Strain flips Hall signal in altermagnetic manganese telluride, suggesting a path to practical spintronics

August 16, 2026 Time-reversal symmetry is an exotic behavior found in systems whose internal physics looks different when running forward versus backward in time. For some time, physicists have searched for this behavior in systems with almost no overall magnetization. Such phases are highly prized for spintronics, where information is carried using the quantum spins

Crossing into a mirror world: Particles turn to wisps of fog, and the magnetic monopole paradox dissolves

August 7, 2026 In Goethe’s ballad “Erlkönig,” immortalized in Schubert’s fevered 1815 setting, a dying boy riding through the night sees a spectral king beckoning from the darkness. His father calms him: “Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif”—my son, it is only a wisp of fog. In the poem, the father’s reassurance proves tragically wrong.

Sunlight-powered setup generates quantum entanglement

August 6, 2026 Today’s quantum technologies rely on energy-intensive lasers, raising concerns that scaling them up could further increase energy demands. In new work, researchers have demonstrated that quantum entanglement between photons can be generated directly from sunlight, offering a potential alternative. Read the full article →