Researchers from the University of Augsburg and ETH Zurich have discovered giant conductivity of nanometre-sized domain walls separating polar regions in a non-oxide ferroelectric material. The high sensitivity of these walls to applied magnetic fields enables gigantic switching of the sample resistance, thus providing a route to new nanoelectronic building blocks. Such behaviour is unprecedented in non-oxides, which are less hampered by defects and deviations in composition than oxides. Materials that exhibit a spontaneous electric polarization are called ferroelectrics. The…
An international team anchored by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration known for capturing the first image of a black hole in the galaxy M87 has, led by Michael Janssen (MPIfR Bonn & Radboud University Nijmegen) imaged the heart of the nearby radio galaxy Centaurus A in unprecedented detail. The astronomers pinpoint the location of the central supermassive black hole and reveal how a gigantic jet is being born. Most remarkably, only the outer edges of the jet seem to…
A one-atom thin 2D magnet could advance new applications in computing and electronics. The development of an ultrathin magnet that operates at room temperature could lead to new applications in computing and electronics – such as high-density, compact spintronic memory devices – and new tools for the study of quantum physics. The ultrathin magnet, which was recently reported in the journal Nature Communications , could make big advances in next-gen memories, computing, spintronics, and quantum physics. It was discovered by…
Great leaps in science and technology have been propelled by recent advances in seeing fast evolving physical phenomena, as they happen. Femtosecond lasers from the infrared to the X-ray region have enabled us to ‘watch’, in real time, atoms dance in molecules and solids on femtosecond and picosecond timescales. Watching such fascinating motions not just in real time but at the spatial locations where they happen, is a bigger challenge. It is precisely this advance that has been made by…
New models of neutron stars show that their tallest mountains may be only fractions of millimetres high, due to the huge gravity on the ultra-dense objects. The research is presented today at the National Astronomy Meeting 2021. Neutron stars are some of the densest objects in the Universe: they weigh about as much as the Sun, yet measure only around 10km across, similar in size to a large city. Because of their compactness, neutron stars have an enormous gravitational pull around a…
A team of astronomers has released new observations of nearby galaxies that resemble colourful cosmic fireworks. The images, obtained with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), show different components of the galaxies in distinct colours, allowing astronomers to pinpoint the locations of young stars and the gas they warm up around them. By combining these new observations with data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner, the team is helping shed…
An international research team led by YAO Zhonghua from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGGCAS) has explained the cause of Jupiter’s X-ray aurorae, a mystery that has puzzled scientists for 40 years. The findings were published in Science Advances on July 9. It is the first time planetary researchers have described the entire causality chain for Jupiter’s X-ray auroral flares. The mechanism in producing X-ray auroral flares at Jupiter may have potential applications…
Physicists of the Technische Universität Dresden introduce the first implementation of a complementary vertical organic transistor technology, which is able to operate at low voltage, with adjustable inverter properties, and a fall and rise time demonstrated in inverter and ring-oscillator circuits of less than 10 nanoseconds, respectively. With this new technology they are just a stone’s throw away from the commercialization of efficient, flexible and printable electronics of the future. Their groundbreaking findings are published in the renowned journal “Nature…
The super-energetic jets that shoot out of black holes are in the focus of a new DFG research group. The researchers are being funded with 3.6 million euros. Black holes are found at the centre of almost all galaxies that have been studied so far. They have an unimaginably large mass and therefore attract matter, gas and even light. Only recently, astronomical images showing the accumulation of matter onto a supermassive black hole have caused public excitement. Such black holes…
The absorption of energy from laser light by free electrons in a liquid has been demonstrated for the first time. Until now, this process was observed only in the gas phase. The findings, led by Graz University of Technology, open new doors for ultra-fast electron microscopy. The investigation and development of materials crucially depends on the ability to observe smallest objects at fastest time scales. The necessary spatial resolution for investigations in the (sub-)atomic range can be achieved with electron…
In particle physics, a Majorana Fermion is charge neutral and its antiparticle is just itself. In condensed matter physics, a Majorana zero mode (MZM) is a quasi-particle excitation, which appears in the surfaces or edges of topological superconductors. Unlike the ordinary particles or quasi-particles that obey boson or fermion statistics, MZM obeys non-abelian statistics, a key property that makes MZM the building block for realizing topological quantum computation. Currently major experimental efforts focus on heterostructures made of superconductors and spin-orbit…
As the Parker Solar Probe ventures closer to the sun, we are learning new things about our home star. In a new study, physicists led by the University of Iowa report the first definitive measurements of the sun’s electric field, and how the electric field interacts with the solar wind, the fast-flowing current of charged particles that can affect activities on Earth, from satellites to telecommunications. The physicists calculated the distribution of electrons within the sun’s electric field, a feat…
Members of the group around Sven Sturm in the division of Klaus Blaum at MPIK present a novel technique that allows to efficiently cool arbitrary ions by coupling them to a directly laser-cooled ion in a separate Penning trap. The results demonstrate how a common tank circuit can drastically enhance the coupling and holds promise to enable cooling of arbitrary ions in Penning traps to millikelvin temperatures. Inside Penning traps, ions can be stored by means of magnetic and electric…
The study could have applications in spintronics and quantum computing; it was conducted by an international collaboration and published in Nature; its first author is a researcher at the University of São Paulo. Pure quantum systems can undergo phase transitions analogous to the classical phase transition between the liquid and gaseous states of water. At the quantum level, however, the particle spins in states that emerge from phase transitions display collective entangled behavior. This unexpected observation offers a new avenue…
Astronomers have made the rare sighting of two stars spiraling to their doom by spotting the tell-tale signs of a teardrop-shaped star. The tragic shape is caused by a massive nearby white dwarf distorting the star with its intense gravity, which will also be the catalyst for an eventual supernova that will consume both. Found by an international team of astronomers and astrophysicists led by the University of Warwick, it is one of only a very small number of star…
“Topological defects” are formed when the symmetry of a magnetic material is disrupted. Domain walls (DWs) are a type of topological defect that separates regions of different magnetic orientations. A widely studied phenomenon, the manipulation of these defects has potential applications in high-performance memory storage devices, energy processing devices, and quantum computing. Recently, the possibility of other topological defects embedded in or combined with DWs has gained attention for their potential applications in different fields of physics. Some examples of…
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