Articles in 2008

The Kavli Foundation will award its first prizes in 2008, as two new Kavli Institutes set about making their mark in China.

For high-temperature superconductors, results from more refined experiments on better-quality samples are issuing fresh challenges to theorists. It could be that a new state of matter is at play, with unconventional excitations.

A surprising and fascinating interplay may be emerging between string theory and condensed-matter physics.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Only long-term commitment can ensure that quantum information science eventually fulfils its promise of revolutionizing information-based societies.

The 'spin-transfer torque effect' could provide a powerful means of controlling the orientation of spins with electric currents rather than magnetic fields in future spintronic devices. Quantitative measurements of this effect represent an important next step.

Ab initio computer simulations of a shocked cluster of nitromethane molecules provide a glimpse of the evolution of the molecular and electronic structure of an explosive undergoing detonation.

In a polaron, an electron and the lattice distortion that it induces in a crystal form a 'quasiparticle'. But a strong electric field can displace the two constituents with respect to each other, giving a glimpse at the polaron's internal dynamics.