The United Nations has chosen 2025 to be the International Year of Quantum Science. To mark the event, the New Journal of Physics (NJP) has curated a collection of ten outstanding quantum articles published in the journal since its inception, including two significant contributions from ICFO.

Excitons, encountered in technologies like solar cells and TVs, are quasiparticles formed by an electron and a positively charged “hole,” moving together in a semiconductor. Created when an electron is excited to a higher energy state, excitons transfer energy without carrying a net charge. While their behavior in traditional semiconductors is well understood, excitons act differently in organic semiconductors. Research by condensed matter physicist Ivan Biaggio focuses on understanding the mechanisms behind exciton dynamics, quantum entanglement, and dissociation in organic molecular crystals.

In a groundbreaking discovery, researchers from Nagoya University in Japan and the Slovak Academy of Sciences have unveiled new insights into the interplay between quantum theory and thermodynamics. The team demonstrated that while quantum theory does not inherently forbid violations of the second law of thermodynamics, quantum processes may be implemented without actually breaching the law. This discovery, published in npj Quantum Information, highlights a harmonious coexistence between the two fields, despite their logical independence. Their findings open up new avenues for understanding the thermodynamic boundaries of quantum technologies, such as quantum computing and nanoscale engines.

What if time is not as fixed as we thought? Imagine that instead of flowing in one direction – from past to future – time could flow forward or backward due to processes taking place at the quantum level. This is the thought-provoking discovery made by researchers at the University of Surrey, as a new study reveals that opposing arrows of time can theoretically emerge from certain quantum systems.

When world-leading teams join forces, new findings are bound to be made. This is what happened when quantum physicists from the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) and the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK) in Heidelberg combined atomic and nuclear physics with unprecedented accuracy using two different methods of measurement. Together with new calculations of the structure of atomic nuclei, theoretical physicists from the Technical University of Darmstadt and Leibniz University Hannover were able to show that measurements on the electron shell of an atom can provide information about the deformation of the atomic nucleus. At the same time, the precision measurements have set new limits regarding the strength of a potential dark force between neutrons and electrons. The results have been published in the current issue of the scientific journal “Physical Review Letters”.

Researchers have developed a novel method to trace light fields directly inside cavities, providing in-situ measurement where future field-resolved studies of light-matter interactions will happen.

For the first time, researchers have been able to measure the quantum state of electrons ejected from atoms that have absorbed high-energy light pulses. This is thanks to a new measurement technique developed by researchers at Lund University in Sweden. The results can provide a better understanding of the interaction between light and matter.

A team from the Faculty of Physics of the University of Barcelona has designed new experimental equipment that makes it possible for students to familiarize themselves with the more complex concepts of quantum physics. The configuration they present —versatile, cost-effective and with multiple ways of application in the classroom — is already operational in the Advanced Quantum Laboratory of the UB’s Faculty of Physics and could also be accessible in less specialized centres.

Today, Yunger Halpern’s work as an award-winning physicist also straddles two centuries and two worlds – thermodynamics and quantum mechanics.

Pritzker Molecular Engineering researchers entangled two physically separate resonators.