For scientists and engineers, the best way to understand a new or unknown material--whether it's an alloy, a pharmaceutical or a meteorite--is to delve into its atoms. Techniques such as X-ray ...

A new chip-making technique exploits a material's crystal structure to create nanoscale patterns at room temperature directly ...

Researchers have demonstrated a technique for mapping deformation in metals that can recover destroyed serial numbers on metal objects such as firearms, a common challenge in forensics. Researchers at ...

Microscopic black holes have long hovered at the edge of theory, forming only in exquisitely balanced states. Now physicists ...

The discovery of a crystal whose atoms are packed in a pattern that never repeats has won Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman the 2011 Nobel Prize in chemistry. The structures in quasicrystals, as they ...

Because liquid crystals are similar to oil, the surfactants were attracted to the liquid crystal shells, causing the molecules to order in different ways and create striking patterns. The more soap ...

Crystals are nature's most orderly substances. Inside them, atoms and molecules are arranged in regular, repeating structures, giving rise to solids that are stable and rigid—and often beautiful to ...