Lancaster scientists have demonstrated that other physicists’ recent “discovery” of the field effect in superconductors is nothing but hot electrons after all. A team of scientists in the Lancaster Physics Department have found new and compelling evidence that the observation of the field effect in superconducting metals by another group can be explained by a simple mechanism involving the injection of the electrons, without the need for novel physics. Dr Sergey Kafanov, who initiated this experiment, said: “Our results unambiguously…

University of Rochester researchers use vectorial time reversal to demonstrate enhanced channel capacity in a 1-km-long multimode fiber. The use of multimode optical fibers to boost the information capacity of the Internet is severely hampered by distortions that occur during the transmission of images because of a phenomenon called modal crosstalk. However, University of Rochester researchers at the Institute of Optics have devised a novel technique, described in a paper in Nature Communications, to “flip” the optical wavefront of an…

A novel technique for studying vortices in quantum fluids has been developed by Lancaster physicists. Andrew Guthrie, Sergey Kafanov, Theo Noble, Yuri Pashkin, George Pickett and Viktor Tsepelin, in collaboration with scientists from Moscow State University, used tiny mechanical resonators to detect individual quantum vortices in superfluid helium. Their work is published in the current volume of Nature Communications. This research into quantum turbulence is simpler than turbulence in the real world, which is observed in everyday phenomena such as…

The promise of a quantum internet depends on the complexities of harnessing light to transmit quantum information over fiber optic networks. A potential step forward was reported today by researchers in Sweden who developed integrated chips that can generate light particles on demand and without the need for extreme refrigeration. Quantum computing today relies on states of matter, that is, electrons which carry qubits of information to perform multiple calculations simultaneously, in a fraction of the time it takes with…

In the last few years, several technology companies including Google, Microsoft, and IBM, have massively invested in quantum computing systems based on microwave superconducting circuit platforms in an effort to scale them up from small research-oriented systems to commercialized computing platforms. But fulfilling the potential of quantum computers requires a significant increase in the number of qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers, which can store and manipulate quantum information. But quantum signals can be contaminated by thermal noise generated…

Machine learning helps some of the best microscopes to see better, work faster, and process more data. To observe the swift neuronal signals in a fish brain, scientists have started to use a technique called light-field microscopy, which makes it possible to image such fast biological processes in 3D. But the images are often lacking in quality, and it takes hours or days for massive amounts of data to be converted into 3D volumes and movies. Now, EMBL scientists have…

A new experiment shows that the more energy consumed by a clock, the more accurate its timekeeping. Clocks pervade every aspect of life, from the atomic clocks that underlie satellite navigation to the cellular clocks inside our bodies. All of them consume energy and release heat. A kitchen clock, for example, does this by using up its battery. Generally the most accurate clocks require the most energy, which hints at a fundamental connection between energy consumption and accuracy. This is…

Physicists at the University of Bath in the UK observe modified energy landscapes at the intersection of 2D materials. In 1884, Edwin Abbott wrote the novel Flatland: A Romance in Many Dimensions as a satire of Victorian hierarchy. He imagined a world that existed only in two dimensions, where the beings are 2D geometric figures. The physics of such a world is somewhat akin to that of modern 2D materials, such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides, which include tungsten…

The evolution of microchips seemed to have reached its limits, as far as their size is concerned. Nevertheless, it is crucial that these small components be-come even smaller and more powerful so that many devices — including smartphones — can be developed even further. The Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology ISIT in Itzehoe and IMS Nanofabrication GmbH have now succeeded in pushing the existing boundaries when it comes to MEMS pro-cessing of a microsystem switching element which is at the…

Software plays a key role in modern science. Experiments that produce large amounts of data generally need substantial software-based analysis to extract understanding. Simulation-based research in particular yields results based solely on the computer-based generation of data and its subsequent analysis. For publications, the scientific principle of reproducibility requires that studies and processes are documented and archived to such a level that they can be repeated at a later point – by the original authors as well as by other…

In an international collaboration, researchers at the University of Stuttgart were able to detect quantum bits in two-dimensional materials for the first time. Nature Materials covers this in its May 6, 2021 issue. Quantum computers or quantum sensors consist of materials that are completely different to their classic predecessors. These materials are faced with the challenge of combining contradicting properties that quantum technologies entail, as for example good accessibility of quantum bits with maximum shielding from environmental influences. In this…

Physicists from the University of Oldenburg generate exotic quantum state in an atomically thin crystal. At extremely low temperatures, matter often behaves differently than in normal conditions. At temperatures only a few degrees above absolute zero (-273 degrees Celsius), physical particles may give up their independence and merge for a short time into a single object in which all the particles share the same properties. Such structures are known as Bose-Einstein Condensates, and they represent a special aggregate state of…

Ultrasound is an indispensable tool for the life sciences and various industrial applications due to its non-destructive, high contrast, and high resolution qualities. A persistent challenge over the years has been how to increase the resolution of an acoustic endoscope without drastically increasing the footprint of the probe, or risking the robustness of the ultrasonic transducer. In recent years, a host of all-optical ultrasonic imaging techniques have emerged – which generally utilise pulsed lasers and optical cavities to excite and…

New observations and simulations show that jets of high-energy particles emitted from the central massive black hole in the brightest galaxy in galaxy clusters can be used to map the structure of invisible inter-cluster magnetic fields. These findings provide astronomers with a new tool for investigating previously unexplored aspects of clusters of galaxies. As clusters of galaxies grow through collisions with surrounding matter, they create bow shocks and wakes in their dilute plasma. The plasma motion induced by these activities…

A curiously yellow pre-supernova star has caused astrophysicists to re-evaluate what’s possible at the deaths of our Universe’s most massive stars. The team describe the peculiar star and its resulting supernova in a new study published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. At the end of their lives, cool, yellow stars are typically shrouded in hydrogen, which conceals the star’s hot, blue interior. But this yellow star, located 35 million light years from Earth in the Virgo…

Common bioprinting methods fail to direct cell orientation at the individual cell level, but a technique can with implications for engineering skeletal muscles, tendons, and ligaments. 3D bioprinting can create engineered scaffolds that mimic natural tissue. Controlling the cellular organization within those engineered scaffolds for regenerative applications is a complex and challenging process. Cell tissues tend to be highly ordered in terms of spatial distribution and alignment, so bioengineered cellular scaffolds for tissue engineering applications must closely resemble this orientation…