Nov 24, 2021 (Nanowerk News) Physicists have created a new ultra-thin two-layer material with quantum properties that normally require rare earth compounds. This material, which is relatively easy to make and does not contain rare earth metals, could provide a new platform for quantum computing and advance research into unconventional...
Shifting colors for on-chip photonics
Nov 24, 2021 (Nanowerk News) The ability to precisely control and change properties of a photon, including polarization, position in space, and arrival time, gave rise to a wide range of communication technologies we use today, including the Internet. The next generation of photonic technologies, such as photonic quantum networks...
A new topological magnet with colossal angular magnetoresistance
Nov 24, 2021 (Nanowerk News) While electrons are well known to carry both charge and spin, only the electric charge portion is utilized as an information carrier in modern electronic devices. However, the limits of modern electronics and the impending end of Moore’s Law have rekindled the interest in the...
Artificial intelligence, hardware innovations boost confocal microscope’s performance
Nov 24, 2021 (Nanowerk News) Since artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky patented the principle of confocal microscopy in 1957, it has become the workhorse standard in life science laboratories worldwide, due to its superior contrast over traditional wide-field microscopy. Yet confocal microscopes aren’t perfect. They boost resolution by imaging just...
We might not know half of what’s in our cells, new AI technique reveals
Nov 24, 2021 (Nanowerk News) Most human diseases can be traced to malfunctioning parts of a cell — a tumor is able to grow because a gene wasn’t accurately translated into a particular protein or a metabolic disease arises because mitochondria aren’t firing properly, for example. But to understand what...
Researchers create one of the world’s most precise microchip sensors
Nov 24, 2021 (Nanowerk News) A team of researchers from TU Delft managed to design one of the world’s most precise microchip sensors; the device can function at room temperature – a ‘holy grail’ for quantum technologies and sensing. Combining nanotechnology and machine learning inspired by nature’s spiderwebs, they were...
New ultrahard diamond glass synthesized from collapsed fullerene
Nov 24, 2021 (Nanowerk News) Carnegie’s Yingwei Fei and Lin Wang were part of an international research team that synthesized a new ultrahard form of carbon glass with a wealth of potential practical applications for devices and electronics. It is the hardest known glass with the highest thermal conductivity among...
New microscopy technique for quantum simulation
Nov 24, 2021 (Nanowerk News) Researchers from the Institute of Laser Physics at Universität Hamburg have developed a new technique for quantum gas microscopy that now allows imaging of three-dimensional quantum systems. In the journal Nature ("Quantum gas magnifier for sub-lattice-resolved imaging of 3D quantum systems"), they report on the...
Heat flow controls the movement of skyrmions in an insulating magnet
Nov 24, 2021 (Nanowerk News) Tiny amounts of heat can be used to control the movement of magnetic whirlpools called skyrmions, RIKEN physicists have shown (Nature Communications, "Real-space observations of 60-nm skyrmion dynamics in an insulating magnet under low heat flow"). This ability could help to develop energy-efficient forms of...
A seemingly unattainable energy transition
Nov 24, 2021 (Nanowerk News) Researchers from Basel and Bochum have succeeded in addressing an apparently unattainable energy transition in an artificial atom using laser light. Making use of the so-called radiative Auger process, they were the first team to specifically excite it. In this process, an electron falls from...