Researchers developed a 60-milliwatt solid-state DUV laser at 193 nm using LBO crystals, setting new benchmarks in efficiency values. In the realm of science and technology, harnessing coherent light sources in the deep ultraviolet (DUV) region holds immense significance across various applications such as lithography, defect inspection, metrology, and spectroscopy. Traditionally, high-power 193-nanometer (nm) lasers have been pivotal in lithography, forming an integral part of systems used for precise patterning. However, the coherence limitations associated with conventional ArF excimer lasers…

Researchers at AMOLF, in collaboration with partners from Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, have realized a new type of metamaterial through which sound waves flow in an unprecedented fashion. It provides a novel form of amplification of mechanical vibrations, which has the potential to improve sensor technology and information processing devices. This metamaterial is the first instance of a so-called ‘bosonic Kitaev chain’, which gets its special properties from its nature as a topological material. It was realized by making nanomechanical…

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) might be best known from text or image-creating applications like ChatGPT or Stable Diffusion. But its usefulness beyond that is being shown in more and more different scientific fields. In their recent work, to be presented at the upcoming International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), researchers from the Center for Advanced Systems Understanding (CASUS) at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) in collaboration with colleagues from Imperial College London and University College London have provided a new open-source…

… Spiraling at the Edge of Milky Way’s Central Black Hole. A new image from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, with significant contribution of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, has uncovered strong and organized magnetic fields spiraling from the edge of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). Seen in polarized light for the first time, this new view of the monster lurking at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy has revealed a…

… Can Identify Early Signs of Alzheimer’s disease. Dedicated memory tests on smartphones enable the detection of “mild cognitive impairment”, a condition that may indicate Alzheimer’s disease, with high accuracy. Researchers from DZNE, the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States who collaborated with the Magdeburg-based company “neotiv” report these findings in the scientific journal “npj Digital Medicine”. Their study is based on data from 199 older adults. The results underline the potential of mobile…

Researchers from Jena, Würzburg and Potsdam have successfully developed a design for the smallest system of its kind so far to take highly secure quantum communication to space: Led by Fraunhofer IOF, the project CubEniK developed an ultracompact payload for a satellite the size of a shoe box, a so called “CubeSat”. The goal of the mini satellite is to transmit a secure quantum key over a distance of 300 kilometers between two ground stations in Jena and Munich. When…

Experimental and theoretical physicists from the Würzburg Institute for Topological Insulators observed a re-entrant quantum Hall effect in a mercury telluride device and identify it as a signature of parity anomaly. Topological insulators are materials that can conduct electricity, but only on their surface or edges. No current flows inside them. They are the subject of intensive research worldwide because they have unique electronic properties that are interesting for improving the efficiency of quantum computers, for example, and for other…

With help from a large language model, MIT engineers enabled robots to self-correct after missteps and carry on with their chores. From wiping up spills to serving up food, robots are being taught to carry out increasingly complicated household tasks. Many such home-bot trainees are learning through imitation; they are programmed to copy the motions that a human physically guides them through. It turns out that robots are excellent mimics. But unless engineers also program them to adjust to every…

Entropy, the amount of molecular disorder, is produced in several systems but cannot be measured directly. An equation developed by researchers at Chalmers University of Technology and Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, now sheds new light on how entropy is produced on a very short time scale in laser excited materials. “New computational models give us new research opportunities. Extending thermodynamics for ultrashort excitations will provide novel insights into how materials function on the nanoscale,” says Matthias Geilhufe, Assistant Professor at…

Particles colliding in accelerators produce numerous cascades of secondary particles. The electronics processing the signals avalanching in from the detectors then have a fraction of a second in which to assess whether an event is of sufficient interest to save it for later analysis. In the near future, this demanding task may be carried out using algorithms based on AI, the development of which involves scientists from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the PAS. Electronics has never had an…

NASA’s BurstCube, a shoebox-sized satellite designed to study the universe’s most powerful explosions, is on its way to the International Space Station. The spacecraft travels aboard SpaceX’s 30th Commercial Resupply Services mission, which lifted off at 4:55 p.m. EDT on Thursday, March 21, from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. After arriving at the station, BurstCube will be unpacked and later released into orbit, where it will detect, locate, and study short gamma-ray bursts – brief flashes of high-energy light. “BurstCube…

HZDR team develops new method for addressing qubits. Quantum computers promise to tackle some of the most challenging problems facing humanity today. While much attention has been directed towards the computation of quantum information, the transduction of information within quantum networks is equally crucial in materializing the potential of this new technology. Addressing this need, a research team at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) is now introducing a new approach for transducing quantum information: the team has manipulated quantum bits, so…

In a step toward nanofluidic-based neuromorphic – or brain-inspired – computing, EPFL engineers have succeeded in executing a logic operation by connecting two chips that use ions, rather than electrons, to process data. Memory, or the ability to store information in a readily accessible way, is an essential operation in computers and human brains. A key difference is that while brain information processing involves performing computations directly on stored data, computers shuttle data back and forth between a memory unit…

In a new Nature study, Columbia Engineering researchers have built a photonic chip that is able to produce high-quality, ultra-low-noise microwave signals using only a single laser. The compact device — a chip so small, it could fit on a sharp pencil point — results in the lowest microwave noise ever observed in an integrated photonics platform. The achievement provides a promising pathway towards small-footprint ultra-low-noise microwave generation for applications such as high-speed communication, atomic clocks, and autonomous vehicles. The challenge…

Results suggest the clouds of Venus could be hospitable for some forms of life. If there is life in the solar system beyond Earth, it might be found in the clouds of Venus. In contrast to the planet’s blisteringly inhospitable surface, Venus’ cloud layer, which extends from 30 to 40 miles above the surface, hosts milder temperatures that could support some extreme forms of life. If it’s out there, scientists have assumed that any Venusian cloud inhabitant would look very…

Research team led by Göttingen University make extremely fast, precise images for first time. From solar panels on our roofs to the new OLED TV screens, many everyday electronic devices simply wouldn’t work without the interaction between light and the materials that make up semiconductors. A new category of semiconductors is based on organic molecules, which largely consist of carbon, such as buckminsterfullerene. The way organic semiconductors work is largely determined by their behaviour in the first few moments after…