Recently, a team of scientists was able to detect metastable helium in the upper atmosphere of an exoplanet. This was quite an accomplishment considering it had never been done before. The formation ...

As part of a long-term research collaboration, researchers in the lab of Prof. Y. Shirley Meng at the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and visiting scholars from UC San Diego found ...

(Nanowerk News) A flash of light traps this material in an excited state indefinitely, and new experiments reveal how it happens. A dry material makes a great fire starter, and a soft material lends ...

Researchers have discovered a new phenomenon of so-called metastability in a liquid phase. This state is common in supercooled liquids, which are liquids that cool below the freezing point without ...

Metastability can cause a spacecraft electronic failure. It may render a very expensive spacecraft/satellite unusable and if the spacecraft is manned, there could be lives in danger. A simple D ...

Illustration of the material’s transition, with time represented from left to right. A laser pulse (left) sends the material into disorder (middle). Out of this so-called soup phase emerges a highly ...

A dry material makes a great fire starter, and a soft material lends itself to a sweater. Batteries require materials that can store lots of energy, and microchips need components that can turn the ...