The peculiar behavior of high-temperature superconductors has baffled scientists for many years. Now, by imaging the copper-oxide plane in a cuprate superconductor for the first time, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have found several new pieces to this important puzzle.

As reported in the Aug. 19 issue of Physical Review Letters, physics professor Ali Yazdani, graduate student Shashank Misra, and colleagues used a scanning tunneling microscope to demonstrate t

First-principles calculation explains the strange behavior of magnesium diboride

Magnesium diboride (MgB2) becomes superconducting at 39 degrees Kelvin, one of the highest known transition temperatures (Tc) of any superconductor. What’s more, its puzzling characteristics include more than one superconducting energy gap, a state of affairs anticipated in theory but never before seen experimentally.

Now theorists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Universit

A Bose-Einstein condensate, a form of matter heretofore only observed in atoms chilled to less than a millionth of a degree above absolute zero, may now have been observed at temperatures in excess of one degree Kelvin in excitons, the bound pairs of electrons and holes that enable semiconductors to function as electronic devices.

Researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), in collaboration with a scientist at the University of California’s Santa Barbara camp

VLT Observes Wolf-Rayet Stars in Virgo Cluster Galaxies [1]

Do very massive stars form in metal-rich regions of the Universe and in the nuclei of galaxies ? Or does “heavy element poisoning” stop stellar growth at an early stage, before young stars reach the “heavyweight class”?

What may at the first glance appear as a question for specialists actually has profound implications for our understanding of the evolution of galaxies, those systems of billions of stars – the m

Equipment used at home, as well as at offices, is more and more powerful and although their interfaces are also more comprehensive, they are more complicated to understand.

One of the causes of that problem may be that the common interfaces based on windows, icons, menus, etc. do not have enough control of all the present technological aspects.

A possible solution could be to provide the system with an assistant function equipped with a universal, efficient and easy to use interfac

Looking into the interior of the Earth or the Sun is a bit similar to examining a baby in its mother`s womb using an ultrasound scan. Light cannot penetrate the area, so we make pictures in these cases using sound waves, which human ears cannot hear. With SOHO, ESA has probed deeply into the Sun using the sound-waves principle, and with great success. The future missions, Solar Orbiter and Eddington, will look inside our Sun and other stars, respectively, in a similar way.

Here on Earth, whe

A unique combination of international cooperation and the latest Internet technology will allow Gemini Observatory to become the first international “cyber observatory.”

Gemini, with funding and support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), is blazing an Internet pathway that will provide its globally separated telescopes with a reliable data transfer connection. The connection will allow real-time remote observations and sharing of scientific data generated by the twin 8-meter telesc

That bar code on your cereal box holds information read by a laser scanner. It’s not much information, but it’s enough to let the supermarket take your money, keep track of inventory, follow trends in customer preference, and restock its shelves. Scanners and bar codes speed up checkout, but they’ve got a few limitations. The scanning laser needs a direct line of sight to the bar code, and the bar code itself needs to be reasonably clean and undamaged – one reason your cashier might ha

Communicating with light polarization

A new and novel way of communicating over fiber optics is being developed by physicists supported by the Office of Naval Research. Rather than using the amplitude and frequency of electromagnetic waves, they’re using the polarization of the wave to carry the signal. Such a method offers a novel and elegant method of secure communication over fiber optic lines.

Electromagnetic waves, like light and radio waves, have amplitude (wave heigh

Taking a closer look at matter’s blueprints with a study of the spin-structure functions of the proton and the neutron, collectively known as nucleons

Building a bridge over land or water requires careful engineering. There is the weight of passing cars and trucks to consider. Will high winds or turbulent weather threaten the structure? How deep should the concrete foundations be poured? How best to affix the steel supports? What is the ideal mix of materials for strength, durabi

Amazingly Sharp VLT Image of Lunar Landscape

Thirty-three years after the first manned landing on the Moon, the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) has obtained what may be the sharpest image of the lunar surface ever recorded from the ground. It was made with the NAOS-CONICA (NACO) adaptive optics camera mounted on the ESO VLT 8.2-m YEPUN telescope at the Paranal Observatory.

The photo (ESO PR Photo 19a/02) shows an area about 700 km from the Apollo XI landing site. The location

You`d be forgiven for thinking that an American predicted anti-matter. Or that it only existed in Star Trek. In fact, it was Paul Dirac, a Bristol born physicist, who predicted the stuff that propels starships in science fiction movies and who has also influenced much of our modern day technology, for example, computers. Today, 8 August is the centenary of Dirac`s birth. The Institute of Physics celebrates Dirac`s life and legacy in 2002, with six Manga (japanese cartoon-style) posters.

A s

Rich and Inspiring Experience with NGC 300 Images from the ESO Science Data Archive
A series of wide-field images centred on the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 300, obtained with the Wide-Field Imager (WFI) on the MPG/ESO 2.2-m telescope at the La Silla Observatory, have been combined into a magnificent colour photo.

These images have been used by different groups of astronomers for various kinds of scientific investigations, ranging from individual stars and nebulae in NGC 300, to distant gal

Supermassive black holes at the hearts of large galaxies merge when their host galaxies do, say Professor David Merritt of Rutgers University, New Jersey, and Professor Ron Ekers of CSIRO’s Australia Telescope National Facility in Sydney, Australia.

The astronomers make their claim in a paper published online in Science Express on August 1 [U.S. time].

Merritt and Ekers’ model is the strongest evidence to date that the black holes’ mutual attraction ends in an embrace rather than

When physicists sandwiched together different types of semiconductor to create the first transistor in 1947, they made bulky vacuum valves obsolete and so revolutionised the electronics industry. Since then researchers have been pushing the boundaries of semiconductor technology hoping for another revolution. At the 26th International Conference on the Physics of Semiconductors in Edinburgh from 29 July to 2 August, progress towards ultra-high density magnetic recording, and a new branch of nanotech

A physics professor’s invention to decontaminate industrial wastewater could become a powerful new weapon against anthrax.

Peter McIntyre and a group of colleagues at Texas A&M University have developed a cost-effective device to produce high energy electron beams that can break down harmful organic molecules in water – and destroy bacteria such as anthrax in food – or even on mail.

“William Cooper at the University of North Carolina showed that high-powered beams of e