)

The post Flexible electrodes for the future of light detection appeared first on Physics World.

Quantum Conference Key Agreement (QCKA) is a cryptographic method that allows multiple parties to establish a shared secret key using quantum technology. This key can then be used for secure communication among the parties.

Unlike traditional methods that rely on classical cryptographic techniques, QCKA leverages the principles of quantum mechanics, particularly multipartite entanglement, to ensure security.

A key aspect of QCKA is creating and distributing entangled quantum states among the parties. These entangled states have unique properties that make it impossible for an eavesdropper to intercept the key without being detected.

Researchers measure the efficiency and performance of the key agreement protocol using a metric known as the key rate.

One problem with state-of-the-art QCKA schemes is that this key rate decreases exponentially with the number of users.

Previous solutions to this problem, based on single-photon interference, have come at the cost of requiring global phase locking. This makes them impractical to put in place experimentally.

However, the authors of this new study have been able to circumvent this requirement, by adopting an asynchronous pairing strategy. Put simply, this means that measurements taken by different parties in different places do not need to happen at exactly at the same time.

Their solution effectively removes the need for global phase locking while still maintaining the favourable scaling of the key rate as in other protocols based on single-photon interference.

The new scheme represents an important step towards realising QCKA at long distances by allowing for much more practical experimental configurations.

The post Quantum cryptography in practice appeared first on Physics World.

L'Agence américaine de protection de l’environnement a publié un document dans lequel elle annonce avoir réalisé un contrôle de l'usine de semi-conducteurs d'Apple située à Santa Clara.

Elle y a relevé ces manquements:

• Caractérisation incorrecte de déchets dangereux.
• manquement à des restrictions d'élimination de déchets.
• Détenir un permis pour stocker des déchets dangereux pendant plus de 90 jours.
• Contrôler les émissions atmosphériques d'un réservoir de déchets de solvants.
• Étiquetez et datez correctement les conteneurs de déchets dangereux.
• Respectez les normes de gestion des conteneurs de déchets dangereux.
• Effectuer et documenter les inspections quotidiennes des réservoirs de déchets dangereux.

Pour cela Apple a écopé d'une amende de 261283$.

L'inspection a eu lieu suite à la plainte d'un riverain accusant les émanations de l'usine de l'avoir rendu malade. Il faut dire qu'elle est en pleine zone urbaine.

De son côté Apple a déclaré que ces problèmes ne provoquent aucun danger pour l'environnement et qu'elle reste très attachée à sa protection.