Columbia researchers engineer first technique to exploit the tunable symmetry of 2D materials for nonlinear optical applications, including laser, optical spectroscopy, imaging, and metrology systems, as well as next-generation optical quantum information processing and computing. Nonlinear optics, a study of how light interacts with matter, is critical to many photonic applications, from the green laser pointers we’re all familiar with to intense broadband (white) light sources for quantum photonics that enable optical quantum computing, super-resolution imaging, optical sensing and ranging,…
For the first time, a UNIGE team has been able to follow precisely the path taken by a protein within the cell, paving the way for the study of the transport and distribution network of vital elements necessary for its survival. In order to stay alive, the cell must provide its various organelles with all the energy elements they need, which are formed in the Golgi apparatus, its centre of maturation and redistribution of lipids and proteins. But how do…
An international research team led by chemist Prof. Thomas Heine of TU Dresden has discovered a new two-dimensional material with unprecedented properties: regardless if it is strained or compressed, it always expands. This so-called half-auxetic behavior has not been observed before and is therefore very promising for the design of new applications, especially in nano-sensorics. If you stretch an elastic band, it becomes thinner – a physical behavior that applies to most “common” materials. Since the 20th century, an opposite…
Mobility of skyrmions in geometric structures depends on their arrangement. In a close collaboration between experimental and theoretical physicists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), the research groups of Professor Mathias Kläui and Dr. Peter Virnau investigated the behavior of magnetic whirls within nanoscale geometric structures. In their work published in “Advanced Functional Materials”, the researchers confined small magnetic whirls, so-called skyrmions, in geometric structures. Skyrmions can be created in thin metal films and have particle-like properties: They exhibit high…
FAU researchers reveal the secret of the famous Pazyryk carpet Why are the red, yellow, and blue colours used in the world’s oldest knotted-pile carpet still so vivid and bright, even after almost two and a half thousand years? Researchers at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg have now been able to uncover the secrets behind the so-called Pazyryk carpet using high-resolution x-ray fluorescence microscopy. Their findings have been published in the journal Scientific Reports. The Pazyryk carpet is the world’s oldest example of…
Much like the Jedis in Star Wars use ‘the force’ to control objects from a distance, scientists can use light or ‘optical force’ to move very small particles. The inventors of this ground-breaking laser technology, known as ‘optical tweezers’, were awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in physics. Optical tweezers are used in biology, medicine and materials science to assemble and manipulate nanoparticles such as gold atoms. However, the technology relies on a difference in the refractive properties of the trapped…
They are also called power plants of the cells: the mitochondria. They are present in almost all eukaryotic cells and they supply the cells with energy. Until now, it was assumed that only mitochondria can act as the cells’ energy providers. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology have now discovered that symbiotic bacteria can fulfil this function too. Their findings shed a completely new light on the survival of simple eukaryotes in oxygen-free environments. These results have…
A team of researchers led by scientists from the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society have found out that the important industrial process of methanol production can be positively influenced if the copper catalyst used in the reaction comes into contact with zinc oxide. The current commercial production of methanol through the hydrogenation of the green-house gas CO2 relies on a catalyst consisting of copper, zinc oxide and aluminum oxide. Even though this catalyst has been used for…
In a potential boost for quantum computing and communication, a European research collaboration reported a new method of controlling and manipulating single photons without generating heat. The solution makes it possible to integrate optical switches and single-photon detectors in a single chip. Publishing in Nature Communications, the team reported to have developed an optical switch that is reconfigured with microscopic mechanical movement rather than heat, making the switch compatible with heat-sensitive single-photon detectors. Optical switches in use today work by…
Researchers of the Center for Photonics and Two-Dimensional Materials at MIPT, together with their colleagues from Spain, Great Britain, Sweden, and Singapore, including co-creator of the world’s first 2D material and Nobel laureate Konstantin Novoselov, have measured giant optical anisotropy in layered molybdenum disulfide crystals for the first time. The scientists suggest that such transition metal dichalcogenide crystals will replace silicon in photonics. Birefringence with a giant difference in refractive indices, characteristic of these substances, will make it possible to…
To investigate humans’ impact on freshwater resources, scientists have now conducted the first global accounting of fluctuating water levels in Earth’s lakes and reservoirs – including ones previously too small to measure from space. The research, published March 3 in the journal Nature, relied on NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite 2 (ICESat-2), launched in September 2018. ICESat-2 sends 10,000 laser light pulses every second down to Earth. When reflected back to the satellite, those pulses deliver high-precision surface…
Tiny photonic devices could be used to find new exoplanets, monitor our health, and make the internet more energy efficient. Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, now present a game changing microcomb that could bring advanced applications closer to reality. A microcomb is a photonic device capable of generating a myriad of optical frequencies – colours – on a tiny cavity known as microresonator. These colours are uniformly distributed so the microcomb behaves like a ‘ruler made of light’….
Study simulated a control surface at the end of a wing used to maneuver an aircraft. Using data collected in a NASA Langley Mach 6 wind tunnel, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign replicated the hypersonic flow conditions of a compression ramp flow by means of Direct Numerical Simulation. The simulation yielded an abundance of additional data, which can be used to better understand the phenomena that occur surrounding vehicles traveling at hypersonic speeds. “Data from experiments are somewhat…
Breakthrough greatly enhances the ultrafast resolution achievable with X-ray free-electron lasers. A large international team of scientists from various research organizations, including the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, has developed a method that dramatically improves the already ultrafast time resolution achievable with X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs). It could lead to breakthroughs on how to design new materials and more efficient chemical processes. An XFEL device is a powerful combination of particle accelerator and laser technology producing extremely brilliant and…
Researchers from the Kleij group present a new route to prepare biobased polyesters with tuneable properties. Finding innovative and sustainable solutions to our material needs is one of the core objectives of green chemistry. The myriad plastics that envelop our daily life – from mattresses to food and cars – are mostly made from oil-based monomers which are the building blocks of polymers. Therefore, finding bio-based monomers for polymer synthesis is attractive to achieve more sustainable solutions in materials development….
New approach could help quantum networks to support more users without losing data. When quantum computers become more powerful and widespread, they will need a robust quantum internet to communicate. Purdue University engineers have addressed an issue barring the development of quantum networks that are big enough to reliably support more than a handful of users. The method, demonstrated in a paper published in Optica, could help lay the groundwork for when a large number of quantum computers, quantum sensors…
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