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Physics news 1234

Could better spin injection lead to a quantum information device?

June 30, 2008 | User rating: 4.3 / 5 after 19 vote(s) | No comments yet

One of the more promising types of materials for use in spintronics today is the class of metal alloys known as Heusler alloys. These alloys are named after a German engineer, and might be useful in technology in which electron ...


Developing better nano-electronics by understanding nonadiabatic effects

June 17, 2008 | User rating: 4.3 / 5 after 24 vote(s) | User comments: 2

“Basically,” Michele Lazzeri tells PhysOrg.com, “the Born-Oppenheimer adiabatic approximation tells us how atoms are vibrating.” This adiabatic effect is used to describe phonons, which are modes of vibration that ...


World's Largest Quantum Bell Test Spans Three Swiss Towns

June 16, 2008 | User rating: 4.7 / 5 after 120 vote(s) | User comments: 22

In an attempt to rule out any kind of communication between entangled particles, physicists from the University of Geneva have sent two entangled photons traveling to different towns located 18 km apart – ...


Looking for the quantum properties of the Big Bang

June 13, 2008 | User rating: 4.3 / 5 after 61 vote(s) | User comments: 7

“General relativity doesn’t recognize quantum physics,” Martin Bojowald tells PhysOrg.com. And that, he insists, causes problems when it comes to understanding the evolution of the universe from the Big Bang: “You ...


Researchers develop a worldwide tourism network

June 11, 2008 | User rating: 3.4 / 5 after 33 vote(s) | User comments: 3

It wasn't too long ago in human history that people rarely, if ever, traveled beyond the village they were born in. We've come a long way since then: according to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), international ...


Liquid Crystals Slow Light Pulses to a Snail's Pace

June 10, 2008 | User rating: 4.6 / 5 after 97 vote(s) | User comments: 13

In a vacuum, the speed of a light pulse is always a constant at 186,000 miles (300,000 km) per second. But by changing the medium through which light travels, physicists can slow down light pulses, and possibly ...


Can silver nanoparticles be the key to a more compact laser?

June 09, 2008 | User rating: 4.4 / 5 after 22 vote(s) | User comments: 3

“In random media, multiple scattering and interference reduce the diffusion of light, and in case of extremely strong scattering, photon localization, or Anderson localization of light, is predicted like electrons in glasses,” ...


'Squeezed' Light May Improve Gravitational Wave Detectors

June 05, 2008 | User rating: 4.6 / 5 after 54 vote(s) | User comments: 20

A research collaboration has taken steps toward improving the sensitivity of gravitational wave detectors, devices designed to measure distance changes as minute as one-thousandth the diameter of a proton. ...


Terahertz laser source at room temperature

June 03, 2008 | User rating: 4.6 / 5 after 41 vote(s) | User comments: 1

“There is a growing interest in utilizing terahertz radiation, or T-rays, for a variety of applications,” Mikhail Belkin, a scientist at Harvard University, tells PhysOrg.com. “The terahertz region is a part of the ...


A Test of the Copernican Principle

May 22, 2008 | User rating: 4.3 / 5 after 93 vote(s) | User comments: 37

The Copernican principle states that the Earth is not the center of the universe, and that, as observers, we don’t occupy a special place. First stated by Copernicus in the 16th century, today the idea is ...


Toy-Like Microboat Could Carry Tiny Cargoes

May 21, 2008 | User rating: 3.8 / 5 after 48 vote(s) | User comments: 4

As a child, Cheng Luo, an engineer from the University of Texas at Arlington, recalls playing with wooden toy boats that were propelled forward when a drop of oil was placed on the back of the boats. When ...


A Smarter Way to Grow Graphene

May 14, 2008 | User rating: 4.6 / 5 after 57 vote(s) | No comments yet

Graphene, a sheet of carbon just one atom thick, has many potential uses in the electronics industry, but producing these ideal two-dimensional carbon sheets is very difficult and, as a result, their use has ...


Precise Alignment to Quantum Dots

May 12, 2008 | User rating: 4.7 / 5 after 33 vote(s) | No comments yet

“Precise lithographic alignment to site-controlled quantum dots is of major importance for numerous nano-photonic, nano-electronic and nano-spintronic devices,” Sven Höfling tells PhysOrg.com.


Researchers Observe Hydrogen-Bond Exchange

May 08, 2008 | User rating: 4.5 / 5 after 51 vote(s) | User comments: 7

Hydrogen bonds are quite small, on the level of a few angstroms. They can also be passed between two different molecules very quickly, at speeds of tens of times per second. But in spite of these properties, ...


Is quantum Internet search on the way?

May 06, 2008 | User rating: 3.7 / 5 after 39 vote(s) | User comments: 2

In classical computing, random access memory (RAM) is needed to make things “work.” But it is subject to a certain level of energy loss. But what if you could create low-energy quantum access memory (QRAM) that would not ...


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