Chirality, while not a rarity in the world of molecules, is nevertheless a special property. If a molecule is chiral (from the Greek word chiros = hand), it exists in two mirrored versions that are very similar but not identical – like two hands that can be folded together, but cannot be placed congruently on top of each other. This is why we speak of right-handed and left-handed molecules, or enantiomers, which means “opposite shape” in Greek. An international team…
New materials with exotic magnetic features could enable the next generation of tiny, fast, energy-efficient electronic devices. Two-dimensional magnetic materials have been hailed as building blocks for the next generation of small, fast electronic devices. These materials, made of layers of crystalline sheets just a few atoms thick, gain their unique magnetic properties from the intrinsic compass-needle-like spins of their electrons. The sheets’ atomic-scale thinness means that these spins can be manipulated on the finest scales using external electric fields,…
Study identifies the physics that enables rapid magnetic explosions in space. When magnetic field lines of opposite directions merge, they create explosions that can release massive amounts of energy. On the sun, the merging of opposing field lines causes solar flares and coronal mass ejections, giant bursts of energy that can travel to Earth within a day. While the general mechanics of magnetic reconnection are known, researchers have struggled for over a half-century to explain the precise physics behind the…
NASA gives boost to Boston University-led effort. A Boston University–led team that has pioneered major advances in our understanding of the bubble protecting the solar system—and all life on Earth—has won a major new grant from NASA. The SHIELD (Solar wind with Hydrogen Ion Exchange and Large-scale Dynamics) DRIVE Science Center has been awarded a new five-year grant to continue advancing its breakthrough work in heliophysics, the study of how the sun influences and shapes the solar system. The funding will also…
For the past thirty years, the star β Pictoris has fascinated astronomers because it enables them to observe a planetary system in the process of formation. It is made up of at least two young planets, and also contains comets, which were detected as early as 1987. These were the first comets ever observed around a star other than the Sun. Now, an international research team headed by Alain Lecavelier des Etangs, CNRS researcher at the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris…
Using new analyses, scientists have just found the last two of the five informational units of DNA and RNA that had yet to be discovered in samples from meteorites. While it is unlikely that DNA could be formed in a meteorite, this discovery demonstrates that these genetic parts are available for delivery and could have contributed to the development of the instructional molecules on early Earth. The discovery, by an international team with NASA researchers, gives more evidence that chemical…
Thanks to today’s light, flexible solar panels, photovoltaics may be more practical for long stays. The high efficiency, light weight and flexibility of the latest solar cell technology means photovoltaics could provide all the power needed for an extended mission to Mars, or even a permanent settlement there, according to a new analysis by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley. Most scientists and engineers who’ve thought about the logistics of living on the surface of the Red Planet have…
Researchers at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin have developed a nano-repeater that amplifies light in only one direction. Today, optical fibers are the backbone of our information society. However, in order to transmit data over long distances using light in fiber optic networks, the light must be amplified regularly to compensate for the losses that occur. So-called repeaters are used for this purpose. One important repeater design is based on amplifying light using the laser effect. For this purpose, atoms within…
An international team of researchers examined data for 25 exoplanets and found some links among the properties of the atmospheres, including the thermal profiles and chemical abundances in them. This marks the first time exoplanet atmospheres have been studied as populations, rather than individually. These findings will help establish a generalized theory of planet formation which will improve our understanding of all planets, including the Earth. Today there are more than 3000 confirmed exoplanets, planets orbiting stars other than the…
Ultrasound images are a powerful biological and biomedical sciences tool. An advancement in this technique is photoacoustic imaging (PAI). It is where the skin or tissue absorbs pulses of laser light. The thermoelastic expansion of the skin or tissue emits sound, which is processed by the machinery to develop high-resolution images. Recent developments have theorized the existence of vibrational PAI, which could penetrate further into the skin. In a new paper published in eLight, a team of scientists led by…
INRS researchers and international partners have succeeded in looking at spin inside rare earth materials, using a tabletop ultrafast soft-X-ray microscope, for the first time. Sharing real-time information requires complex networks of systems. A promising approach for speeding up data storage devices consists of switching the magnetization, or the electrons’ spin, of magnetic materials with ultra-short femtosecond laser pulses. But, how the spin evolves in the nanoworld on extremely short time scales, in one millionth of one billionth of a…
… can help in monitoring environment and diagnosing cancer. When a high-power ultrashort pulse of light interacts with a material such as a glass optical fibre, a range of highly nonlinear interactions take place that cause complex changes in both the temporal and spectral properties of the injected light. When taken to the extreme, such interactions can lead to the generation of a rainbow laser of light commonly referred to as a supercontinuum light source. Since its first demonstration in…
New technique enables precise measurement of electrostatic properties of materials. Physicists at the University of California, Irvine have demonstrated the use of a hydrogen molecule as a quantum sensor in a terahertz laser-equipped scanning tunneling microscope, a technique that can measure the chemical properties of materials at unprecedented time and spatial resolutions. This new technique can also be applied to analysis of two-dimensional materials which have the potential to play a role in advanced energy systems, electronics and quantum computers….
Imaging method measures particle size and position with nanometer precision. Researchers have developed a new measurement and imaging approach that can resolve nanostructures smaller than the diffraction limit of light without requiring any dyes or labels. The work represents an important advance toward a new and powerful microscopy method that could one day be used to see the fine features of complex samples beyond what is possible with conventional microscopes and techniques. The new method, described in Optica, Optica Publishing…
Oxford University researchers have developed a sensor made of sapphire fibre that can tolerate extreme temperatures, with the potential to enable significant improvements in efficiency and emission reduction in aerospace and power generation. The work, published in the journal Optics Express, uses a sapphire optical fibre – a thread of industrially grown sapphire less than half a millimetre thick – which can withstand temperatures over 2000°C. When light is injected onto one end of the sapphire fibre, some is reflected…
… solve the enigma of ultrashort soliton molecules. Stable packets of light waves – called optical solitons – are emitted in ultrashort-pulse lasers as a chain of light flashes. These solitons often combine into pairs with very short temporal separation. Introducing atomic vibrations in the terahertz range, researchers at the Universities of Bayreuth and Wrocław have now solved the puzzle of how these temporal links are formed. They report on their discovery in Nature Communications. The dynamics of the coupled…
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