Modern technology demands compact, efficient optical devices for cameras, sensors, and quantum systems. Metasurfaces offer nanoscale control of light, yet strong confinement remains difficult. While traditional cavities rely on mirrors, bound states in the continuum (BICs) trap light through destructive interference. A recent review in Opto-Electronic Advances highlights BIC materials across wavelengths, machine-learning-driven designs, emerging topological forms like super-BICs, and scalable applications in lasing, sensing, and nonlinear optics.

Breaking away from conventional robots that perform only predefined functions once fabricated, researchers have developed a next-generation artificial muscle that can change its shape in real time, recover from damage, and even be reused.

 

Seoul National University College of Engineering announced that a joint research team led by Prof. Jeong-Yun Sun (Department of Materials Science and Engineering) and Prof. Ho-Young Kim (Department of Mechanical Engineering), with Yun Hyeok Lee, Seungwon Moon, and Min-gyu Lee as first and co-first authors, has developed a new type of dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) using a phase-transitional ferrofluid (PTF) that behaves as a solid at room temperature but becomes fluid-like and highly flexible when exposed to external stimuli such as heat or magnetic fields.

 

The study was published on March 21 in Science Advances, a leading international journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Acoustic metamaterials can shape sound well, but most rely on rigid structures that are hard to reconcile with transparency, broadband performance and flexibility. Researchers have now developed a hydrogel metapad that brings these properties together in one platform, improving ultrasound imaging of blood vessels and the heart while suggesting new opportunities for underwater acoustics.

In an effort to develop catalysts from abundant and inexpensive elements, researchers from Kyushu University have found that mixing methanol, iron ions, and sodium hydroxide and then irradiating it with UV light generates hydrogen gas at rates comparable to those of catalysts used in today’s markets. The team hopes their findings will lead to more sustainable hydrogen energy production.

This systematic review addresses key research gaps in Nymphaea spp. cosmetic applications, establishing a unified translational framework to guide relevant academic research and industrial development.

Frank Würthner, a professor of chemistry at the University of Würzburg, receives the Izatt-Christensen Award, the highest international honour in the field of supramolecular chemistry.

Vaping is largely believed to be a safer alternative to cigarettes, but new research shows that vaping devices can deliver toxic metals directly into lung tissue.

In the era of precision cosmology, research often means big science: large observatories, highly complex instruments, international collaborations and substantial funding. Yet even in such an advanced field, progress is still possible — including in the search for elusive dark matter — through more agile approaches, driven by small teams and young researchers, supported by institutions and a good dose of ingenuity. In a paper just published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (JCAP), a group of then-undergraduate students from the University of Hamburg built a cavity detector to search for axions — among the most promising candidates for dark matter — and set new experimental limits on their properties. The result was achieved with relatively limited resources, showing that even small-scale experiments can make a meaningful contribution to one of the most open challenges in modern physics.