The Webb team has completed tensioning for the first three layers of the observatory’s kite-shaped sunshield, 47 feet across and 70 feet long. The first layer – pulled fully taut into its final configuration – was completed mid-afternoon. The team began the second layer at 4:09 pm EST today, and the process took 74 minutes. The third layer began at 5:48 pm EST, and the process took 71 minutes. In all, the tensioning process from the first steps this morning until…

Microscopic electric fields govern a remarkable variety of phenomena in condensed matter and their ultrafast evolutions drive plasmonics, phononics and highspeed nanoelectronics. Access to high-frequency electric waveforms is of crucial importance to diverse disciplines in nanoscience and technology, yet, microscopic measurements are still severely limited. In a new paper published in Light: Science & Applications, a team of scientists, led by Prof. Georg Herink from the University of Bayreuth, Germany, and co-workers from the University of Melbourne, Australia, has introduced…

Liquid-metal experiment provides insight into the heating mechanism of the Sun’s corona. Why the Sun’s corona reaches temperatures of several million degrees Celsius is one of the great mysteries of solar physics. A “hot” trail to explain this effect leads to a region of the solar atmosphere just below the corona, where sound waves and certain plasma waves travel at the same speed. In an experiment using the molten alkali metal rubidium and pulsed high magnetic fields, a team from…

Quantum mechanically entangled light particles break down the boundaries of conventional optics and allow a glimpse into previously invisible wavelength ranges, thus bringing about new possibilities for imaging techniques, microscopy and spectroscopy. Unearthing these possibilities and creating technological solutions was the goal of the Fraunhofer lighthouse project QUILT, the results of which are now available. Light can do some amazing things. For example, light particles (photons) be entangled upon creation, which connects them inextricably to one another in terms of…

Since the 1960s, there has been speculation about a hypothetical propulsion method for interstellar space travel. Calculations at TU Wien (Vienna) show: it will remain science fiction. In science fiction stories about contact with extraterrestrial civilisations, there is a problem: What kind of propulsion system could make it possible to bridge the enormous distances between the stars? It cannot be done with ordinary rockets like those used to travel to the moon or Mars. Many more or less speculative ideas…

An international team of researchers have used a unique tool inserted into an electron microscope to create a transistor that’s 25,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. The research, published in the journal Science, involves researchers from Japan, China, Russia and Australia who have worked on the project that began five years ago. QUT Centre for Materials Science co-director Professor Dmitri Golberg, who led the research project, said the result was a “very interesting fundamental discovery” which…

Cylindrical vector beam (CVB) multiplexing has emerged as a powerful technique to boost signal channels. Coupling and separating CVBs are two pivotal elements in CVB multiplexing communication. Although off-axis control technologies, such as miniature Dammann vortex gratings, have been investigated to couple and separate light beams, it is usually limited to light beams with homogeneous polarization due to its phase-only grating structure. For CVBs with inhomogeneous polarization, a gradient phase device is required to create a gradient phase difference between…

In an article published in the prestigious journal Science Advances, researchers* from Politecnico di Torino and National Institute of Metrological Research (INRiM) have proposed an innovative approach, based on quantum technologies, to check if a production process conforms to a reference or if it a “defective” one. An effective monitoring of the production processes is fundamental both for the safety of the released products and the economic efficiency of the process itself. Conformity tests are often performed with measurements on…

While working with helium nanodroplets, scientists at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, have come across a surprising phenomenon: When the ultracold droplets hit a hard surface, they behave like drops of water. Ions with which they were previously doped thus remain protected on impact and are not neutralized. At the Department of Ion Physics and Applied Physics of the University of Innsbruck, Paul Scheier’s research group has been using helium nanodroplets to study ions with methods of mass spectrometry for…

A levitating vehicle might someday explore the moon, asteroids, and other airless planetary surfaces. Aerospace engineers at MIT are testing a new concept for a hovering rover that levitates by harnessing the moon’s natural charge. Because they lack an atmosphere, the moon and other airless bodies such as asteroids can build up an electric field through direct exposure to the sun and surrounding plasma. On the moon, this surface charge is strong enough to levitate dust more than 1 meter…

Spartans joined an international team to create an isotope of magnesium that’s never been seen before. In collaboration with an international team of researchers, Michigan State University has helped create the world’s lightest version, or isotope, of magnesium to date. Forged at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at MSU, or NSCL, this isotope is so unstable, it falls apart before scientists can measure it directly. Yet this isotope that isn’t keen on existing can help researchers better understand how the…

A “game changing” new telescope will be blasted into space tonight to embark on a lonely 1.5-million-kilometre orbit around the Sun to provide a clearer view of the ever-expanding universe. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the largest telescope ever to be launched into space and will be used by University of Queensland researchers to observe asteroids and newborn planets, as well as black holes in distant galaxies. UQ astrophysicist Dr Benjamin Pope said he’s excited by the capabilities…

Puzzling result forces physicists to rethink ‘spin-triplet’ superconductivity. A Rice University-led study is forcing physicists to rethink superconductivity in uranium ditelluride, an A-list material in the worldwide race to create fault-tolerant quantum computers. Uranium ditelluride crystals are believed to host a rare “spin-triplet” form of superconductivity, but puzzling experimental results published this week in Nature have upended the leading explanation of how the state of matter could arise in the material. Neutron-scattering experiments by physicists from Rice, Oak Ridge National…

An international study shows which factors determine the speed limit for quantum computations. Which factors determine how fast a quantum computer can perform its calculations? Physicists at the University of Bonn and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology have devised an elegant experiment to answer this question. The results of the study are published in the journal Science Advances. Quantum computers are highly sophisticated machines that rely on the principles of quantum mechanics to process information. This should enable…

The more than 70 sunless worlds are each roughly the mass of Jupiter. Using observations and archival data from several of NSF’s NOIRLab’s observatories, together with observations from telescopes around the world and in orbit, astronomers have discovered at least 70 new free-floating planets — planets that wander through space without a parent star — in a nearby region of the Milky Way. This is the largest sample of such planets found in a single group and it nearly doubles…

Miniaturization of optical components is a challenge in photonics. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Friedrich Schiller University Jena have now succeeded in developing a diffuser, a disk that scatters light, based on silicon nanoparticles. It can be used to specifically control the direction, color, and polarization of light. This novel technology may be used in transparent screens or augmented reality. The results are reported in Advanced Materials (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202105868). Photonics, the science of generating, spreading, and detecting…