Jul 29, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Exploring the extreme conditions reached in the interior of planets, including Earth, or during a fusion reaction, is a major challenge. By focusing the extremely powerful X-ray laser of European XFEL on a copper foil, researchers have created and investigated a state of matter very...
Researchers trap atoms, forcing them to serve as photonic transistors
Jul 29, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Researchers at Purdue University have trapped alkali atoms (cesium) on an integrated photonic circuit, which behaves like a transistor for photons (the smallest energy unit of light) similar to electronic transistors. These trapped atoms demonstrate the potential to build a quantum network based on cold-atom...
Researchers achieve quantum breakthrough with novel quantum-to-quantum Bernoulli factory design
Jul 29, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Unlike classical computers, which use bits to process information as either 0s or 1s, quantum computers use quantum bits, also known as qubits, which can represent and process both 0 and 1 simultaneously thanks to a quantum property called superposition. This fundamental difference gives quantum...
Shape-shifting ‘transformer bots’ inspired by origami
Jul 29, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Inspired by the paper-folding art of origami, North Carolina State University engineers have discovered a way to make a single plastic cubed structure transform into more than 1,000 configurations using only three active motors. The findings could pave the way for shape-shifting artificial systems that...
Plant-inspired polymers for water purification
Jul 29, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Clean drinking water is a basic demand for our health and wellbeing. However, as the global population grows, achieving this for all communities worldwide becomes more challenging. Now, in a study published in Nature Communications ("Hyperconfined Bio-Inspired Polymers in Integrative Flow-Through Systems for Highly Selective...