A new study shows that an intelligent optimization strategy can make hybrid residential microgrids cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable by coordinating solar power, wind power, diesel backup, and battery storage.

Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) are the first to directly utilize orbital currents without the need for conversion of the orbital current into a spin current. “We have thus realized the first purely orbitronic device approach,” said Dr. Christin Schmitt, a scientist in the research group of Professor Mathias Kläui at the JGU Institute of Physics. Orbitronics is a promising technology for future memory devices, as it could enable the realization of large-scale storage media with extremely low energy consumption.

About 14 percent of merging black holes in the universe may be second-generation black holes that formed from the previous merging of two smaller black holes, according to a new study. The research suggests this “hierarchical merger” formation pathway is more common than previously thought. 

Researchers from the Molecular Physics and Physical Chemistry Departments of the Fritz Haber Institute have shown how two highly synchronized infrared (IR) laser beams can control molecules as they switch between different structural conformations. Their technique provides a new window into how molecules rearrange themselves during chemical reactions, offering fundamental insights into the microscopic processes that govern chemistry.

A UC Davis study reveals the extent a queen bee will go to survive, even offloading contamination to her eggs.

Quantum mechanics and gravity are two fundamental theories in physics that govern the natural world. However, uniting these two principles into the single theory of “quantum gravity” has yet to be done. Now, researchers have developed a theoretical framework that outlines what observations can distinguish between classical and quantum descriptions of gravity. The framework provides researchers a roadmap for designing experiments to find answers to one of the most sought-after theories in modern science.

New research led by Penn State physicists suggests a new measure for a black hole's entropy and extends Stephen Hawking’s laws of black hole mechanics to dynamic black holes that form, merge and evaporate.

A new self-healing polymer electrolyte that repairs itself within 30 minutes under mild heating, enabling lithium-metal batteries to achieve excellent electrochemical performance. The self-healing polymer electrolyte restores more than 98% of its original ionic conductivity after damage, offering a promising solution to the long-standing interface instability and dendrite growth problems in solid-state batteries.

Azo compounds are widely used in many applications, and photoelectrochemical synthesis provides a promising green route for producing them under mild conditions. Researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China reported that Cs⁺-induced surface reconstruction of BiVO₄ photoanodes can stabilize the electrode interface, accelerate charge transfer, and promote efficient photoelectrochemical synthesis of azobenzene under illumination.