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At left: A single crystal compound of gadolinium, platinum, and bismuth made with naturally occurring elements. At right, a single crystal of this material made with isotopically enriched gadolinium for neutron scattering experiments. Both crystals are approximately 1 mm in size.

Mixing topology and spin

MIT-led team demonstrates paired topology and intrinsic magnetism in compound combining gadolinium, platinum, and bismuth.

July 19, 2016

"It is easier to make a replacement nuclear weapon from scratch than to try to pass off a fake object as a weapon," says R. Scott Kemp in MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering about a new method to verify that a country's claimed warheads are authentic without disclosing classified information.

A novel approach to a longstanding challenge in nuclear arms control

MIT researchers develop a “physical cryptography” for secure and accurate accounting of the world’s nuclear arsenals.

July 19, 2016

MIT physicists have found that subatomic particles called neutrinos can be in superposition, without individual identities, when traveling hundreds of miles, and not just at quantum, subatomic scales.

MIT scientists find weird quantum effects, even over hundreds of miles

Neutrinos traveling 450 miles have no individual identities, according to MIT analysis.

July 19, 2016

Robert Fano's work on information theory and time-sharing computers were vital precursors to today's computing technologies.

Robert Fano, computing pioneer and founder of CSAIL, dies at 98

Professor emeritus helped launch field of information theory and developed early time-sharing computers.

July 15, 2016

Emission spectra are a widely used method for identifying chemical compounds; the bright lines reveal the different frequencies of light that can be emitted by an atom. Here, a normal emission spectrum for an atom in a high-energy state (top) is compared to the emission from the same atom placed just a few nanometers (billionths of a meter) away from graphene that has been doped with charge carrie...

Study opens new realms of light-matter interaction

Some “forbidden” light emissions are in fact possible, could enable new sensors and light-emitting devices.

July 14, 2016

MIT postdoc Junwei Liu and collaborators are proposing a new random access memory (RAM) device architecture using ferroelectric tunneling RAM.

Charging up random access memory

Researchers demonstrate room-temperature ferroelectric states in ultra-thin films of tin and tellurium.

July 14, 2016

Andrea Campbell, the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and head of the MIT Department of Political Science

How political science can help us solve global health care issues

MIT political scientist Andrea Campbell discusses the impact of equity on health care innovation and outcomes.

July 12, 2016

Lit up at night, the PREPHub attracts the attention of passersby.

Art and science merge in a disaster readiness haven

Innovative off-grid PREPHubs structures house basic services needed in the aftermath of a disaster.

July 7, 2016

$The method combines optical microscopy techniques (left, in pink) with electron backscatter diffraction (right, in green) to measure characteristics of the boundaries between crystal grains, which help determine the material’s overall properties.$