Physics and Matter News - April 2009 Archives

Particle physics study finds new data for extra Z-bosons and potential fifth force of nature (4/30/2009)

The Large Hadron Collider is an enormous particle accelerator whose 17-mile tunnel straddles the borders of France and Switzerland. A group of physicists at the University of Nevada, Reno has analyzed data from the accelerator that could ultimately prove or disprove the possibility of a fifth force of nature. ...> Full Article

Pizza tossing art unlocks secrets of tiny motors (4/29/2009)

Monash University scientists have unlocked the physics of the perfect pizza toss and will use it to design the next generation of micro motors thinner that a human hair. ...> Full Article

Quantum ghosts are helpful (4/28/2009)

A team of physicists at the University of Bristol and Imperial College London have harnessed the phenomenon, "spooky action at a distance," to shed light on another unusual and previously difficult aspect of quantum physics -- that of distinguishing between two similar quantum devices. ...> Full Article

At the limits of the photoelectric effect (4/26/2009)

With extremely short wavelengths and very high intensities, light-matter interaction seems to be different than previously accepted ...> Full Article

UCSB receives $6.1 million for diamond-based quantum information processing and communication (4/25/2009)

Two government funding agencies are putting $6.1 million into a pair of research projects aimed at utilizing diamond for quantum communication processing. UCSB is leading the charge on both efforts, due to dramatic developments in quantum physics in the past decade at the university. ...> Full Article

NIST develops powerful method of suppressing errors in many types of quantum computers (4/24/2009)

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a technique for efficiently suppressing errors in quantum computers, an advance that could eventually make it much easier to build useful versions of these potentially powerful machines that, in theory, could solve important problems that are intractable using today's computers. ...> Full Article

World's brightest X-ray machine comes online at SLAC (4/23/2009)

The world's brightest X-ray machine has come to life at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, in the hills near Stanford University. The mile-long machine produces a laser beam made of X-rays instead of visible light. The bursts are so bright and so brief that researchers will use them as an ultrafast stop-motion camera to capture the minute details of things previously unseen, such as the arrangement of atoms in metals, semiconductors, ceramics, polymers and proteins. ...> Full Article

Putting the squeeze on an old material could lead to 'instant on' electronic memory (4/18/2009)

Putting the squeeze on an old material could lead to "instant on" electronic memory. Low-power, high-efficiency electronic memory could be the long-term result of collaborative research led by Cornell. ...> Full Article

A step closer to an ultra precise atomic clock (4/17/2009)

A clock that is so precise that it loses only a second every 300 million years -- this is the result of new research in ultra cold atoms. The international collaboration is comprised of researchers from the University of Colorado and the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen and the results have just been published in the prestigious scientific journal Science. ...> Full Article

Researchers put a new spin on electrons (4/16/2009)

Technique could provide an easier route to 'spintronic' circuits ...> Full Article

Measuring the immeasurable: New study links heat transfer, bond strength of materials (4/15/2009)

The speed at which heat moves between two materials touching each other is a potent indicator of how strongly they are bonded to each other, according to a new study by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Additionally, the study shows that this flow of heat from one material to another, in this case one solid and one liquid, can be dramatically altered by "painting" a thin atomic layer between materials. ...> Full Article

Scientists demonstrate laser with controlled polarization (4/14/2009)

Innovation opens the door to a wide range of applications in photonics and communications ...> Full Article

Physicists discover important step for making light crystals (4/11/2009)

Ohio State University researchers have developed a new strategy to overcome one of the major obstacles to a grand challenge in physics. What they've discovered could eventually aid high-temperature superconductivity, as well as the development of new high-tech materials. ...> Full Article

X marks the spot: Ions coldly go through NIST trap junction (4/10/2009)

NIST physicists have demonstrated a new ion trap that enables ions to go through an intersection at temperatures ten million times cooler than prior similar trips. The demonstration is a step toward scaling up trap technology to build a large-scale quantum computer using ions. ...> Full Article

From three to four: A quantum leap in few-body physics (4/9/2009)

Scientists from the University of Innsbruck, Austria, led by Rudolf Grimm offer new insights into the extremely complex few-body problem. For the first time, the quantum physicists provide evidence of universal four-body states that are closely connected to Efimov states, in an ultracold sample of cesium atoms. The scientists have just published their findings in Physical Review Letters. ...> Full Article

I'm forever imploding bubbles (4/8/2009)

New sensor ensures our hospitals are hygienic by listening to collapsing bubbles ...> Full Article

Beating the back-up blues (4/5/2009)

That sinking feeling when your hard disk starts screeching and you haven't backed up your holiday photos is a step closer to becoming a thing of the past thanks to research into a new kind of computer memory. ...> Full Article

Researchers squeeze light out of quantum dots (4/4/2009)

Physics breakthrough could lead to forward leaps in lasers, telecom and optical computing ...> Full Article

Keep on spinning (4/3/2009)

A persistent spin state that could revolutionize spintronics ...> Full Article