Researchers from the University of Rostock and Technion Haifa have created the first three-dimensional topological insulator for light. A judiciously placed screw dislocation allows optical signals to wind around the surface of a synthetic lattice while keeping it protected from scattering. Their discovery has recently been published in the renowned journal “Nature”. Crystals have enthralled humans for thousands of years with their visual beauty and elegant symmetrical shapes, and, more recently, with their numerous technological applications. Fundamentally, these materials are…
… largest-ever catalog. How old is our universe, and what is its size? A team of researchers led by University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa astronomers Brent Tully and Ehsan Kourkchi from the Institute for Astronomy have assembled the largest-ever compilation of high-precision galaxy distances, called Cosmicflows-4. Using eight different methods, they measured the distances to a whopping 56,000 galaxies. The study has been published in the Astrophysical Journal. Galaxies, such as the Milky Way, are the building blocks of the…
Researchers at the Flatiron Institute and their colleagues trained a machine learning tool to capture the physics of electrons moving on a lattice using far fewer equations than would typically be required, all without sacrificing accuracy. Using artificial intelligence, physicists have compressed a daunting quantum problem that until now required 100,000 equations into a bite-size task of as few as four equations — all without sacrificing accuracy. The work, published in the September 23 issue of Physical Review Letters, could…
In December 2020, a small landing capsule brought rock particles from the asteroid Ryugu to Earth – material from the beginnings of our solar system. The Japanese space probe Hayabusa 2 had collected the samples. Geoscientist Professor Frank Brenker and his team from Goethe University Frankfurt were among the first researchers wordwide allowed literally to “shed light” on these scientifically precious samples. In the process, they discovered areas with a massive accumulation of rare earths and unexpected structures. As part…
A research team from Münster and Pittsburgh first examined chiral oxide catalysts. The results are to help in the future production of spin-selective catalytic oxide materials, thus improving the efficiency of chemical reactions. Controlling the spin of electrons opens up future scenarios for applications in spin-based electronics (spintronics), for example in data processing. It also presents new opportunities for controlling the selectivity and efficiency of chemical reactions. Researchers recently presented first successes with the example of water splitting for producing…
New study by international team of scientists reveals an evolving, magnetized environment and surprising source location for deep-space fast radio bursts – observations that defy current understanding. Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-long cosmic explosions that each produce the energy equivalent to the sun’s annual output. More than 15 years after the deep-space pulses of electromagnetic radio waves were first discovered, their perplexing nature continues to surprise scientists – and newly published research only deepens the mystery surrounding them. In the…
Theoretical study exploits precision of new heavy ion collision data to predict how gluons are distributed inside protons and neutrons. The Science The nuclei of atoms are made up of protons and neutrons, collectively referred to as nucleons. Nucleons in turn consist of quarks and gluons. Understanding how those inner building blocks are distributed within nuclei can reveal how large protons and neutrons appear when probed at high energy. This work used comparisons between model calculations and new precision data from collisions of heavy…
In classical models of stellar evolution, so far little importance has been attached to the early evolution of stars. Thomas Steindl from the Institute of Astro- and Particle Physics at the University of Innsbruck now shows for the first time that the biography of stars is indeed shaped by their early stage. The study was published in Nature Communications. In classical models of stellar evolution, so far little importance has been attached to the early evolution of stars. Thomas Steindl…
From The City College of New York’s Center for Discovery and Innovation and the Physics Department comes news of a new type of magnetic quasiparticle created by coupling light to a stack of ultrathin two-dimensional magnets. This achievement sprouting from a collaboration with the University of Texas at Austin lays the foundation for an emergent strategy to artificially design materials by ensuring their strong interaction with light. “Implementing our approach with magnetic materials is a promising path towards efficient magneto-optical effects,” said…
Titanium shows superconductivity above 26K at high pressures. Element superconductors are important either for superconducting mechanism studies or for potential applications because of the single composition. However element superconductor (SC) usually show very low transition temperature (Tc) typically below 10K. Recently Prof. Changqing Jin’s team at IOPCAS discovered Ti metal to be superconductive with Tc above 26K at high pressures: the record high for element superconductors so far. They found that Ti metal keeps superconductive with Tc above 20 K…
Whether looking out into space or peering deep into the microscopic realm, there is always more to see. In the case of solids, there is a world of atoms and particles teeming with activity that ultimately leads to useful properties like electrical conduction, magnetism, and insulation. One of the most powerful tools for seeing the unseen is a scanning tunneling microscope or STM for short. Rather than an optical lens, its powerful eye comes from an electrical current that passes…
Combining synthesis, characterization, and theory confirmed the exotic properties and structure of a new intrinsic ferromagnetic topological material. The Science Topological insulators act as electrical insulators on the inside but conduct electricity along their surfaces. Researchers study some of these insulators’ exotic behavior using an external magnetic field to force the ion spins within a topological insulator to be parallel to each other. This process is known as breaking time-reversal symmetry. Now, a research team has created an intrinsic ferromagnetic…
… a breakthrough in revealing the origin of life. The long-held dream of chemists to observe the structural dynamics of a single molecule have been now made possible. Single molecules sized about 1 nanometer (nm, 1 billionth of a meter) exist in a volatile state under ambient conditions. Considering that the Coronavirus, which is about 100 nm in size, spreads rapidly in the air shows how difficult it is to observe a single molecule. Recently, a Korean research team has…
The MICROSCOPE mission has confirmed the ‘equivalence principle’ with unprecedented accuracy, bolstering Einstein’s general relativity. The result, announced this week by a team led by the French space agency CNES, is a triumph for Einstein’s general relativity. However, it also potentially rules out some candidate universal theories of physics. General relativity is the best theory of gravity – positing that instead of being a ‘pulling’ force, the action of gravity is caused by large bodies like planets bending spacetime, curving…
Properties of heaviest element studied so far measured at GSI/FAIR. An international research team has succeeded in gaining new insights into the chemical properties of the superheavy element flerovium — element 114 — at the accelerator facilities of the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt. The measurements show that flerovium is the most volatile metal in the periodic table. Flerovium is thus the heaviest element in the periodic table that has been chemically studied. With the results, published in the…
Strong alternating magnetic fields can be used to generate a new type of spin wave that was previously just theoretically predicted. This was achieved for the first time by a team of physicists from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). They report on their work in the scientific journal “Nature Communications” and provide the first microscopic images of these spin waves. The basic idea of spintronics is to use a special property of electrons – spin – for various electronic applications…
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