01. When memory qubits and photons get entangled 02. Team creates new ultralightweight, crush-resistant tensegrity metamaterials 03. Controlled by light alone, new smart materials twist, bend and move 04. Millimeter wave photonics with terahertz semiconductor lasers 05. Rare open-access quantum computer now operational 06. Remote control for quantum emitters 07. Researchers develop first self-cooling laser made with a silica fiber 08. Researchers make breakthrough in solar cell materials 09. Scientists develop new approach to predict how liquids freeze 10. Study predicts the oceans will start emitting ozone-depleting CFCs And others… Army working on new cyber, electromagnetic weapons after large-scale test […]
Author Archives: Hema Viswanath
Army working on new cyber, electromagnetic weapons after large-scale test event
Fedscoop March 15, 2021 Cyber Quest 2021 https://uscc.cyberquests.org/ , was hosted by Army Futures Command and brought in users from across the service to test 15 new technologies. Many of the lessons learned from the 13-day event will be put into procurement requirements documents for new technologies the Army is focused on as part of its broader strategy to deter great power conflict. One of the new parts of the annual exercise was a close partnership with the Army Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning in Georgia. The Army also tested the use of an offensive cybersecurity measure of […]
Artificial intelligence and algorithmic irresponsibility: The devil in the machine?
TechXplore March 17, 2021 According to researchers in France AI tempts people to abandon judgment and moral responsibility by removing a range of decisions from our conscious minds, it crowds out judgment from a bewildering array of human activities. Without a proper understanding of how it does this we cannot circumvent its negative effects. With widespread access to granular data on human behavior harvested from social media, AI has permeated the key sectors of most developed economies. For tractable problems such as analyzing documents, it usually compares favorably with human alternatives that are slower and more error-prone, leading to enormous […]
Controlled by light alone, new smart materials twist, bend and move
Science Daily March 12, 2021 The ability to topographically control photonic bandgaps allows programmable actuation of the elastomeric substrate in response to illumination. An international team of researchers (USA – Tufts University, Northwestern University, Italy) combined programmable photonic function with elastomeric material composites to generate optomechanical actuators that display controllable and tunable actuation as well as complex deformation in response to simple light illumination. They developed complex three-dimensional configurations, programmable motion patterns, and phototropic movement where the material moves in response to the motion of a light source. A “photonic sunflower” demonstrator device consisting of a light-tracking solar cell was […]
It’s snowing plastic
EurekAlert March 17, 2021 The quantification of micro/nanoplastics in complex environmental matrices is still a major challenge, notably for soluble ones. Researchers in Canada coupled laboratory-built nanostructures (zinc oxide, titanium oxide and cobalt) to mass spectrometry techniques to quantify micro/nanoplastics in water and snow matrices at picogram levels without sample pre-treatment. In parallel, they developed a technique to quantify micro/nanoplastics based on nanostructured laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (NALDI-TOF-MS), at ultra-trace levels. The detection limit is ∼5 pg for ambient snow. Soluble polyethylene glycol and insoluble polyethylene fragments were observed and quantified in fresh falling snow. Complementary physicochemical studies of […]
Lightning Bolts Could Have Delivered The Spark That Started Life on Earth
Science Alert March 16, 2021 Phosphides are common accessory minerals in meteorites. Consequently, meteorites are proposed to be a main source of prebiotic reactive phosphorus on early Earth. An international team of researchers (USA – Yale University, Wheaton College, UK) proposed an alternative source for widespread phosphorus reduction, arguing that lightning strikes on early Earth potentially formed 10–1000 kg of phosphide and 100–10,000 kg of phosphite and hypophosphite annually. Therefore, lightning could have been a significant source of prebiotic, reactive phosphorus which would have been concentrated on landmasses in tropical regions. Lightning strikes could likewise provide a continual source of prebiotic […]
Millimeter wave photonics with terahertz semiconductor lasers
Phys.org March 15, 2021 To accommodate the volume of wireless telecommunication traffic corresponding increases in bandwidth is necessary. Millimeter wave generation using photonic techniques has so far been limited to the use of near-infrared lasers that are down-converted to the mm Wave region. Such methodologies do not currently benefit from a monolithic architecture and suffer from the quantum defect which can ultimately limit the conversion efficiency. An international team of researchers (Italy, France, UK) has demonstrated intracavity mmWave generation within terahertz quantum cascade lasers over the unprecedented range of 25 GHz to 500 GHz. Through ultrafast time resolved techniques, they highlighted the […]
Rare open-access quantum computer now operational
EurekAlert March 15, 2021 Scientists worldwide can use ion-based testbed at Sandia National Laboratories QSCOUT for research that might not be possible at their home institutions, without the cost or restrictions of using a commercial testbed. QSCOUT serves a need in the quantum community by gives users an uncommon amount of control over their research, opportunity to study the machine itself, which are not yet available in commercial quantum computing systems. It also saves theorists and scientists from the trouble of building their own machines. Sandia hopes to gain new insights into quantum performance and architecture as well as solve […]
Remote control for quantum emitters
Science Daily March 12, 2021 An international team of researchers (Austria, Spain) developed a method to individually address quantum emitters using tailored light pulses based on chirped light. In structures with certain electromagnetic properties, such as waveguides, the frequencies propagate at different speeds. If the initial conditions of the light pulse is correctly set, the pulse compresses itself at a certain distance. They analytically describe how the compression distance and width of the pulse can be tuned through its initial parameters. They showed that the interaction of such pulses with a quantum emitter is highly sensitive to its position due […]
Researchers develop first self-cooling laser made with a silica fiber
Phys.org March 17, 2021 An international team of researchers (USA – Stanford University, University of Illinois, Clemson University, Sweden, Canada) has achieved laser cooling in silica optical fiber with 21-µm diameter core doped with ytterbium and co-doped with aluminum oxide and fluoride ion to increase the critical quenching concentration by a factor of 16. Using a custom slow-light fiber Bragg grating sensor they measured temperature changes up to −50mK. The measured dependencies of the temperature change on the pump power and the pump wavelength were in excellent agreement with predictions from an existing model. To understand how fiber composition, core […]