Phys.org June 27, 2023 Knowledge hiding in academia—the reluctance to share one’s ideas, materials, or knowledge with other researchers—is detrimental to scientific collaboration and harms scientific progress. In three studies, researchers in Germany tested whether (a) knowledge hiding could be predicted by researchers’ latent fear of being exploited (i.e., victim sensitivity), whether (b) this effect was mediated by researchers’ suspiciousness about their peers, and whether (c) activating researchers’ social identity alleviated or rather amplified this effect. Study 1 showed that victim-sensitive researchers whose social identity as a “researcher” had been made salient were particularly prone to knowledge hiding. Study 2 […]
Innovative paper-like, battery-free, AI-enabled sensor for holistic wound monitoring
Nanowerk June 26, 2023 Researchers in Singapore developed a paper-like battery-free in situ AI-enabled multiplexed (PETAL) sensor for holistic wound assessment by leveraging deep learning algorithms. This sensor consisted of a wax-printed paper panel with five colorimetric sensors for temperature, pH, trimethylamine, uric acid, and moisture. Sensor images captured by a mobile phone were analyzed by neural network–based machine learning algorithms to determine healing status. For ex situ detection via exudates collected from rat perturbed wounds and burn wounds, the PETAL sensor could classify healing versus nonhealing status with an accuracy as high as 97%. With the sensor patches attached […]
Microsoft claims to have achieved first milestone in creating a reliable and practical quantum computer
Phys.org. June 24, 2023 Researchers at Microsoft (USA) engineered a new way to represent a logical qubit with hardware stability. They reported that the device could induce a phase of matter characterized by Majorana zero modes, such devices have demonstrated low enough disorder to pass the topological gap protocol, proving the technology is viable. They stated that it has created a new measure to gauge the performance of a quantum supercomputer: reliable quantum operations per second (rope), a figure that describes how many reliable operations a computer can execute in a single second. They suggest that for a machine to […]
Nanophotonics: Coupling light and matter
Science Daily June 23, 2023 Photonic bound states in the continuum (BICs) provide a platform for strong light-matter coupling with transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) but have so far mostly been implemented as traditional all-dielectric metasurfaces with adjacent TMDC layers, incurring limitations related to strain, mode overlap and material integration. Researchers in Germany demonstrated intrinsic strong coupling in BIC-driven metasurfaces composed of nanostructured bulk tungsten disulfide (WS2) and exhibiting resonances with sharp, tailored linewidths and selective enhancement of light-matter interactions. Tuning of the BIC resonances across the exciton resonance in bulk WS2 was achieved by varying the metasurface unit cells, enabling […]
A new approach to controlling the properties of turbulence
Phys.org June 20, 2023 Material boundaries of the experimental apparatus developed to generate turbulence pose a challenge for understanding what the turbulence has been fed and how it would freely evolve. An international team of researchers (USA – University of Chicago, UC Santa Barbara, France) built and controlled a confined state of turbulence using vortex rings. The stationary and isolated blob of turbulence was sustained solely by vortex rings. Thus they assembled a full picture of its three-dimensional structure, onset, energy budget and tunability. The incoming vortex rings could be endowed with conserved quantities, such as helicity, which could be […]
Next-generation memory storage with novel block copolymer structures
Nanowerk June 28, 2023 For next-generation lithography and high-density memory devices, it is desirable to obtain densely and tetragonally packed inverted cylindrical microdomains, which are composed of the major block in the minor matrix. The inverted cylinders differ from conventional HEX cylinders, which consist of the minor block in the matrix of the major block. Researchers in South Korea utilized a binary blend of a polystyrene-b-poly(4-vinylpyridine) copolymer (S4VP) and polystyrene-b-poly(4-hydroxystyrene) copolymer (SHS), where the P4VP block exhibited a strong hydrogen bonding interaction with the PHS block. By carefully controlling the molecular weight ratio of S4VP and SHS as well as […]
Researchers develop new electrically pumped edge-emitting laser chip with unprecedented performance
Phys.org June 27, 2023 Large-area lasers that emit high output powers have lower beam quality due to the introduction of higher-order modes. An international team of researchers (Turkey, USA – Michigan Technological University) has demonstrated a new type of electrically pumped, large-area edge-emitting lasers that exhibited a high-power emission and a high-quality beam. These characteristics were enabled by establishing a quasi PT-symmetry between the second-order mode of a large area two-mode laser cavity and a single-mode auxiliary partner cavity. This in turn enlarges the effective volume of the higher-order modes. As a result, a selective pump applied via current injection […]
Researchers develop a new source of quantum light
MIT News June 22, 2023 While colloidal perovskite nanocrystals offer a great source of synthetically scalable, tunable photon sources, observation of two-photon quantum interference from the emission of any colloidal nanoparticle has not been previously reported. Researchers at MIT prepared large CsPbBr3 nanocrystals and observed direct evidence of interference between indistinguishable single photons sequentially emitted from a single nanocrystal. They measured Hong–Ou–Mandel interference from photons in CsPbBr3 nanocrystals, showing corrected visibilities of up to 0.56 ± 0.12 in the absence of any radiative enhancement or photonic architecture. According to the researchers their results demonstrate the unique potential of perovskite nanocrystals to serve […]
Study of Earth’s stratosphere reduces uncertainty in future climate change
Phys.org June 26, 2023 Future increases in stratospheric water vapour risk amplifying climate change and slowing down the recovery of the ozone layer. Uncertainty in modeling primarily arises from the complex processes leading to dehydration of air during its tropical ascent into the stratosphere. An international team of researchers (UK, USA – NOAA, University of Colorado, Switzerland, Germany) used a statistical-learning approach to infer historical co-variations between the atmospheric temperature structure and tropical lower stratospheric water vapour concentrations. They demonstrated that these historically constrained relationships are predictive of the water vapour response to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide and obtained an […]
Surprise! Weaker bonds can make polymers stronger
MIT News June 22, 2023 Tough materials can sustain substantial subcritical damage without complete failure of the material, but trying to improve toughness can often lead to the degradation of other mechanical properties. Researchers at Duke University developed cyclobutane-based mechanophore cross-linkers that broke through force-triggered cycloreversion led to networks that were up to nine times as tough as conventional analogs. The response was attributed to a combination of long, strong primary polymer strands and cross-linker scission forces that were approximately fivefold smaller than control cross-linkers at the same timescales. According to the researchers the enhanced toughness comes without the hysteresis […]