On Wednesday March 29, Xuanbo Feng obtained the degree of Doctor on his thesis The Colour of Charge Density Waves.

The layered transition-metal dichalcogenide, VSe2 undergoes a phase transition from a good metal to a charge density wave phase. Recent advances in crystal growth enable a detailed study of the imprint of the charge density wave on the optical conductivity.

In a Nature Materials News & Views article, Erik van Heumen describes recent experiments where the interactions between exotic quasi-particles can be tuned.

What does a quantum theory of gravity have in common with electrons in a ’strange’ metal? At first sight: not much, but this week in Nature a Dutch NWO consortium, including researchers Jake Ayres, Maarten Berben and Nigel Hussey (Radboud University), Jan Zaanen (Leiden University) and Erik van Heumen (University of Amsterdam) reports on new experimental findings that may point towards such a link after all.

Scattering type scanning near-field optical spectroscopy enables us to image local variations in the optical properties of materials with nanometer scale resolution.