Digitalization in the metal industry… Fraunhofer researchers have developed an extremely heat-resistant ceramic-based ink. For the first time, this enables metal components processed in the automotive industry at temperatures over 1,000 ºC to be marked with a code. The code can be scanned and is linked to a database in which all the manufacturing parameters for the component in question are stored. The advantages of the technology are not simply the ability to detect production glitches and defective components at…

Maintenance of modern aircraft is a complex process. The use of AR smart glasses with 3D information visualization should make repair and maintenance work easier for aircraft mechanics. Virtual elements such as instructions, displays and technical tools can be operated by way of gesture, voice and gaze control. With the help of augmented reality systems, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics FKIE have developed concepts and solutions for maintaining the Airbus A400M. Modern aircraft are…

Tunneling spectroscopy uncovers the clearest proof yet that this exotic superconducting state of matter exists without a magnetic field in an iron-based superconductor. In the field of superconductivity—the phenomenon in which electrons can flow through a material with essentially zero resistance—the “holy grail” of discovery is a superconductor that can perform under everyday temperatures and pressures. Such a material could revolutionize modern life. But currently, even the “high-temperature” (high-Tc) superconductors that have been discovered must be kept very cold to…

Subtropical mode water (STMW) is a vertically homogeneous thermocline water mass, serving as heat, carbon, and oxygen silos in the ocean interior and providing memory of climate variability for climate prediction. Understanding physics governing STMW formation is thus of broad scientific significance and has received much attention. Traditionally, it has been considered that STMW is constructed by basin-scale atmospheric forcing. Due to the limitations resulting from sparse sampling of observations and coarse resolution of climate models, less knowledge is acquired…

Electrical current is a stream of charged elementary particles.  In semiconductor devices, ballistic electrons move at high speeds, making it difficult to address them individually.  A controlled collision of individual electrons can provide the time resolution required for one electron to interrogate the other. The operating principle of such an electron collider circuit is similar to hitting one fast moving projectile with another well-timed shot. The challenge is therefore to precisely synchronize two individual electrons to exploit their interaction.  …

German research institutes participating at the forefront of dark matter and dark energy research. Euclid, an ESA space telescope with strong German participation, was launched into space on 1 July 2023, at 17:12 CEST on a Falcon 9 rocket from the US space company SpaceX. From its destination, the Lagrange Point 2 (L2) of the Earth and the Sun, it will observe over a third of the entire sky for at least six years and map the spatial distribution of…

System could be used aboard underwater vehicles for many applications. Researchers report a new single-photon Raman lidar system that operates underwater and can remotely distinguish various substances. They also show that the new system can detect the thickness of the oil underwater up to 12 m away, which could be useful for detecting oil spills. “Differentiating substances in water and detecting their distribution characteristics in the ocean are of great significance for marine monitoring and scientific research,” said research team…

SUTD scientists developed a novel CMOS-compatible, slow-light-based transmission grating device for the dispersion compensation of high-speed data, significantly lowering data transmission errors and paving the way for on-chip integration. Fibre optics is now the fastest and most reliable technology to deliver internet connection. Data is transmitted through fast-travelling pulses of light that bounce off the walls of the fibre cables to allow the signal to travel further with less attenuation. However, fibre data transmission is subject to dispersion, or signal…

A Brown University-led research team explains in a new study how gullies on the slopes of Martian craters could have formed by on-and-off periods of meltwater from ice on and beneath the planet’s surface. A study led by Brown University researchers offers new insights into how water from melting ice could have played a recent role in the formation of ravine-like channels that cut down the sides of impact craters on Mars. The study, published in Science, focuses on Martian…

For the first time, researchers have produced an image of the Milky Way using neutrinos, which were observed with the IceCube telescope in the Antarctic ice. The neutrino image suggests that cosmic ray interactions are more intense in the center of our galaxy than once thought. The results are published in an article in the journal Science. For ages, the view of our Milky Way galaxy has inspired awe, visible with the naked eye as a hazy band of stars…

A system using photonics-based synthetic dimensions could be used to help explain complex natural phenomena. Scientists have made an important step toward developing computers advanced enough to simulate complex natural phenomena at the quantum level. While these types of simulations are too cumbersome or outright impossible for classical computers to handle, photonics-based quantum computing systems could provide a solution. A team of researchers from the University of Rochester’s Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences developed a new chip-scale optical quantum…

For the first time, astrophysicists have found compelling evidence for the existence of gravitational waves which oscillate with periods ranging from years to decades. For this, the researchers evaluated data from the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves. Prof. Kai Schmitz from Münster University and Dr. Andrea Mitridate from DESY in Hamburg are involved in one of a total of five current research articles. This publication deals with the hypothesis that NANOGrav sees gravitational waves which were produced in…

An international collaboration of European astronomers including the Max Planck Institutes for Radio Astronomy and Gravitational Physics, together with Indian and Japanese colleagues, have published the results of more than 25 years of observations from six of the World’s most sensitive radio telescopes. Along with other international collaborations, the European and Indian Pulsar Timing Arrays have independently found evidence for ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves, expected to come from pairs of supermassive black holes found in the centres of merging galaxies. These…

NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) mission acquired stunning views of Mars in two ultraviolet images taken at different points along our neighboring planet’s orbit around the Sun. By viewing the planet in ultraviolet wavelengths, scientists can gain insight into the Martian atmosphere and view surface features in remarkable ways. MAVEN’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument obtained these global views of Mars in 2022 and 2023 when the planet was near opposite ends of its elliptical orbit. The IUVS…

A group of Chinese scientists has recently found key evidence for the existence of nanohertz gravitational waves, marking a new era in nanoHertz gravitational wave research. The research was based on pulsar timing observations carried out with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). The research was conducted by the Chinese Pulsar Timing Array (CPTA) collaboration, which comprises researchers from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) and other institutes. Their findings were published online in…

The exploration of quantum computing will expand longstanding IBM and RPI partnership and seeks to accelerate New York’s growth as a next-generation computing epicenter. Today, it was announced that Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will become the first university in the world to house an IBM Quantum System One. The IBM quantum computer, intended to be operational by January of 2024, will serve as the foundation of a new IBM Quantum Computational Center in partnership with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). By partnering, RPI’s…