Nick Butch will receive the Arthur S. Flemming Award for his outstanding performance in basic sciences and civil service, joining the ranks of illustrious past recipients. Nick will be will be honored on November 8, 2026 at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.  For more information, see the dept news story. 

Congratulations, Nick, on this well-deserved honor!

Resolving nanoscale light-matter interactions requires both high spatial resolution and anisotropic sensitivity to in-plane and out-of-plane optical responses. A QMC team lead by Min Ouyang has introduced torsional force microscopy-infrared microscopy, a new optical imaging technique that combines cantilever torsional dynamics with a nonlinear frequency-mixing scheme to map both in-plane and out-of-plane photothermal signals. See News Story here.

The 2026 M2S conference was held at the Liederhalle in Stuttgart over the week of July 17, 2026, with over 700 people from all over the world gathered to discuss the latest developments in the field of superconductivity. QMC members including Steve Anlage, Rick Greene and Johnpierre Paglione were in attendance, and Paglione was caught to be interviewed for this entertaining clip "How to describe this experience in a single word?". More important, our very own Rick Greene gave a beautiful acceptance talk for being awarded the 2026 Kamerlingh Onnes Prize -- congrats again Rick!!!

Thanks to all who contributed to the 2026 QMC Poster Symposium --- there is so much fascinating research happening!! Photos from the event can be found here.