– both excited and probed by extreme ultraviolet light… MPIK physicists of the group around Christian Ott (division of Thomas Pfeifer) demonstrated for the first time an all-XUV (extreme ultraviolet) time-resolved absorption spectroscopy investigation of a small molecule: the photoinduced structural dynamics of diiodomethane. By means of the short wavelength of XUV laser pulses, individual atoms in the molecule can be addressed specifically via a well-defined electronic excitation. The experiment was performed at the free-electron laser in Hamburg (FLASH), leading…
Crystals have fascinated people through the ages. Who hasn’t admired the complex patterns of a snowflake at some point, or the perfectly symmetrical surfaces of a rock crystal The magic doesn’t stop even if one knows that all this results from a simple interplay of attraction and repulsion between atoms and electrons. A team of researchers led by Atac Imamoglu, professor at the Institute for Quantum Electronics at ETH Zurich, have now produced a very special crystal. Unlike normal crystals,…
Technological breakthrough from Tel Aviv University. A scientific breakthrough: Researchers from Tel Aviv University have engineered the world’s tiniest technology, with a thickness of only two atoms. According to the researchers, the new technology proposes a way for storing electric information in the thinnest unit known to science, in one of the most stable and inert materials in nature. The allowed quantum-mechanical electron tunneling through the atomically thin film may boost the information reading process much beyond current technologies. The…
A new method for identifying quantum orbits enables photoelectron spectroscopy via tunneling ionization to provide attosecond temporal and subangstrom spatial resolution measurement of electron dynamics. Electron motion in atoms and molecules is of fundamental importance to many physical, biological, and chemical processes. Exploring electron dynamics within atoms and molecules is essential for understanding and manipulating these phenomena. Pump-probe spectroscopy is the conventional technique. The 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry provides a well-known example wherein femtosecond pumped laser pulses served to…
The ability to precisely control the various properties of laser light is critical to much of the technology that we use today, from commercial virtual reality (VR) headsets to microscopic imaging for biomedical research. Many of today’s laser systems rely on separate, rotating components to control the wavelength, shape and power of a laser beam, making these devices bulky and difficult to maintain. Now, researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have developed a…
What steers galaxies, or whole ensembles of galaxies – so-called galaxy clusters? Aren’t they surrounded by vast empty space? Could the recently discovered long hot interconnecting gas filaments play a role? Although cosmological models and simulations predicted these structures and the role they may play, the observational confirmation of their existence, using the x-ray space telescope eROSITA, is quite recent. Further snapshots of simulations compared to the observations unveil a galaxy group speeding along such a long gas filament, on…
Six months ago, astronomers at the University of Bonn reported the discovery of an extremely long intergalactic gas filament with the X-ray telescope eROSITA. In a new study, they have now focused on an interesting structure in the filament, the northern clump. Their new observational data prove that this is a cluster of galaxies with a black hole at its center. The gas filament is therefore a galactic matter highway: The northern clump is moving along it towards two more…
An international team of researchers has demonstrated a new concept for the generation of intense extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) radiation by high-harmonic generation (HHG). Its advantage lies in the fact that its footprint is much smaller than currently existing intense XUV lasers. The new scheme is straightforward and could be implemented in many laboratories worldwide, which may boost the research field of ultrafast XUV science. The detailed experimental and theoretical results have been published in Optica. The invention of the laser has…
Motions of a remarkable cosmic structure have been measured for the first time, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The blast wave and debris from an exploded star are seen moving away from the explosion site and colliding with a wall of surrounding gas. Astronomers estimate that light from the supernova explosion reached Earth about 1,700 years ago, or when the Mayan empire was flourishing and the Jin dynasty ruled China. However, by cosmic standards the supernova remnant formed by the…
A sharp-edged aperture is a promising solution for eliminating side lobes from superoscillatory waves. Optical superoscillation refers to a wave packet that can oscillate locally in a frequency exceeding its highest Fourier component. This intriguing phenomenon enables production of extremely localized waves that can break the optical diffraction barrier. Indeed, superoscillation has proven to be an effective technique for overcoming the diffraction barrier in optical superresolution imaging. The trouble is that strong side lobes accompany the main lobes of superoscillatory…
Researchers led by quantum physicist Peter Zoller have developed a method to make previously hardly accessible properties in quantum systems measurable. The new method for determining the quantum state in quantum simulators reduces the number of necessary measurements and makes work with quantum simulators much more efficient. In a few years, a new generation of quantum simulators could provide insights that would not be possible using simulations on conventional supercomputers. Quantum simulators are capable of processing a great amount of…
Columbia and Northwestern engineers use electric fields to induce oscillations in tiny particles; this motion could be used by researchers to develop microrobots. A challenging frontier in science and engineering is controlling matter outside of thermodynamic equilibrium to build material systems with capabilities that rival those of living organisms. Research on active colloids aims to create micro- and nanoscale “particles” that swim through viscous fluids like primitive microorganisms. When these self-propelled particles come together, they can organize and move like…
How reproducible are measurements in solid-state physics? New measurements show: An allegedly sensational effect does not exist at all. A single measurement result is not a proof – this has been shown again and again in science. We can only really rely on a research result when it has been measured several times, preferably by different research teams, in slightly different ways. In this way, errors can usually be detected sooner or later. However, a new study by Prof. Andrej…
Rice team enhances models that will detect magnetospheres in distant solar systems. We can’t detect them yet, but radio signals from distant solar systems could provide valuable information about the characteristics of their planets. A paper by Rice University scientists describes a way to better determine which exoplanets are most likely to produce detectable signals based on magnetosphere activity on exoplanets’ previously discounted nightsides. The study by Rice alumnus Anthony Sciola, who earned his Ph.D. this spring and was mentored…
Technology advance could enable space-based atomic clocks, improving communications and GPS navigation. Although quantum technology has proven valuable for highly precise timekeeping, making these technologies practical for use in a variety of environments is still a key challenge. In an important step toward portable quantum devices, researchers have developed a new high-flux and compact cold-atom source with low power consumption that can be a key component of many quantum technologies. “The use of quantum technologies based on laser-cooled atoms has…
Researchers at Tampere University and their collaborators have shown how spectroscopic measurements can be made much faster. By correlating polarization to the colour of a pulsed laser, the team can track changes in the spectrum of the light by simple and extremely fast polarization measurements. The method opens new possibilities to measure spectral changes on a nanosecond time scale over the entire colour spectrum of light. In spectroscopy, often the changes of the wavelength, i.e. colour, of a probe light…
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