The integration of efficient, scalable, and cost-effective nanoscale lasers is essential for optical interconnects, medical diagnostics, and super-resolution imaging. Particularly, telecom-band NW lasers are promising for on-chip coherent light sources in photonic integrated circuits, which drive innovations in optical and quantum communication and computing. Achieving high-quality NWs with smooth sidewalls, controlled dimensions, and precise crystal composition is imperative for these applications. However, the epitaxial growth of high-quality multi-quantum well (MQW) nanowires (NWs) with both good structural and optical properties, along…

Smile for the camera! An interaction between an elliptical galaxy and a spiral galaxy, collectively known as Arp 107, seems to have given the spiral a happier outlook thanks to the two bright “eyes” and the wide semicircular “smile.” The region has been observed before in infrared by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope in 2005, however NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope displays it in much higher resolution. This image is a composite, combining observations from Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) and NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). NIRCam highlights the…

FBH at Photonics Days 2024. On October 9 and 10, 2024, the Ferdinand-Braun-Institut will contribute to the Photonics Days Berlin Brandenburg with lectures and the accompanying exhibition. For two days, experts from research and industry will meet in Berlin Adlershof to discuss current trends in laser technology, heterointegration, microsystems technology, and various other topics. A key focus on October 9 and 10 will be on quantum technologies. Prof. Tim Schröder, who heads the Joint Lab Diamond Nanophotonics at Ferdinand-Braun-Institut (FBH)…

After an unexpected measurement by the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) experiment in 2022, physicists on the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment (CMS) at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) announced today a new mass measurement of the W boson, one of nature’s force-carrying particles. This new measurement, which is a first for the CMS experiment, uses a new technique that makes it the most elaborate investigation of the W boson’s mass to date. Following nearly a decade of analysis, CMS has found…

The spacecraft bus that will deliver NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to its orbit and enable it to function once there is now complete after years of construction, installation, and testing. Now that the spacecraft is assembled, engineers will begin working to integrate the observatory’s other major components, including the science instruments and the telescope itself. “They call it a spacecraft bus for a reason — it gets the telescope to where it needs to be in space,” said…

The AQT quantum computer, featuring 20 qubits based on trapped-ion technology, is now operational at LRZ’s Quantum Integration Centre (QIC), making it the first of its kind in a computing center. The system supports both MQV’s quantum software development efforts and selected research groups from Munich Quantum Valley (MQV) accessing the system during a pilot phase starting in October. The system was purchased by MQV and funded by the Free State of Bavaria with around 9.8 million Euros as part…

Theorists turn to supercomputers to help build a 3D picture of the structures of protons and neutrons. Deep inside what we perceive as solid matter, the landscape is anything but stationary. The interior of the building blocks of the atom’s nucleus — particles called hadrons that a high school student would recognize as protons and neutrons — are made up of a seething mixture of interacting quarks and gluons, known collectively as partons. A group of physicists has now come…

TU Wien (Vienna) has succeeded in generating laser-synchronised ion pulses with a duration of well under 500 picoseconds, which can be used to observe chemical processes on material surfaces. If you want to photograph something very fast, you need a camera with a very short exposure time. The same principle applies everywhere in physics: for example, extremely short laser pulses are used to visualise the processes that take place within atoms. However, it is not only laser pulses that provide…

A different qubit architecture could enable easier manufacturing of quantum computer building blocks without compromising performance. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have shown that a type of qubit whose architecture is more amenable to mass production can perform comparably to qubits currently dominating the field. With a series of mathematical analyses, the scientists have provided a roadmap for simpler qubit fabrication that enables robust and reliable manufacturing of these quantum computer building blocks. This…

Researchers from the Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat have developed a method to model a central theory of quantum gravity in the laboratory. Their goal: to decipher previously unexplained phenomena in the quantum world. Gravity is no longer a mystery to physicists – at least when it comes to large distances: thanks to science, we can calculate the orbits of planets, predict tides, and send rockets into space with precision. However, the theoretical description of gravity reaches its limits at the…

A research team led by Prof JIANG Bin from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) proposed a novel approach to accurately describe electron transfer mediated nonadiabatic dynamics of molecules at metal surfaces. Their works were published in Physical Review Letters. Numerous experimental phenomena have demonstrated that non-adiabatic energy transfer is widespread in various interfacial processes. Therefore, studying non-adiabatic energy transfer is crucial for understanding interfacial processes such as chemical adsorption, electrochemistry, and plasmonic catalysis. However,…

Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope to confirm that supermassive black holes can starve their host galaxies of the fuel they need to form new stars. The international team, co-led by the University of Cambridge, used Webb to observe a galaxy roughly the size of the Milky Way in the early universe, about two billion years after the Big Bang. Like most large galaxies, it has a supermassive black hole at its centre. However, this galaxy is…

A team of researchers of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) in Hamburg, Germany and Brookhaven National Laboratory in the United States has demonstrated a new way to study disorder in superconductors using terahertz pulses of light. Adapting methods used in nuclear magnetic resonance to terahertz spectroscopy, the team was able to follow the evolution of disorder in the transport properties up to the superconducting transition temperature for the first time. The work by…

Two researchers at the University of Warsaw developed a quantum-inspired super-resolving spectrometer for short pulses of light. The device designed in the Quantum Optical Devices Lab at the Centre for Quantum Optical Technologies, Centre of New Technologies and Faculty of Physics UW offers over a two-fold improvement in resolution compared to standard approaches. In the future, it can be miniaturized on a photonic chip and applied in optical and quantum networks as well as in spectroscopic studies of matter. The…

The CHAI joint project aims to optimize corrosion management in ports and waterways. The federal state of Schleswig-Holstein is funding the CHAI research project with a total of 900,000 euros. The project is being led by the Helmholtz Center Hereon. The partners are the Port of Kiel, Christian Albrechts Universität zu Kiel (CAU) and AC Korro-Service GmbH. CHAI stands for “Clever corrosion management for ports and waterways in Schleswig-Holstein using automated infrastructure monitoring”. The aim is to use AI to…

An international team of researchers has found a surprisingly simple relationship between the rates of energy and information transmission across an interface connecting two quantum field theories. Their work was published in Physical Review Letters on August 30. The interface between different quantum field theories is an important concept that arises in a variety of problems in particle physics and condensed matter physics. However, it has been difficult to calculate the transmission rates of energy and information across interfaces. Hirosi…