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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.
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.