News & Comment

This month, a Focus issue highlights recent developments in fundamental research on superconductivity.

When you start tearing a piece of aluminium foil apart, you create dislocations in the material. Suhas Eswarappa Prameela and Tim Weihs recount the story of the Burgers vector that is now an indispensable tool for describing dislocations.

Since the 1950s, international cooperation has been the driving force behind fusion research. Here, we discuss how the International Atomic Energy Agency has shaped the field and the events that have produced fusion’s global signature partnership.

As a unit for enzyme activity, the katal is enigmatic but struggles to find widespread acceptance. Soumitra Athavale tells its story.

The contribution of partners and families to scientists’ work is often overlooked. It should be acknowledged and supported more.

Automated learning from data by means of deep neural networks is finding use in an ever-increasing number of applications, yet key theoretical questions about how it works remain unanswered. A physics-based approach may help to bridge this gap.

On the 60th anniversary of the first functioning laser, we imagine a research landscape without it.

The tool of choice to measure optical frequencies with extremely high precision is the optical frequency comb. Camille-Sophie Brès explains what makes this technique so powerful.

Pioneer of condensed-matter physics.

Astrophysical neutrinos could originate from blazars, but their modelling is challenging. Instead, the source of cosmic neutrinos could be a special yet unidentified class in which jets burrow through stellar material and produce neutrinos.

The impending update to the European Strategy for Particle Physics is an apt moment to chart the future of the field — a future that should be supported and ensured.