1. A Nanoclutch for Nano-‘bots; 2. Sound Increases the Efficiency of Boiling; 3. Slip-and-slide Power Generators; 4. Scientists Evaluate Different Antimicrobial Metals for Use in Water Filters.
Doping may be a no-no for athletes, but researchers in the University of Florida’s physics department say it was key in getting unprecedented power conversion efficiency from a new graphene solar cell created in their lab.
SNOLAB is situated 2km beneath the surface of the Earth and will enable researchers to answer fundamental questions about the history and the composition of the Universe.
“Is it the weekend yet?”… “Time flies!” … “There aren’t enough hours in a day!” – these are all phrases we hear often, and sometimes say ourselves. But what if time didn’t exist? What if we lived in a world free of alarm clocks, appointment times, and calendars?
Kansas State University physicists and an international team of collaborators have made a breakthrough that improves understanding of matter-light interactions. Their research allows double ionization events to be observed at the time scale of attoseconds and shows that these ionization events occur earlier than thought -- a key factor to improve knowledge of correlated electron dynamics.
Drawing on powerful computational tools and a state-of-the-art scanning transmission electron microscope, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison and Iowa State University materials science and engineering researchers has discovered a new nanometer-scale atomic structure in solid metallic materials known as metallic glasses.
A team of researchers from the Stony Brook University Department of Physics & Astronomy along with colleagues from the Department of Condensed Matter Physics at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) in Spain, explain a puzzling water anomaly in a paper published in the May 9 edition of Physical Review Letters entitled, “Anomalous Nuclear Quantum Effects in Ice.” The work details an anomaly – a deviation from the common form – of water ice that has been largely neglected and never before explained.
The ticket to Mars and beyond may be a series of nuclear slapshots that use magnetic pulses to slam nuclei into each other inside hockey pucks made of a special, lightweight salt, according to physicists from The University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Astronomers have gathered the most direct evidence yet of a supermassive black hole shredding a star that wandered too close.
Using lasers to excite just one atom from a cloud of ultra-cold rubidium gas, physicists have developed a new way to rapidly and efficiently create single photons for potential use in optical quantum information processing – and in the study of dynamics and disorder in certain physical systems.
Harnessing the energy of sunlight can be as simple as tuning the optical and electronic properties of metal oxides at the atomic level to make an artificial crystal or super-lattice ‘sandwich,’ says a Binghamton University researcher in a new study published in the journal Physical Review B.
Birdsong is one of the joys of nature, but higher percentages of birds chirping near Chernobyl are a perverse indication of radiation contamination, according to a new study.
At 00:38 CEST this morning, the LHC shift crew declared ‘stable beams’ as two 4 TeV proton beams were brought into collision at the LHC’s four interaction points. This signals the start of physics data taking by the LHC experiments for 2012. The collision energy of 8 TeV is a new world record, and increases the machine’s discovery potential considerably.
A group of physicists from the University of Arkansas and other institutions have developed a technique that allows them to control the mechanical property, or strain, on freestanding graphene. By controlling the strain, they also can control other properties of this important material.
Analysis of data from the 10-meter South Pole Telescope is providing new support for the most widely accepted explanation of dark energy — the source of the mysterious force that is responsible for the accelerating expansion of the universe.
Stir lots of small particles into water, and the resulting thick mixture appears highly viscous. When this dense suspension slips through a nozzle and forms a droplet, however, its behavior momentarily reveals a decidedly non-viscous side.
Physicists at the University of California, San Diego have discovered patterns which underlie the properties of a new state of matter.
Identifying chemicals from a distance could take a step forward with the introduction of a two-laser system being developed at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
An optical diode made with silicon technology can be used for quantum information. Researchers from JQI and the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) propose using ring resonators to construct a micro-optical diode. The technology is silicon-on-insulator, making it compatible with the CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) fabrication processes underlying today’s computer circuits.
A new method to achieve high-gain nuclear fusion will be tested at Sandia National Lab's Z accelerator after computer simulations showed the procedure to be 50 times more efficient than wire arrays used at Z that already had achieved low-yield fusion.
In a challenge to current astrophysical models of the universe, researchers have found that current estimates of the interiors of so-called ice giant planets within and without the solar system overstate water’s compressibility by as much as 30 percent, forcing revisions in estimates of other elements.
A clock accurate to within a tenth of a second over 14 billion years – the age of the universe – is the goal of research being reported this week in the journal Physical Review Letters. The research provides the blueprint for a nuclear clock based on a single thorium ion.
Combining known factors in a new way, physicists have solved an intractable 50-year-old problem: How to simulate strongly interacting quantum systems to accurately predict their properties. It could lead to superconductor applications and solving high-energy physics and ultra-cold atoms problems.
University of Chicago physicists have experimentally demonstrated for the first time that atoms chilled to temperatures near absolute zero may behave like seemingly unrelated natural systems of vastly different scales, offering potential insights into links between the atomic realm and deep questions of cosmology.
Freeman Dyson, who has been variously described as a Renaissance scientist, a heretic and a storyteller, will deliver the annual signature lecture presented by Arizona State University's BEYOND Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science on March 29.
A method for taking ultrafast ‘sonograms’ of materials undergoing phase transitions sheds new light on the dynamics of this important phenomenon in the world’s fastest phase-change material.
An international particle physics collaboration today announced its first results toward answering a longstanding question – how the elusive particles called neutrinos can appear to vanish as they travel through space.
In a paper published online today by the journal Nature, the ALPHA collaboration at CERN* reports an important milestone on the way to measuring the properties of antimatter atoms. This follows news reported in June last year that the collaboration had routinely trapped antihydrogen atoms for long periods of time. ALPHA’s latest advance is the next important milestone on the way to being able to make precision comparisons between atoms of ordinary matter and atoms of antimatter, thereby helping to unravel one of the deepest mysteries in particle physics and perhaps understanding why a Universe of matter exists at all.
Researchers have recorded the first-ever image of two atoms bonding together to form a molecule.
Results presented by the LHCb collaboration this evening at the annual ‘Rencontres de Moriond’ conference, held this year in La Thuile, Italy, have put one of the most stringent limits to date on the current theory of particle physics, the Standard Model. LHCb tests the Standard Model by measuring extremely rare processes, in this case a decay pattern predicted to happen just three times out of every billion decays of a particle known as the Bs (B-sub-s) meson. Anything other than that would be evidence for new physics. Measuring the rate of this Bs decay has been a major goal of particle physics experiments in the past decade, with the limit on its decay rate being gradually improved by the CDF and D0 experiments at Fermilab, LHCb, and most recently CMS at CERN1.
Just as a wine glass vibrates and sometimes breaks when a diva sings the right note, carbon dioxide vibrates when light or heat serenades it. When it does, carbon dioxide exhibits a vibrational puzzle known as Fermi resonance. Now, researchers studying geologic carbon storage have learned a bit more about the nature of carbon dioxide.
When the cruise liner Costa Concordia drew too close to shore near the Italian island of Giglio, a large rocky outcrop quickly sliced through the ship’s hull. While many questions about the dynamics at play during that disaster remain unanswered, two experts in the fields of fluid dynamics and marine architecture offer insights into the types of unseen forces unleashed during this unfortunate incident.
Uncertainty affects the accuracy with which measurements can be made in quantum physics. To reduce this uncertainty, physicists have learned to "squeeze" certain measurements. Researchers are now reporting a new type of measurement that can be squeezed to improve precision.
Top-heavy structures are more likely to maintain their balance while hovering in the air than are those that bear a lower center of gravity, researchers at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Department of Physics have found. Their findings are counter to common perceptions that flight stability can be achieved only through a relatively even distribution of weight—and may offer new design principles for hovering aircraft.
Boise State University geophysics researchers have created a new way to study fractures by producing elastic waves, or vibrations, through using high-intensity light focused directly on the fracture itself.
Physics News Highlights of the American Institute of Physics (AIP) contains summaries of interesting research from the AIP journals, notices of upcoming meetings, and other information from the AIP Member Societies. Copies of papers are available to journalists upon request.
It was 25 years ago that Jim Ashburn, then a first year physics graduate student at The University of Alabama in Huntsville, created the formula for the world's first "high temperature" superconductor.
A team of UC Merced professors and students discovered that changing the shape of a solar concentrator significantly increases its efficiency, bringing its use closer to reality
A new study demonstrates how introducing certain polymers—like those found in human mucus and saliva—into an aquatic environment makes it significantly more difficult for ulcer-causing bacteria and other microorganisms to coordinate.
A baby crystal is born; An easier way to remove gallstones; Flaky graphene makes reliable chemical sensors; Upcoming Conferences of Interest and Science Communication Awards
To better understand the fundamental behavior of molecules at surfaces, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are combining the powers of neutron scattering with chemical analysis.
Think Harry Potter movie magic: Cornell researchers have demonstrated a “temporal cloak” – albeit on a very small scale – in the transport of information by a beam of light.
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have found they can use a macroscopic blunt force to impose and induce a twist in an otherwise non-chiral molecule.
Today’s announcement from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva points to promising signs for the existence of the Higgs boson. Since 1987, three Weizmann Institute physicists have been key members of the ATLAS team searching for Higgs.
Join Perimeter Institute for an interactive, live webcast with PI Researchers as they discuss the latest findings from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN - the biggest, most ambitious scientific experiment in human history.
Researchers at Penn State University and IQE have overcome a barrier to future transistors where high performance and low power consumption are critical factors.
Discovery is of a fundamental interest for the development of future electronics.
Computer scientists at UC San Diego, who set out to simulate all rainbows found in nature, wound up answering questions about the physics of rainbows as well. The scientists recreated a wide variety of rainbows – primary rainbows, secondary rainbows, redbows that form at sunset and cloudbows that form on foggy days – by using an improved method for simulating how light interacts with water drops of various shapes and sizes. Their new approach even yielded realistic simulations of difficult-to-replicate “twinned” rainbows that split their primary bow in two.
Jean-Loup Bertaux, a researcher at Boston University’s Center for Space Physics, is a member of an international team of astronomers who have detected for the first time ultraviolet (UV) emissions of neutral hydrogen within the Earth’s own galaxy, the Milky Way.
Researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute* have shown that an optical lattice system exhibits a never-before-seen quantum state called a topological semimetal. The semimetal, which debuts in the Advance Online Publication for the journal Nature Physics (DOI:10.1038/NPHYS2134}, can undergo a new type of phase transition to a topological insulator.
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