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’….

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…

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…

Researchers exploring the interactions between light particles, photons and matter find that optical microresonators host quasiparticles made by two photons. Scientists at the University of Bath in the UK have found a way to bind together two photons of different colours, paving the way for important advancements in quantum-electrodynamics – the field of science that describes how light and matter interact. In time, the team’s findings are likely to impact developments in optical and quantum communication, and precision measurements of…

Hurricane resembling those in lower atmosphere observed over Earth’s polar ionosphere. The first observations of a space hurricane have been revealed in Earth’s upper atmosphere, confirming their existence and shedding new light on the relationship between planets and space. Hurricanes in the Earth’s low atmosphere are known, but they had never before been detected in the upper atmosphere. An international team of scientists led by Shandong University in China analysed observations made by satellites in 2014 to reveal a long-lasting…

Using a new method, physicists from TU Bergakademie Freiberg, in cooperation with researchers from Berkeley (USA) and Hamburg, are for the first time analyzing at the femtosecond scale the processes in a model system for organic solar cells in detail. The results can be used to develop high-performance and efficient solar cells. The key are the ultra-fast flashes of light, with which the team led by Dr. Friedrich Roth works at FLASH in Hamburg, the world’s first free-electron laser in…

Nanoscale sound waves vibrate artificial atom A German-polish research team from Augsburg, Münster, Munich and Wrocław successfully mixed nanoscale sound waves and light quanta. In their study published in Optica the scientists use an ’artificial atom’ that converts the vibrations of the sound wave to single light quanta – photons – with unprecedented precision. The demonstrated fundamental principle marks an important step toward the development of future hybrid quantum technologies. Light and sound waves form the backbone of modern communication…

Fraunhofer IAF starts a project on compact on-chip sources for entangled photons, which are an important component for the realization of industrial quantum technology applications. In the project “QuoAlA”, scientists are researching waveguides based on aluminum gallium arsenide (AlGaAs) as sources for generating entangled photons. AlGaAs enables a particularly compact design and chip integration. The project started in February and is funded by the BMBF within the funding program “Quantum technologies—from basic research to market” as “WiVoPro” (Scientific Preliminary Project)….

In a new publication in the scientific journal “Nature Materials”, researchers of the Institute for Applied Physics at TU Dresden introduce a novel device concept towards high-efficient and low-voltage vertical organic lighting-emitting transistors. With the new device architecture and fabrication technology, the team paves the way for a broad application of efficient OLED active matrix displays. In the group of Prof. Karl Leo, physicists, material scientists and engineers are working jointly on the development of novel organic materials and devices…

The scientists have demonstrated how to structure light such that its polarization behaves like a collective of spins in a ferromagnet forming half-skyrmion (also known as merons). To achieve this the light was trapped in a thin liquid crystal layer between two nearly perfect mirrors. Skyrmions in general are found, e.g., as elementary excitations of magnetization in a two-dimensional ferromagnet but do not naturally appear in electromagnetic (light) fields. One of the key concepts in physics, and science overall is…

Radioactivity in meteorites sheds light on origin of heaviest elements in our solar system. A team of international researchers went back to the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago to gain new insights into the cosmic origin of the heaviest elements on the periodic table. Led by scientists who collaborate as part of the International Research Network for Nuclear Astrophysics (IReNA) (irenaweb.org) and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics – Center for the Evolution of the Elements…

Astronomers accurately measure the temperature of red supergiant stars. Red supergiants are a class of star that end their lives in supernova explosions. Their lifecycles are not fully understood, partly due to difficulties in measuring their temperatures. For the first time, astronomers develop an accurate method to determine the surface temperatures of red supergiants. Stars come in a wide range of sizes, masses and compositions. Our sun is considered a relatively small specimen, especially when compared to something like Betelgeuse…

A new theoretical study has proposed a novel mechanism for the creation of supermassive black holes from dark matter. The international team find that rather than the conventional formation scenarios involving ‘normal’ matter, supermassive black holes could instead form directly from dark matter in high density regions in the centres of galaxies. The result has key implications for cosmology in the early Universe, and is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Exactly how supermassive black holes initially…

Physicists from the University of Regensburg develop a new method for counting molecules. Who hasn’t looked at the sky on a mild summer night and thought about the vastness of the universe? The trained eye can see the Andromeda galaxy as a distant spot. Thanks to the latest telescopes, we know that it consists of over a trillion stars. In the “nanocosm”, clusters of individual light sources, such as molecules, also appear as points. Resolving these light sources spatially is…

Quantum experiments that could previously only be performed with photons are now also possible with atoms: Beams of entangled atoms have been produced at TU Wien (Vienna). Heads or tails? If we toss two coins into the air, the result of one coin toss has nothing to do with the result of the other. Coins are independent objects. In the world of quantum physics, things are different: quantum particles can be entangled, in which case they can no longer be…

MPQ researchers realize the first quantum-logic computer operation between two separate quantum modules in different laboratories. Today’s quantum computers contain up to several dozen memory and processing units, the so-called qubits. Severin Daiss, Stefan Langenfeld, and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching have successfully interconnected two such qubits located in different labs to a distributed quantum computer by linking the qubits with a 60-meter-long optical fiber. Over such a distance they realized a quantum-logic gate…