Physics and Matter News Archives Page 5

Micro Sensor and Micro Fridge Make Cool Pair (4/17/2008)

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have combined two tiny but powerful NIST inventions on a single microchip, a cryogenic sensor and a microrefrigerator. The combination offers the possibility of cheaper, simpler and faster precision analysis of materials such as semiconductors and stardust. ...> Full Article

Matter, Anti-matter and MICE (4/16/2008)

The quest to understand more about the mysterious neutrino particle which is thought to be responsible for this phenomenon has taken a major step forward. ...> Full Article

Gravity wave 'smoking gun' fizzles, according to physics researchers (4/15/2008)

But gravitational waves may be more sensitive probe of early universe physics than previously thought ...> Full Article

Ready to go: mobile terahertz devices (4/14/2008)

Terahertz waves, which until now have barely found their way out of the laboratory, could soon be in use as a versatile tool ...> Full Article

World's shortest single photon pulse created (4/13/2008)

The world's shortest light pulse containing just one photon has been produced ...> Full Article

New research institute for shock physics launched at Imperial College (4/12/2008)

A new £10 million research institute dedicated to studying the fundamental science behind shock waves, high velocity collisions and extremes of pressure and heat ...> Full Article

Attraction at the atomic level (4/11/2008)

Researchers find the ties that bind electrons in high-temperature superconductivity ...> Full Article

Most Powerful Laser in the World Fires Up (4/10/2008)

Laser reaches greater than one petawatt of laser power ...> Full Article

Researchers Take Step Toward Creating Quantum Computers (4/9/2008)

A research group recently demonstrated one of the basic building blocks for distributed quantum computing using entangled photons generated in optical fibers ...> Full Article

Physicists saved from drowning in complexities of wetting theory (4/8/2008)

The relationship between a thin liquid film or drop of liquid and the shape of the surface that it wets is explained with a new simplified mathematical formula ...> Full Article

Newly discovered 'superinsulators' promise to transform materials research, electronics design (4/6/2008)

Discovery opens new directions of inquiry in condensed matter physics and breaks ground for a new generation of microelectronics ...> Full Article

Graphene gazing gives glimpse of foundations of universe (4/5/2008)

Researchers have used graphene to measure an important and mysterious fundamental constant - and glimpse the foundations of the universe. ...> Full Article

2,500 researchers, 1 supermachine, 1 new snapshot of the universe (4/5/2008)

physicist a key figure among international team that designed world's biggest particle physics detector ...> Full Article

More Solid than Solid: A Potential Hydrogen-Storage Compound (4/4/2008)

Hydrogen storage material compacts molecules more densely than frozen block. ...> Full Article

Innovative Atom Trap Catches Highly Magnetic Atoms (4/3/2008)

A research team has succeeded in cooling atoms of a rare-earth element, erbium, to within two millionths of a degree of absolute zero using a novel trapping and laser cooling technique. Their recent report* is a major step towards a capability to capture, cool and manipulate individual atoms of erbium, an element with unique optical properties that promises highly sensitive nanoscale force or magnetic sensors, as well as single-photon sources and amplifiers at telecommunications wavelengths. It also may have applications in quantum computing devices. ...> Full Article

Research brings terahertz closer to everyday use (4/2/2008)

Researchers have recorded the highest operating temperature for a terahertz quantum cascade laser ...> Full Article

3-D imaging - first insights into magnetic fields (4/1/2008)

3-D images are not only useful in medicine; the observation of internal structures is also invaluable in many other fields of scientific investigation. Recently, researchers from the Hahn-Meitner-Institute (HMI) in Berlin in cooperation with University of Applied Sciences in Berlin have succeeded, for the first time, in a direct, three-dimensional visualisation of magnetic fields inside solid, non-transparent materials. ...> Full Article

Quantum Channel Between Earth And Space? Firing Photons Makes Advance In Space Communication (3/31/2008)

For the first time, physicists have been able to identify individual returning photons after firing and reflecting them off of a space satellite in orbit almost 1,500 kilometres above the earth. The experiment has proven the possibility of constructing a quantum channel between Space and Earth. ...> Full Article

Why matter matters in the universe (3/30/2008)

A new physics discovery explores why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe ...> Full Article

Researchers test unique approach to fusion power (3/29/2008)

Mimicking Earth's magnetic field in a giant thermos bottle ...> Full Article

Silicon chips for optical quantum technologies (3/28/2008)

A team of physicists and engineers has demonstrated exquisite control of single particles of light - photons - on a silicon chip to make a major advance towards the long sought after goal of a super-powerful quantum computer. ...> Full Article

'Superdense' coding gets denser (3/26/2008)

The record for the most amount of information sent by a single photon has been broken by researchers at the University of Illinois. Using the direction of "wiggling" and "twisting" of a pair of hyper-entangled photons, they have beaten a fundamental limit on the channel capacity for dense coding with linear optics. ...> Full Article

Physicists Team Up To Learn How Quantum Mechanical States Break Down (3/22/2008)

Collaborative Effort Moves Quantum Computers One Step Closer to Reality ...> Full Article

Researchers Find 'Metafilms' Can Shrink Radio, Radar Devices (3/21/2008)

Recent research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has demonstrated that thin films made of "metamaterials"-manmade composites engineered to offer strange combinations of electromagnetic properties-can reduce the size of resonating circuits that generate microwaves. The work is a step forward in the worldwide quest to further shrink electronic devices such as cell phones, radios, and radar equipment. ...> Full Article

Fake Diamonds Help Jet Engines Take The Heat (3/19/2008)

Engineers are developing a technology to coat jet engine turbine blades with zirconium dioxide -- commonly called zirconia, the stuff of synthetic diamonds -- to combat high-temperature corrosion. ...> Full Article

Stunt doubles: Ultracold atoms could replicate the electron 'jitterbug' (3/18/2008)

Ultracold atoms moving through a carefully designed arrangement of laser beams will jiggle slightly as they go, two NIST scientists have predicted.* If observed, this never-before-seen "jitterbug" motion would shed light on a little-known oddity of quantum mechanics arising from Paul Dirac's 80-year-old theory of the electron. ...> Full Article

Single-crystal semiconductor wire built into an optical fiber (3/17/2008)

An international science team from Penn State and the University of Southampton, United Kingdom, has developed a process for growing a single-crystal semiconductor inside the tunnel of a hollow optical fiber. The device adds new electronic capabilities to optical fibers, whose performance in electronic devices such as computers typically is degraded by the interface between the fiber and the device. ...> Full Article

A Sub-femtosecond Stop Watch for 'Photon Finish' Races (3/16/2008)

Using a system that can compare the travel times of two photons with sub-femtosecond precision, scientists at the Joint Quantum Institute (a partnership of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland) and Georgetown University have found a remarkably large difference in the time it takes photons to pass through nearly identical stacks of materials with different arrangements of refractive layers. The technique, described at the annual March Meeting of the American Physical Society,* ultimately could provide an empirical answer to a long-standing puzzle over how fast light crosses narrow gaps that do not permit the passage of conventional electromagnetic waves. ...> Full Article

Wendelstein 7-X reaches first milestone (3/16/2008)

The world's largest fusion experiment of the stellarator type taking shape at IPP's Greifswald branch institute ...> Full Article

New detector can 'see' single neutrons over broad range (3/15/2008)

Researchers have developed a new optical method that can detect individual neutrons and record them over a range of intensities at least a hundred times greater than existing detectors. The new detector promises to improve existing neutron measurements and enable tests of new phenomena beyond the Standard Model, the basic framework of particle physics. ...> Full Article