Research offers insights into how crystal dislocations -- a common type of defect in materials -- can affect electrical and heat transport through crystals, at a microscopic, quantum mechanical level.

These newly discovered spinning crystals twist, break, and heal themselves, revealing a strange new side of solid matter.

The liquid crystalline phases of matter each possess distinct types of defects that have drawn great interest in areas such as topology, self-assembly and material micropatterning. However, relatively ...

Settling a half century of debate, researchers have discovered that tiny linear defects can propagate through a material faster than sound waves do. These linear defects, or dislocations, are what ...

Quantum engineers have spent years trying to tame the fragility of qubits, only to be thwarted by the tiniest imperfections ...

Researchers and industries have been using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to study semiconductors' stacking and dislocation faults. This article considers the analysis of crystal structures.

Flocks of birds, schools of fish and swarms of insects are all examples of “active matter” – systems of particles that move on their own without recourse to external forces. Scientists have long ...

Inside most of the Earth, olivine is a hot mineral whose creepy behavior drives plate tectonics. In the upper mantle — the top of the planetary layer between the crust and core — olivine's unusual ...

Illustration of an intense laser pulse hitting a diamond crystal from top right, driving elastic and plastic waves (curved lines) through the material. The laser pulse creates linear defects, known as ...