Physicists from Bayreuth develop basic principles for mini-laboratories on chips. Colloidal particles have become increasingly important for research as vehicles of biochemical agents. In future, it will be possible to study their behaviour much more efficiently than before by placing them on a magnetised chip. A research team from the University of Bayreuth reports on these new findings in the journal Nature Communications. The scientists have discovered that colloidal rods can be moved on a chip quickly, precisely, and in…

Using the energy from the sun as efficiently as nature does and converting it into chemical energy could drastically reduce global CO2 emissions. A research team from the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (Leibniz IPHT) and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena has now come one step closer to this vision. The researchers have developed a chemical system that collects light energy and stores it on a molecule for at least 14 hours. Based on a copper complex, their system thus…

HZDR team develops novel source for quantum light particles Quantum technology holds great promise: Just a few years from now, quantum computers are expected to revolutionize database searches, AI systems, and computational simulations. Today already, quantum cryptography can guarantee absolutely secure data transfer, albeit with limitations. The greatest possible compatibility with our current silicon-based electronics will be a key advantage. And that is precisely where physicists from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and TU Dresden have made remarkable progress: The team…

A team of Indian and Japanese physicists have overturned the six-decade old notion that the giant magnetic field in a high intensity laser produced plasma evolves from the small, nanometre scale in the bulk plasma [1]. They show that instead the field actually originates at macroscopic scales defined by the boundaries of the electron beam that is propagating in the plasma. The new mechanism seeks to alter our understanding of magnetic fields in astrophysical scenarios and laser fusion and may…

Scientists have discovered an elegant way of manipulating light using a “synthetic” Lorentz force — which in nature is responsible for many fascinating phenomena including the Aurora Borealis. A team of theoretical physicists from the University of Exeter has pioneered a new technique to create tuneable artificial magnetic fields, which enable photons to mimic the dynamics of charged particles in real magnetic fields. The team believe the new research, published in leading journal Nature Photonics, could have important implications for…

A step forward to understand biomarker molecule An international team of astronomers detected phosphine (PH3) in the atmosphere of Venus. They studied the origin of phosphine, but no inorganic processes, including supply from volcanos and atmospheric photochemistry can explain the detected amount of phosphine. The phosphine is believed to originate from unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, but the team does not completely reject the possibility of biological origin. This discovery is crucial to examine the validity of phosphine as a biomarker….

Scientists of Tomsk Polytechnic University jointly with international colleagues have found a simple technique to dynamically curve a photonic jet, turning it into a photonic hook. The photon jet effect was discovered in the early 2000s. The jet is an electromagnetic wave focused at the surface of a quartz glass microsphere, which is at lens focus. This jet has a unique transverse dimension, which is less than the diffraction limit. This feature of the photon jet drew the attention of…

In a very unusual way, the electrical and magnetic properties of a particular crystal are linked together – the phenomenon was discovered and explained at TU Wien (Vienna). Electricity and magnetism are closely related: Power lines generate a magnetic field, rotating magnets in a generator produce electricity. However, the phenomenon is much more complicated: electrical and magnetic properties of certain materials are also coupled with each other. Electrical properties of some crystals can be influenced by magnetic fields – and…

Harvard researchers become first to cool polyatomic molecule using light. After firing the lasers and bombarding the molecules with light, the scientists gathered around the camera to check the results. By seeing how far these cold molecules expanded they would know almost instantly whether they were on the right track or not to charting new paths in quantum science by being the first to cool (aka slow down) a particularly complex, six-atom molecule using nothing but light. “When we started…

As missions like NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, TESS and Kepler continue to provide insights into the properties of exoplanets (planets around other stars), scientists are increasingly able to piece together what these planets look like, what they are made of, and if they could be habitable or even inhabited. In a new study published recently in The Planetary Science Journal, a team of researchers from Arizona State University (ASU) and the University of Chicago have determined that some carbon-rich exoplanets,…

Lasing – the emission of a collimated light beam of light with a well-defined wavelength (color) and phase – results from a self-organization process, in which a collection of emission centers synchronizes itself to produce identical light particles (photons). A similar self-organized synchronization phenomenon can also lead to the generation of coherent vibrations – a phonon laser, where phonon denotes, in analogy to photons, the quantum particles of sound. Photon lasing was first demonstrated approximately 60 years ago and, coincidentally,…

TU Freiberg develops new model for pyroelectric reactions Pyroelectricity is a phenomenon in physics in which heat can be converted into electricity via certain crystals or into a voltage that can be used for chemical reactions. While the first application is already used in devices such as motion detectors today, the second application, although well-known, has not yet been sufficiently described on a theoretical basis. A team of physicists at TU Bergakademie Freiberg has now found a way to describe…

Concept developed by KIT researchers enables ultra-fast wireless communications at low cost — Highest data rate in terahertz transmission transmission so far — Publication in Nature Photonics Future wireless networks of the 6th generation (6G) will consist of a multitude of small radio cells that need to be connected by broadband communication links. In this context, wireless transmission at THz frequencies represents a particularly attractive and flexible solution. Researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now developed a novel…

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory used quantum optics to advance state-of-the-art microscopy and illuminate a path to detecting material properties with greater sensitivity than is possible with traditional tools. “We showed how to use squeezed light – a workhorse of quantum information science – as a practical resource for microscopy,” said Ben Lawrie of ORNL’s Materials Science and Technology Division, who led the research with Raphael Pooser of ORNL’s Computational Sciences and Engineering Division. “We…

The “IceCube” neutrino observatory deep in the ice of the South Pole has already brought spectacular new insights into cosmic incidents of extremely high energies. In order to investigate the cosmic origins of elementary particles with even higher energies, Prof. Elisa Resconi from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now started an international initiative to build a neutrino telescope several cubic kilometers in size in the northeastern Pacific. Astronomers observe the light that comes to us from distant celestial…

Scientists at Osaka University use extremely intense laser pulses to create magnetized-plasma conditions comparable to those surrounding a black hole, study that may help explain the still mysterious X-rays that can be emitted from some celestial bodies. Laser Engineering at Osaka University have successfully used short, but extremely powerful laser blasts to generate magnetic field reconnection inside a plasma. This work may lead to a more complete theory of X-ray emission from astronomical objects like black holes. In addition to…