Optical detection of ultrasonic signals eliminates the need for ultrasonic transducers, enabling effective remote sensing of photoacoustic signals for label-free, bond-selective imaging of biological tissue. Photoacoustic imaging is a cutting-edge technology that uses light and sound to create images of the inside of the body. When a pulsed laser illuminates the surface of biological tissue, part of the photon energy is absorbed by the tissue to generate heat. The increase of the heat causes thermoelastic expansion of the tissue, releasing…
Machine learning reconstructs new image from EHT data. The iconic image of the supermassive black hole at the center of M87—sometimes referred to as the “fuzzy, orange donut”—has gotten its first official makeover with the help of machine learning. The new image further exposes a central region that is larger and darker, surrounded by the bright accreting gas shaped like a “skinny donut.” The team used the data obtained by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration in 2017 and achieved,…
Researchers from the University of Liège with collaborators from University of Cambridge show that moiré polar domains in bilayer hBN give rise to a topologically non-trivial winding of the polarization field, forming networks of merons and antimerons. Sliding and twisting of van der Waals layers can produce fascinating physical phenomena. In a recent publication in Nature Communications, Daniel Bennett, Eric Bousquet and Philippe Ghosez, from the group of Theoretical Materials Physics (Q-MAT, CESAM Research Unit) at the University of Liège…
Students of the University of Stuttgart launch self-built rocket into space. The Hybrid Engine Development (HyEnD) student team at the University of Stuttgart spent around three years developing, manufacturing, and testing its hybrid rocket. In mid-April, the rocket will be launched into space from the Esrange rocket launch site near Kiruna in Sweden. If all goes well, the students will set a new world altitude record for student-built rockets. The hybrid rocket is 7.80 m long and weighs around 70…
A magnetic cage keeps the more than 100 million degree Celsius hot plasmas in nuclear fusion devices at a distance from the vessel wall so that they do not melt. Now researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) have found a way to significantly reduce this distance. This could make it possible to build smaller and cheaper fusion reactors for energy production. The work was published in the journal “Physical Review Letters”. The international experimental reactor ITER,…
Meta-optics shows physical processes in the attosecond range. A new type of meta-optics from Harvard has proven its functionality in experiments at Graz University of Technology. With it, it is possible to observe the smallest structures such as nanoparticles or transistors. Developed at Harvard, and successfully tested at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), a revolutionary new meta-optics for microscopes with extremely high spatial and temporal resolution has proven its functional ability in laboratory tests at the Institute of Experimental…
The 2D map of this “disk wind” may reveal clues to galaxy formation. An accretion disk is a colossal whirlpool of gas and dust that gathers around a black hole or a neutron star like cotton candy as it pulls in material from a nearby star. As the disk spins, it whips up powerful winds that push and pull on the sprawling, rotating plasma. These massive outflows can affect the surroundings of black holes by heating and blowing away the…
A cornerstone for 1000-fold improved communication rates to bridge long distances. Diamond material is of great importance for future technologies such as the quantum internet. Special defect centers can be used as quantum bits (qubits) and emit single light particles that are referred to as single photons. To enable data transmission with feasible communication rates over long distances in a quantum network, all photons must be collected in optical fibers and transmitted without being lost. It must also be ensured…
Intense laser light can induce magnetism in solids on the attosecond scale – the fastest magnetic response to date. That is the finding reached by theoreticians at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter in Hamburg, Germany, who used advanced simulations to investigate the magnetization process in several 2D and 3D materials. Their calculations show that, in structures with heavy atoms, the fast electron dynamics initiated by the laser pulses can be converted to attosecond magnetism….
Lightweight flexible mirrors could be rolled up during launch and precisely reshaped after deployment. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics have developed a new way to produce and shape large, high-quality mirrors that are much thinner than conventional mirrors used for space telescopes. The resulting mirrors are flexible enough to be rolled up and stored compactly inside a launch vehicle. “Launching and deploying space telescopes is a complicated and costly procedure,” says Sebastian Rabien from the…
… for enhancing the extreme ultraviolet laser power. A research team unravels a new optical phenomenon involving dark autoionizing states, enhancing the power of an extreme-ultraviolet laser. An international research team led by Professors Tsuneyuki Ozaki and François Légaré at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), has developed a unique method to enhance the power of a laser source emitting extreme ultraviolet light pulses. The underlying mechanism of the newly observed phenomenon involves the unique role of dark-autoionizing…
A team from the University of Freiburg and the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt-am-Main identify anisotropic friction In their investigation, the researchers applied new methods of single molecule force spectroscopy and high performance computing The results provide a key piece of the puzzle for understanding friction in technical applications and biological complexes An interdisciplinary research team of the Institutes of Physical Chemistry and Physics of the University of Freiburg and the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt-am-Main…
Gamma-ray bursts are the most energetic and luminous events known to occur in the Universe. Short-lived flashes of gamma-rays that typically last from a a tenth of a second to less than an hour, gamma-ray bursts may for a brief period of time outshine entire galaxies. The explosions are believed to be caused by the collapse of massive stars, the collision of neutron stars, or the merging of a neutron star and a black hole. Although we have known about…
The secret has been hiding in plain view for 40 years. But it took the insight of a veteran astronomer to pull it all together within a year, using observations of Saturn from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and retired Cassini probe, in addition to the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft and the retired International Ultraviolet Explorer mission. The discovery: Saturn’s vast ring system is heating the giant planet’s upper atmosphere. The phenomenon has never before been seen in the solar system. It’s an unexpected interaction between Saturn and…
On March 28, the German Federal Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger visited the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) supertelescope under construction in South Africa together with Dr. Lindsay Magnus, Director of SKA-Mid in South Africa, and Prof. Michael Kramer, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in Bonn. There, she announced that Germany will join the international SKAO project. The Max Planck Society is providing about 21 million euros to support the project. “With the unique Square Kilometre…
Astronomers have observed an explosion 180 million light years away which challenges our current understanding of explosions in space, that appeared much flatter than ever thought possible. Astronomers have observed an explosion 180 million light years away which challenges our current understanding of explosions in space, that appeared much flatter than ever thought possible Explosions are almost always expected to be spherical, as the stars themselves are spherical, but this one is the flattest ever seen The explosion observed was…
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