Muons are unstable subatomic particles that spontaneously and rapidly transform into other particles via a process known as ...

Last year marked the 270th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin’s lightning rod — but it’s more than a relic of history. The Franklin rod remains in use today because the simple design exploits some ...

In high-intensity laser–matter interactions, including laser-induced particle acceleration, physicists generally want to work ...

Researchers have fabricated a device no wider than a human hair that will help physicists investigate the fundamental nature of matter and light. Their findings could also support the development of ...

Getting atoms to do what you want isn’t easy — but it’s at the heart of a lot of ground-breaking research in physics. Creating and controlling the behavior of new forms of matter is of particular ...

In this series on weaponized lasers, I'll be exploring the function, operation, strength and building instructions for three basic laser weapons; CO2, Diode, and Flashlamp. These laser types are just ...

At first glance, some scientific research can seem, well, impractical. When physicists began exploring the strange, subatomic ...

A large part of the analog world is focused on sensors and their related interface circuitry. In many cases, the physical variable to be sensed is obvious, such as temperature, pressure, vibration, ...

This supercapacitor doesn’t look like much—but the physics behind it is solid. Using Kapton tape, a cheap laser, and basic ...

The advent of laser cooling revolutionized the field of atomic physics, transforming atomic clocks and GPS technology and laying the foundations for quantum computing with atoms and ions. In the first ...

Lucian Hand argues that physicists’ multi-disciplinary training makes them ideally suited for a career in the laser industry, where the challenges and opportunities vary almost daily (Courtesy: UAB ...