Now physicists need not fully control the growth of laser crystals, because the crystals grow themselves. Professor Nikolay Ledentsov and his team at the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute have learned how to provide special conditions in which crystals can grow defectless.

Growing crystals with enhanced characteristics is possible on the basis of the effect of quantum dots. A quantum dot is a tiny islet of one material lost in the monocrystal of the other material. For a long time t

Knowing your precise position anytime via the internet is now possible thanks to the Signal in Space through Internet (SisNet) technology developed by the European Space Agency.

This technology combines the powerful capabilities of satellite navigation and the internet. As a result, the highly accurate navigation information that comes from the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) Signal-in-Space (SIS) is now available in real time over the internet.

EGNO

Jefferson Lab researchers utilize CLAS and CEBAF’s 5.7 GeV continuous beam to gather new insights on several fundamental questions about the neutron

The CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) is like a perfect survey instrument. Because it surrounds the interaction point in Jefferson Lab’s Hall B, it can record several particles produced in a subatomic interaction at once. More than 40,000 data channels convey information on the trajectory (measured with drift chambers),

There will be greater tension than usual among engineers and scientists at Europe`s spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana, in January 2003, as they gather to see ESA`s comet-chasing spacecraft Rosetta departing on its long journey. If it is to keep its rendezvous with Comet Wirtanen in 2012, Rosetta must lift off on its Ariane-5 launcher no sooner than 03:40 CET on 13 January 2003 and no later than the end of that month. This span of suitable dates is called a launch window. For interplanetary

A research team, led by Dr Stuart Walker from Essex University, claims to have developed a data transmission method which can achieve world record telecommunications data rates, of over a terabit (one trillion binary digits) per second, on optical fibres which already exist in the majority of in-building communications networks throughout the world. These optical fibres are known as multimode fibres.

Dr Stuart Walker is presenting the world record transmission concept on Thursday 5 Septembe

In a new report, a team of senior women physicists have challenged the scientific and academic establishments to tackle the problem of female under-representation in physics careers. The report, “Women Physicists Speak”, was led by Professor Gillian Gehring of the University of Sheffield and will be launched at a meeting of the Institute of Physics on 5 September. It is the result of an international conference about the issue and makes a number of important recommendations. · Women in Leade

Computer and optical communications engineers are now using optical structures to produce faster, more powerful, light-based processors and networks. However, according to Dr Andrew Parker from Oxford University, they are well behind the times as nature has been making these optical structures for at least 515 million years. He and his team are now planning to unravel nature`s manufacturing process and use it to create man-made optical devices.

Speaking at the Photon02 Conference in Cardiff

The Near Earth Asteroid 2002 NY40 was observed with the William Herschel Telescope on La Palma, Canary Islands, on the night of August 17 to 18, 2002. The asteroid was imaged just before its closest approach to Earth, using the Adaptive Optics system NAOMI. These are the first images of a Near Earth Asteroid obtained with an Adaptive Optics system. During these observations the asteroid was 750,000 kilometres away, twice the distance to the Moon, and moving very rapidly across the sky (crossing a di

Hands free sets for mobile phones may be on the verge of a big comeback thanks to new research by the University of Warwick. Many people used hands free sets in an attempt to avoid what they perceived as a microwave radiation risk from holding a mobile phone close to one`s head. However when it was pointed out that the standard wire based hands free kit actually itself acted as an aerial amplifying any signal to the users head the kit fell out of favour with this type of user. Now

The team of senior women physicists (including the University of Warwick’s Professor Sandra Chapman) who represented the UK at the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics first international conference on Women in Physics, looking at the under-representation of women in physics world-wide, have now produced a detailed report entitled “Women Physicists Speak” on the issue with recommendations including: Action to involve more women physicists in science leadership. Key science bodies s

Eyeglasses with built-in computer monitors could soon be a reasonable alternative to reading text from a traditional computer screen, according to new research from Ohio State University.

Participants in a recent study rated the comfort and performance of these so-called near-eye displays as comparable to that of traditional computer monitors. Near-eye displays are like eyeglasses with a monitor built into the lenses.

“The problems with near-eye devices range from motion sickness t

Solar physicists at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL, University College London) in Surrey have found new clues to the thirty year old puzzle of why the Sun ejects huge bubbles of electrified gas, laced with magnetic field, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs). In a paper published this month in the Journal of Solar Physics, they explain that the key to understanding CMEs, which can cause electricity black outs on Earth, may be due to twisted magnetic fields originating deep within the he

The production of fusion energy with a PetaWatt laser is a step closer now that a team of scientists from Japan and the UK has demonstrated that the physics works. Using the GEKKO XII laser system at the Osaka University in Japan, the team has successfully conducted experiments at laser powers equivalent to those required for a full-scale ignition system, and the results will be published in Nature on Thursday 29 August 2002.

“We carried out a first “proof of principle” experiment in 2001 th

Discovery reveals smallest size molecules form functional structures; nanotechnology, research implications may be significant

While it may not make much of an anniversary present, a gold chain built atom by atom by UC Irvine physicist Wilson Ho offers an answer to one of the basic questions of nanotechnology—how small can you go?

In the first study of its kind, Ho and his colleagues have discovered the molecular phase when a cluster of atoms develops into a solid structur

The world’s most sensitive Gamma Ray telescopes are being inaugurated in Namibia (in Southwest Africa) on September 3rd. The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.), a European/African collaboration in which the UK is a partner, will look for Gamma Rays produced by the most energetic particles in the Universe. The array initially consists of four telescopes, the first of which will become operational next week. This one telescope alone is more sensitive than any other existing ground-based array o

When “frustrated” by their arrangement, magnetic atoms surrender their individuality, stop competing with their neighbors and then practice a group version of spin control—acting collectively to achieve local magnetic order—according to scientists from the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, Johns Hopkins University and Rutgers University writing in the Aug. 22, 2002, issue of the journal Nature.

The unexpected composite behavior detected in experiments