Solar cells and photocatalysts can be surprisingly inefficient. Despite light consisting of many wavelengths, the range that even highly efficient devices use is limited. Other wavelengths, especially long wavelengths, simply pass through the material without being used as energy.

A German-Japanese research team involving the University of Augsburg has made a significant breakthrough in the use of antiferromagnets. For the first time, the team has succeeded in writing magnetic information using only ultrashort laser pulses—without the need for electric currents or magnetic fields.

Two cups of warm water don't make one cup of boiling water. But in the quantum world, multiple low-energy photons can combine to produce a single, higher-energy photon.

There are some magical limits to how much energy we can get out of a heat pump. This story is about pushing the technical limits. It is about getting more energy out than you put in. And it's about how SINTEF—one of Europe's largest applied research organizations—the renewable energy company Aneo, and the Norwegian agricultural cooperative Felleskjøpet toge…