For more than a century, schoolbook physics has divided matter into neat categories like solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. A ...

New kinds of liquid crystals resemble gypsum or lazulite crystals -- except that they flow like fluids. A team at the University of Colorado Boulder has designed new kinds of liquid crystals that ...

A scientist gives an answer to a long-standing question in theoretical glass physics: what does it mean to be an order parameter for an inherently out-of-equilibrium system? Starting from first ...

A team at the University of Colorado Boulder has designed new kinds of liquid crystals that mirror the complex structures of some solid crystals—a major step forward in building flowing materials that ...

Salt creeping, a phenomenon that occurs in both natural and industrial processes, describes the collection and migration of salt crystals from evaporating solutions onto surfaces. Once they start ...

Crystals all the way down: An artistic rendering of a time crystal. (Courtesy: Google Quantum AI) Crystalline solids such as diamond have a hallmark property: their structure is periodic in space. For ...

For centuries, glass has been integral to human art, tools, and technology, yet its microscopic properties have remained difficult to explain through traditional physical theories. Koun Shirai of The ...