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China is turning the massive environmental liabilities of its coal-mining history into the raw materials for its next generation of infrastructure.

In the southeastern county of Gaoping, located deep within China’s premier coal province of Shanxi, a massive new recycling facility has quietly begun operations. It transforms the waste into high-value industrial and building materials.

Reportedly, its daily output sounds like a standard quarry operation: 1,000 tonnes of sand, gravel, and unburnt bricks destined for the country’s endless appetite for concrete.

But these construction materials did not come from a riverbed or a mountain quarry. The material was extracted from coal gangue, which is the ultra-hard, toxic rock waste left behind after mining and washing coal. 

Specialized facility

China’s coal gangue is expected to be around 7 billion tonnes. Left unmanaged, coal waste routinely triggers water contamination, airborne dust pollution, and spontaneous fires.

Less than 60 percent of this mountain of rock was ever reused. The rest stayed behind as a permanent ecological tax on resource-dependent cities. Now, technology is cracking that stubborn bone to turn the waste into an industrial resource. 

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that the Gaoping facility consists of automated systems that sort the incoming waste using X-ray separation equipment. From there, the material is crushed, screened, and stripped of impurities. The result is a stream of manufactured aggregates and eco-friendly unburnt bricks that skip the high-emission firing process entirely.

Local authorities say the applications reach far beyond basic roads. The refined waste is finding its way into ceramics and even high-tech spacecraft coatings. 

Broader circular economy

Beyond recycling coal waste, China is eyeing a broader circular economy to overhaul its construction material supply. 

China uses nearly half of the world’s construction sand and gravel, a habit that has severely degraded fragile river ecosystems. Replacing natural sand with coal waste solves two environmental headaches at once.

Research also suggests that recycling construction and demolition waste could meet half of China’s aggregate demand by 2050.

The industry is scaling up at breakneck speed. While attempts to recycle gangue date back to the 1950s, the economic incentive shifted after 2010 as natural sand supplies tightened and Beijing locked in its national carbon targets. 

Last year, a milestone 10-million-tonne utilization project was launched in Datong. 

The strategy is not without its speed bumps. Industry experts caution that aggregates derived from coal waste currently represent only a tiny sliver of China’s annual consumption. 

Due to the material’s structural limitations, it cannot be used for high-strength or critical load-bearing structures like skyscraper pillars or major bridges. Strict toxicity testing is also mandatory to ensure heavy metals do not leach out of the residential walls of the future.

This strategy operates alongside efforts to harvest industrial value from existing fossil fuel liabilities—such as extracting critical technology metals like lithium, gallium, and germanium from mining byproducts. Furthermore, trapping power plant emissions to manufacture affordable agricultural fertilizer.

The development shows that a zero-waste future might actually be possible simply by turning a toxic liability into literal building blocks.

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A home machinist and microscopy enthusiast has documented a detailed technical conversion of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) into a transmission electron microscope (TEM), demonstrating that sub-nanometer resolution imaging is not strictly confined to professional laboratory settings.

The project walks through the mechanical, electronic, and optical modifications required to redirect the SEM’s focused electron beam through an ultrathin specimen rather than bouncing it off a surface.

SEM versus TEM

In a conventional SEM, a focused electron beam rasters across the surface of a sample and detectors collect secondary and backscattered electrons to construct a three-dimensional surface image.

A TEM, by contrast, accelerates electrons through a thin specimen—typically below 100 nanometers—and a detector or phosphor screen on the far side captures the transmitted beam, yielding internal structural information at atomic or near-atomic resolution.

The two modalities require fundamentally different sample preparation, detector geometry, and beam alignment strategies, which makes the conversion non-trivial.

The modification involved fabricating a custom specimen holder stage capable of holding electron-transparent samples, repositioning a scintillator-based detector beneath the sample plane, and carefully adjusting beam convergence angles to suit transmission geometry.

Beam energy in the converted system reportedly remained in the range typical of low-voltage SEMs—roughly 5 to 30 kiloelectron volts—which is lower than the 80–300 keV found in dedicated TEMs.

That energy gap has direct consequences for penetration depth and contrast, meaning the converted instrument is better suited to very thin biological or polymer films than to hard crystalline materials.

Specimen preparation constraints

At 30 keV, electron penetration through matter is substantially reduced compared to a 200 keV research-grade TEM. Specimens must be prepared to thicknesses well below 50 nanometers to achieve meaningful transmission contrast, which demands either focused ion beam (FIB) thinning or careful ultramicrotome sectioning.

The project does not sidestep this limitation; the builder acknowledges that sample preparation remains the most labor-intensive part of the workflow and that certain dense or thick materials will simply block the beam entirely at these voltages.

Achieving proper alignment in a converted system also presents practical difficulties. Commercial TEMs incorporate sophisticated electromagnetic lens alignment systems, stigmators, and beam-tilt controls that are absent in most SEMs. The DIY conversion relies on mechanical stage adjustment and iterative beam tuning to compensate, which increases setup time per sample significantly.

Detector configuration and image acquisition

The transmitted electron signal was captured using a scintillator coupled to a camera placed below the sample stage. This configuration is conceptually similar to a bright-field TEM detector arrangement, where areas of the specimen that scatter or absorb electrons appear darker against a bright background.

The resolution achievable with this setup is constrained not only by beam energy but also by the point spread function of the scintillator material and the pixel pitch of the camera sensor used.

For engineers interested in electron optics at the amateur level, projects like this one sit alongside other low-cost electron beam experiments that have appeared in the maker community.

DIY scanning electron microscope builds have previously demonstrated that fundamental vacuum and high-voltage engineering skills can be acquired outside institutional settings, though always with serious attention to X-ray shielding and high-voltage safety protocols.

Safety and practical risk factors

Operating any electron beam instrument outside a certified laboratory introduces real hazards. Bremsstrahlung X-ray emission is an inherent byproduct of electron deceleration in the target and chamber walls.

SEMs are shielded from the factory, but any modification to the chamber geometry—including cutting ports for a transmission detector—requires careful verification that shielding integrity is maintained. The builder’s documentation should be read with this in mind by anyone considering replication.

The conversion represents a technically detailed exercise in applied electron optics and vacuum engineering, and it offers a practical reference point for understanding the design constraints that separate entry-level and research-grade electron microscopy instruments.

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A new type of radar to detect drones nearby ports, vessels, harbours, and critical maritime infrastructure has been introduced. Developed by Robin Radar Systems, IRIS OTM at Sea is designed for seamless land-to-sea deployments.

The new system is a major expansion of its IRIS On-The-Move (OTM) capability.

The comprehensive update is aimed at strengthening counter-UAS protection for shipping lanes, naval operations, and coastal assets. 

Offshore assets are exposed to low-cost aerial threats

“What we are seeing globally is that the drone threat is no longer confined to the battlefield or to land-based infrastructure. Shipping lanes, ports, harbours and offshore assets are now all exposed to low-cost aerial threats that can disrupt trade, damage infrastructure and threaten civilian safety,” said Siete Hamminga, CEO, Robin Radar Systems.

“The Strait of Hormuz has once again demonstrated how vulnerable critical maritime corridors can become during periods of instability. IRIS OTM at Sea is being designed to answer that challenge with a rapidly deployable, software-defined capability that can move seamlessly between land and sea.”

IRIS OTM at Sea will detect, track, and classify drones

Originally developed to operate from moving land vehicles traveling at speeds exceeding 62 mph (100km/h), IRIS On-The-Move will now be adapted for maritime environments through advanced software enhancements that compensate for sea clutter, vessel movement, and challenging coastal conditions, according to a press release.

Designed to be mounted on vessels, IRIS OTM at Sea will detect, track, and classify drones while travelling at speeds of up to 54 knots, operating effectively in extreme environments thanks to its salt- and corrosion-resistant engineering, resonance tolerance, and EMC-compliant architecture.Unlike traditional static radars, IRIS is designed to move with the threat itself, providing persistent situational awareness across highly dynamic environments, as per the release.

The company revealed that the radar’s software architecture will be updated to filter out heavy sea reflections and environmental clutter to isolate small airborne threats operating close to the waterline, an increasingly important capability as drone incursions continue to evolve across maritime theatres.

Robin Radar Systems highlighted that the maritime update has been shaped directly by operational lessons from ongoing live-fire environments, where the need for flexible, mobile counter-UAS systems capable of protecting dynamic environments has accelerated dramatically.  The company’s engineering teams reportedly adapted the system specifically to address the increasing use of fixed-wing drones and low-altitude aerial threats around strategic shipping corridors and maritime infrastructure.

“Modern security demands speed and flexibility. Operators need systems that can deploy quickly, integrate easily, and adapt as threats evolve,” said Vivien Croes, Chief Technical Officer, Robin Radar Systems.

“What makes this update important is that we are taking a combat-proven radar and extending its capabilities into one of the most operationally complex environments in the world. The future of counter-UAS is not static infrastructure, it is agile, mobile sensing systems capable of protecting people, critical infrastructure and global commerce wherever threats emerge.”

Researchers in the United States have built a technology that boosts the performance of electron microscopes. Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley physicists’ new technique offers detailed images of the small molecules and cell structures that are crucial to understanding biology and disease.

They have adapted the phase-contrast technique to cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), which has about 10,000 times the magnification of light microscopy. Their laser-based phase plate produces sharp images of molecules that today’s cutting-edge cryo-EM systems struggle to capture. 

The research team revealed that the new technology was brought to fruition by more than 15 years of theoretical and experimental work by leading microscopy scientists, collaboration with expert machinists, and support from Biohub.

More accurate atomic models of the molecules captured

The phase plate is paired with a new, custom Thermo Fisher Scientific microscope that was developed to maximize the benefit of the plate’s ultra-bright laser. Images taken by the system are notably clearer and sharper and contain greater detail that structure-solving software can process to generate more accurate atomic models of the molecules captured, according to a press release.

“Theia is the Formula 1 of microscopes. It has better resolution than the standard cryo-EM, even without the laser. With the addition of the laser phase plate, we hope that it really becomes one of the world’s best instruments overall,” said Holger Müller, a UC Berkeley professor of physics and faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Biosciences Area who led the development effort.

“Before, studying structures with cryo-EM was like trying to look at paintings in a dark gallery. With Theia, it’s like the lights have been turned on for the first time.”

More accurate atomic models of the molecules captured

The team also demonstrated the system’s power by imaging aldolase, a protein in muscle that is relatively easy to capture with today’s cryo-EM machines, and hemoglobin — a protein that carries oxygen in blood. Hemoglobin is a smaller protein that sits at the lower size limit for current machines and is often used as a benchmark for cryo-EM performance. The laser-phase plate improved the resolution of the protein structure in both cases, but more so for the hemoglobin.

“We had a whole spectrum from larger particles that are not that challenging with extremely good specimen preparation to challenging small particles with bad preparation. Of course, the better the specimen, the less important it is that you have a top microscope. It was the most challenging ones is where we see the strongest improvements,” said Müller.

Team to expand microscope beyond single-particle analysis

The system is currently installed at UC Berkeley, and the team is now working to expand the microscope beyond single-particle analysis to perform a newer technique referred to as cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET).

Similar to how CT (computed tomography) scans at the hospital generate images of body parts, cryo-ET assembles different angular views of a molecule or cellular structure into a 3D image. Cryo-ET will provide a huge leap in scientists’ ability to study cellular processes because it captures molecules in their natural states inside cells, unlike single-particle cryo-EM, and offers much higher resolution than light microscopy, as per the release.

For centuries, the Arctic has remained one of the most dangerous places on Earth to explore. Beneath what looks like solid snow can lie hidden pools of icy water capable of swallowing people, vehicles, and scientific equipment without warning. 

These risks make collecting data from polar regions slow, expensive, and often dangerous. Now, a small four-legged robot promises to change this. 

A modified version of Lynx S10, an autonomous robot developed by China-based DEEP Robotics, has become the first quadruped platform to walk on Arctic Ocean ice floes. It successfully demonstrates that autonomous machines may one day perform some of the most hazardous fieldwork in places where human access is limited. 

“The Lynx S10 enables autonomous path planning and intelligent obstacle avoidance,” the DEEP Robotics team notes.

The achievement is significant not because a robot survived the cold, but because it showed that compact autonomous systems can navigate unpredictable ice, snow, and water-filled terrain that even experienced researchers approach with extreme caution.

A compact but highly capable machine

The Arctic expedition was designed as a real-world stress test for the Lynx S10, a compact quadruped robot that weighs less than 20 kilograms even with its battery installed. 

Unlike larger robotic platforms that require extensive transport and setup, the machine can be carried and deployed by a single person. “Its compact body allows single-person portability and rapid deployment, enhancing operational mobility,” the DEEP Robotics team claims.

Despite its small size, it is equipped with sixteen precision joints that allow it to bend, twist, and maneuver through spaces that would be inaccessible to bulkier robots.

The standard version of the robot is already highly capable. According to its creators, “Equipped with a next-generation AI motion control and gait algorithm, the Lynx S10 performs a variety of extreme maneuvers.”

For instance, it can travel at speeds of up to 8 m/s on flat ground, climb over obstacles as tall as 50 centimeters, and switch between wheeled and legged movement depending on the terrain. 

When necessary, it can even rise into a bipedal stance to gain additional height and visibility.

To operate independently, the robot relies on an advanced perception system. 

Four ultra-wide-angle cameras equipped with high-dynamic-range lenses continuously monitor its surroundings, while front and rear LiDAR sensors generate detailed three-dimensional maps. This allows the machine to identify obstacles, plan routes, and navigate without constant human control. 

Its rugged design also enables operation in harsh environments. The standard platform is rated IP66 against dust and water intrusion, functions in temperatures from minus 20 to 55 degrees Celsius, carries payloads exceeding 8 kilograms, and can automatically locate and travel to a charging station when battery levels become low.

However, Arctic ice presented challenges that went far beyond the robot’s original design specifications. 

Teaching a robot to walk on floating Arctic ice

Engineers therefore modified the platform before deployment. The standard wheels were replaced with large biomimetic paws inspired by the broad feet of polar bears. These custom feet spread the robot’s weight across a larger surface area, helping prevent it from sinking into soft snow. 

Anti-slip textures improved grip on slick surfaces, while integrated crampons provided extra traction on hard ice. The robot’s sealing was also upgraded from IP66 to IP67 for greater protection against water intrusion.

Researchers introduced another unusual modification for environments where ice and water mixed together. By increasing the effective surface area of the limbs, the robot’s legs could function almost like paddles, allowing it to move through slushy conditions that would challenge conventional wheeled systems.

The Arctic tests quickly revealed why such adaptations were necessary. In several locations, snow concealed dangerous meltwater pools beneath the surface. The robot encountered terrain that appeared stable but actually floated above hidden pockets of water. 

Thanks to its redesigned feet and traction system, it maintained stability while traversing these deceptive surfaces. In one instance, it successfully glided across an area that looked like solid ice but concealed water underneath. 

Later tests pushed the machine into regions where ice and water were intermixed, and the modified limbs enabled it to continue moving through the difficult terrain.

More importantly, this was not a finished commercial product being showcased under controlled conditions. The Arctic vehicle was still an alpha-stage prototype. 

The machine matters beyond the Arctic

The broader significance of the project extends well beyond a single expedition. Environmental researchers and emergency responders often need to operate in locations that are dangerous, remote, or impossible for humans to access safely. 

Lynx S10 “confidently handles challenging environments such as dusty sites, heavy rain, and humid/foggy conditions,” the researchers at DEEP Robotics added.

This lightweight autonomous robot is capable of crossing unstable ice and moving through mixed ice-water environments. Therefore, it could help collect environmental data, monitor climate-related changes, and support search-and-rescue operations without exposing people to the same risks.

Researchers are now using the performance data gathered during the mission to further improve the design.  Hopefully, future versions will be even more capable of handling unpredictable natural environments. 

You can read more about Lynx S10 here.

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Chinese researchers have reportedly developed a new “three-lane highway” optical fiber system. The new system, the researchers explain, could dramatically expand the data-transfer capacity of future networks, notably those for artificial intelligence (AI).

Put in simpler terms, the innovation effectively “squeezes” more traffic from fiber-optic cables without having to replace or lay new cabling. According to the team, they have been able to increase traffic by as much as five times while also increasing transmission capacity per core by nearly 50%.

Today, most internet traffic travels through glass fibers using laser light. Importantly, each fiber doesn’t just carry one beam of light. It carries many wavelengths (colors) of light simultaneously, like multiple radio stations sharing the airwaves.

Presently, most commercial systems use a mixture of C-band (the workhorse) and L-band wavelengths. The latter is used to extend capacity when needed.

The team, they report, has managed to add a third, called S-band; hence the “three-lane highway” analogy. The fiber itself isn’t necessarily wider; they’re simply using more of the available light spectrum.

Adding an extra lane to optical fibers

So, you might ask, why hasn’t S-band been used before? Well, in short, over long distances, optical signals tend to weaken. To overcome this, telecom companies use optical amplifiers placed along the route.

The industry’s amplifiers were optimized for C-band (and later L-band). S-band signals were more difficult and expensive to amplify cleanly. To this end, the Chinese team claims to have solved enough of these engineering problems to make commercial deployment practical.

But there is another trick up the team’s sleeve: multiple cores to the fibers. Normal optical fibers consist of a single core, but the team’s new ones reportedly actually contain four.

To this end, each of these core acts like an independent fiber. So, unlike traditional fibers with a single core and two optical bands, the new fibers actually have four cores, with three optical bands working simultaneously.

That’s a significant leap in capability. For applications like AI, this could prove to be very useful indeed, especially when it comes to removing data-transfer bottlenecks.

At present, most large AI models tend to use thousands of graphics processing units (GPUs), constantly exchanging data at the speed of light. A modern AI cluster can move terabits per second between machines.

5x the data transfer

Often, the bottleneck is not the GPU but getting data from one GPU cluster to another. So, if you can move five times more data through the same fiber infrastructure, you necessarily get faster training, larger distributed models, and lower network congestion.

Looking at the bigger picture, this isn’t a breakthrough in terms of fiber optics; similar achievements have happened in Japan, Europe, and the US. What is different is that this appears to have been commercially deployed, not just developed in a lab.

According to reports, the new optic fibers have run over about 21.7 miles (35 km) of an existing telecoms network, combining the innovations mentioned. Looking ahead, the team suggests the new cables could be deployed internationally, perhaps even in submarine cables.

It could also play a major role in China’s “Eastern Data, Western Computing strategy,” which seeks to shift data-intensive workloads from densely populated eastern regions to resource-rich western provinces, according to the developers.

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Chinese military planners have reportedly devised a plan to target US carriers in places like Guam. The strategy, published in the Chinese journal Tactical Missile Technology, claims a combination of satellites, AI, and missiles could render carrier groups vulnerable, even at distances of over 1,620 nautical miles (3,000 km).

At present, both the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the United States Navy know that the former can threaten critical assets like aircraft carriers close to China. To reduce that threat, the US Navy has increasingly positioned key assets farther from China’s coastline, relying on bases such as Guam and adopting more dispersed operating patterns across the Pacific.

The Navy has also been dispersing deployed ships in the region to make them much harder to find, track, and potentially attack. Not keeping their eggs in one basket, as it were.

However, as the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports, the PLA has been working on a potential plan to threaten such ships even at great distances. Led by associate professor Gao Tianyun from the College of International Studies at the National University of Defence Technology in Nanjing, the proposal is very interesting indeed.

Dangerous game of hide-and-seek

The study, titled “Research on the effectiveness of anti‑ship missile swarm operation under distributed confrontation,” basically describes an innovative “kill-chain” solution rather than a new wonder weapon.

The idea, in a nutshell, is to first find the group using a mixture of satellites, drones, radar aircraft, ships, submarines, signals intelligence, etc. Once done, the plan would rely on near-constant tracking for long-range missiles to be targeted and launched.

With that achieved, the paper suggests firing many missiles (a mix of hypersonics and “pre-strike firepower packages”) at the target, not one or two.

Once in flight, the plan would rely on the missiles cooperating by sharing target data, sorting real ships from decoys, assigning themselves to different targets, and attacking from different angles.

According to the researchers, such a coordinated attack could overwhelm layers of US naval defense, including Aegis-equipped destroyers, interceptor missiles, electronic warfare systems, decoys, and close-in weapon systems.

So, something of a coordinated, long-range missile swarm attack. The point is to make the US defence system run out of time, interceptors, radar capacity, or correct target choices.

Means and motive

Sounds reasonable on the surface, but the plan comes with one major caveat. That being said, this is just a plan right now, not proof that China can actually do it tomorrow.

Needless to say, hitting a moving carrier group at 1,620 nautical miles distant is not an easy task. Achieving it in reality would be brutally hard because the target moves, hides, jams, uses decoys, and fights back.

The hardest part is not the missile range; it is maintaining accurate targeting data across the whole chain. While effectively just a wargame made public, the release of this information is likely intended to send a warning to the US, rather than actually boast about its technological prowess.

In effect, they are saying that hiding and dispersing your ships won’t necessarily keep you safe. We (China) have the means to get them if we want to.

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For decades, nuclear clocks have existed as one of physics’ most tempting promises. A device that could keep time even more accurately than today’s best atomic clocks. Now, two independent research teams have turned this idea into reality. 

Researchers in China and Europe have demonstrated working nuclear clocks based on the nucleus of thorium-229, a rare isotope whose unique properties have long made it the leading candidate for next-generation timekeeping.

The achievement represents much more than a new kind of clock. Since a nucleus is far better shielded from environmental disturbances than the electrons used in atomic clocks, nuclear clocks could eventually become the most precise timekeepers ever built. 

Plus, this breakthrough could improve navigation, gravitational sensing, and tests of the laws governing the universe. 

As the researchers note, “by making a laser-addressed atomic nucleus an operational clock reference, this work extends quantum metrology from electronic to nuclear transitions, and opens a new platform for compact clocks, solid-state nuclear quantum sensors and precision tests of fundamental physics.”

Turning a thorium nucleus into a clock

Modern atomic clocks keep time by measuring the frequency of light absorbed or emitted when electrons jump between specific energy levels inside an atom. 

As these frequencies are extremely stable, counting their oscillations provides an exceptionally accurate way to measure time. Physicists have long envisioned building a clock using a nucleus instead of electrons. The idea is attractive because atomic nuclei are much smaller and more isolated from the outside world. 

Stray electric and magnetic fields that can slightly disturb electrons have far less influence on the nucleus. In principle, that should allow a nuclear clock to achieve even greater stability and precision.

“Such a nuclear clock might rival or outperform current optical clocks based on electron-shell transitions in atoms or ions, is expected to be more robust against external perturbations, and provides enhanced sensitivity in clock-based tests of fundamental principles of physics,” the researchers explained.

However, the problem is that almost all nuclear energy transitions are far too energetic to be controlled with lasers. They typically require high-energy gamma rays rather than ordinary laser light.

Thorium-229 is a remarkable exception. Its nucleus possesses an unusually low-energy excited state that can be reached using ultraviolet laser light. For years, physicists recognized that this made thorium-229 the only known realistic candidate for a nuclear clock.

Even so, the task remained extraordinarily difficult. The required transition occurs at a wavelength of roughly 148 nanometers, deep in the vacuum ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum. 

Producing stable laser light at this wavelength and precisely matching it to the nuclear transition pushed existing technology to its limits.

Two teams, one breakthrough

The two groups solved the problem using broadly similar strategies. One team, led by researchers at Tsinghua University, and another from the Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology, embedded thorium-229 atoms inside calcium fluoride crystals. 

“Here, we implement a thorium-229 nuclear clock by stabilizing a continuous-wave laser to the 148 nm nuclear transition with rapid feedback based on continuous absorption spectroscopy,” the researchers from the Vienna Center note.

The crystal acts as a solid host that holds large numbers of thorium nuclei in place while allowing laser light to interact with them. Both groups then illuminated the crystals with highly specialized continuous-wave vacuum ultraviolet lasers tuned near the thorium nuclear transition.

Although the overall concept was similar, the teams optimized different parts of the experiment. The Chinese researchers relied on a more powerful laser system to drive the nuclear transition. The European team instead used crystals containing a higher concentration of thorium nuclei, increasing the number of nuclei available for measurement.

Once they had successfully excited the nuclei, the researchers needed to demonstrate that the system could function as a true clock rather than simply detecting the transition.

So did the system work?

The Chinese team locked the frequency of their vacuum ultraviolet laser directly to the nuclear resonance. In effect, the thorium nucleus became a frequency reference that continuously corrected the laser. 

The researchers reported a fractional frequency instability approaching one part in 10 trillion after a day of operation, showing that the nuclear transition could serve as a stable timekeeping signal.

The European team chose a different test. Instead of focusing solely on clock performance, they used their nuclear clock as a scientific probe. 

The researchers searched for ultralight dark matter, a hypothetical form of matter that could subtly alter the energy levels inside atomic nuclei. If such particles existed, they might produce tiny periodic shifts in the thorium transition frequency.

“We use the nuclear clock to constrain models of ultralight dark matter by searching for periodic fluctuations and slow drifts in the nuclear transition energy, on time scales between 20 sec and one day,” the Vienna team said.

No evidence of dark matter was detected. However, the experiment demonstrated that the nuclear clock was sensitive enough to rival or exceed the capabilities of the world’s best atomic clocks when searching for such effects.

Together, the two studies provide the strongest evidence yet that practical nuclear clocks are no longer a theoretical concept but an operational technology.

What happens next?

While these first-generation devices are still laboratory systems, they mark the beginning of a new era in precision measurement. 

Future nuclear clocks could outperform today’s most advanced atomic clocks because the thorium nucleus is naturally protected from many sources of noise that limit current technologies.

According to the researchers, such clocks could eventually improve satellite navigation, provide more precise gravitational measurements, and enable new tests of fundamental physics. 

The next major goal is to refine the technology, reduce its size and complexity, and compare multiple nuclear clocks against one another. 

You can read the studies here and here.

In our latest episode of Lexicon, we sat down with Tom Grainger, Commercial Vice President at Niron Magnetics,  to explore the hidden role permanent magnets play in modern technology and electrification.

From electric vehicles and wind turbines to smartphones and speakers, these components are essential to countless devices we rely on every day. Tom also discussed the growing strategic importance of rare earth magnets and the risks associated with highly concentrated global supply chains.

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Reinventing the magnet

Permanent magnets rarely make headlines. Yet, as Grainger explained to us, they sit at the core of modern electrification.

“Pretty well every modern electronic device relies on permanent magnets,” he told us. “The car you drive, the speakers you’re hearing me come out of right now, the microphone that’s picking up my voice, all of those are permanent magnet devices,” he added.

“Relying on rare earth magnets today means relying on a supply chain that is over 90 percent concentrated in China. Single point of failure geopolitically,” he said.

But it turns out the issue is not limited to mining.

“All through the supply chain, you see that concentration,” he explained. The result is what he calls a pinch point. “You’ve got a pinch point on which the global economy hinges,” he added.

A magnet-hungry world

Furthermore, the demand side only intensifies the pressure. “As cars install more speakers and compete on infotainment and a great in-cab experience, doubling the speakers doubles the magnets,” Grainger told us. 

“Imagine as you move from an F-35 to a swarm of drones, you’re saving a lot of money, saving a lot of material, but you are greatly increasing your magnet consumption,” he added.

Even in a stable geopolitical climate, supply would be strained. “Even if everything is peachy globally, there are just not enough rare earths to solve this magnet-hungry global economy,” he added.

“For some critical rare earths, China put in place export controls,” he said. Those elements are required for high-temperature applications, which represent roughly 80 percent of use cases. Automotive production slowed. Defense programs accelerated alternative sourcing efforts. Phones, he recalls, were “ringing off the hook.”

“Magnets may already be as strategically important as semiconductors,” he added.

Forty years without a new material

Beyond supply risk, Grainger argues, there is a deeper technological constraint. The last major breakthrough in magnetic materials came in the 1980s with rare-earth magnets.

“The last time we had a new magnetic material that has had any sort of real commercial impact was rare earth magnets in the 1980s,” he told us.

That means four decades of motor and generator design constrained by the same materials. He uses a culinary analogy. “You can imagine you are a chef. You’ve been working with four ingredients. Suddenly, you have another option. It is just an unlock for breakthroughs in motor design,” he added.

“We’ve spent four decades without a new key and without a new door open,” he said. That new key, according to Niron, is iron nitride.

Iron nitride to the rescue

According to Grainger, iron nitride is not a brand-new discovery, being first identified in the 1950s. Later attempts in Japan produced promising but inconsistent results. The missing piece was the ability to understand and control the material at the nanoscale.

“We did not have the technology at the time to be able to explain, just from a physics perspective, what makes iron nitride so magnetic, and then to reliably produce iron nitride in this magnetic phase,” Grainger told us.

Advances in imaging and characterization in the 2000s and early 2010s changed that. “The ability to see what you’re doing when you make an experimental attempt to measure it was unlocked by advances in characterization imaging,” he added.

From there, it took more than a decade to move from laboratory research to bulk, commercially viable magnets. “It was a decade from that program to actually having commercially viable bulk permanent magnets,” he said.

The potential upside is significant. “For a rare earth permanent magnet made of neodymium, that number is about 1.6 Tesla,” he explained. “For iron nitride, that equivalent limit is 2.4 Tesla,” he added.

“That ceiling is 50 percent higher than rare earth permanent magnets,” he said.

Temperature performance is another factor. Rare earth magnets rely on scarce heavy rare earth elements such as dysprosium and terbium to maintain performance at high temperatures. “Iron nitride, just by virtue of its underlying crystal structure and properties, gets that temperature stability for free,” Grainger said.

Unlocking variable flux motors

One of the most intriguing applications discussed in the episode is the variable flux motor. Traditional permanent magnet motors use a technique called flux weakening at high speeds, which requires continuous electrical input. 

Grainger described it with a metaphor: “think of it as holding a spring. If you move your hand, it pops right back up. And so you’re using power to do that.”

Variable flux offers a different approach. “Instead of continuous energy expenditure holding down that spring, it’s like a ratchet. You push down the spring once, and you lock it into place,” he said.

The result is improved efficiency across the speed range. In electric vehicles, that translates directly to range and battery savings. “You get a 2 percent decrease in battery materials. The cost savings on that don’t just pay for your magnets, that pays for your whole motor,” he added.

The same logic applies to appliances and data centers. Efficiency gains compound quickly when systems operate continuously.

Scaling manufacturing

Moving from breakthrough to production required another leap. “Niron has been introducing iron nitride permanent magnets, and we’re doing so on a nano scale,” Grainger told us. 

“Our lab breakthrough was then the second breakthrough, which is really the process. And the process in that case becomes the product,” he said. The goal is modular scalability. Facilities can be replicated in multiple regions, reducing geographic concentration risk.

Iron nitride is composed of iron and nitrogen. Both are abundant and widely sourced. “Anywhere you have an industrialized society, you’ve got an opportunity for iron nitride domestic magnet production,” he said.

A strategic shift

Looking at the bigger picture, Grainger drew a historical analogy to the Haber-Bosch process, which enabled synthetic fertilizer production and reduced reliance on guano mining. “What iron nitride is, is that shift,” he said. “So, what if we could avoid all of that digging. What if we could avoid the reliance on what is fundamentally any mine has a shelf life,” he added.

So, instead of finite ore bodies, he describes a factory-built approach. “This is innovation as a cookie-cutter. Sort of the abundance philosophy around magnets,” he told us.

And, defense customers have taken notice. Programs initially planned for five to seven-year development timelines were “suddenly on 18-month fast tracks” after export controls tightened.

What the next decade has in store

Looking ahead, Grainger defines success in pragmatic terms. “Success for iron nitride is that we’re not talking about magnets as a scarce or critical pain point in global supply chains,” he added.

Beyond stability, he anticipates innovation. New motor and generator designs built around the expanded magnetic ceiling. Localized manufacturing in Asia, Europe, and North America. Reduced vulnerability and expanded design freedom.

“It can be hard sometimes to think about, can new things be done that aren’t just new assembly or new software?” he told us. “And absolutely they can.”

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