Phys.org December 15, 2022 In previous research, only one waveguide has been coupled to the qubit with limited access to its symmetries. Researchers in Sweden used two waveguides. They demonstrated a novel coupling scheme between an artificial molecule comprising two identical, strongly coupled transmon qubits and two microwave waveguides. The coupling was engineered so that transitions between states of the same symmetry, with respect to the permutation operator, are predominantly coupled to one waveguide. The coupling selectivity exceeded by a factor of 30 for both waveguides in their device. They showed that it can be used to coherently couple states […]
What drives the recent decline of East Asian dust activity?
Phys.org December 21, 2022 Dust entrained into the atmosphere serves as a major aerosol type, exerting effects on weather and climate system via aerosol-radiation-cloud interactions and delivering nutrients from continents to other continents and oceans. Using a physically-based dust emission model, an international team of researchers (China, Germany, USA – Texas A&M University) has shown that the weakening of surface wind and the increasing of vegetation cover and soil moisture have all contributed to the decline in dust activity during 2001 to 2017. The relative contributions of these three factors to the dust emission reduction during 2010–2017 relative to 2001 […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of December 16, 2022
01. Best of Last Year: The top Phys.org articles of 2022 02. Chemists create quantum dots at room temperature using lab-designed protein 03. Combination of two materials creates high-performance, stretchy nanogenerator 04. Designing self-assembling ‘smart materials’ 05. Growing a tiny metallic snowflake 06. International research team creates previously unknown nitrogen compounds 07. Molecular shape-shifting: New theory on autonomous remodeling of structures 08. New battery technology has potential to significantly reduce energy storage costs 09. Paper-thin solar cell can turn any surface into a power source (w/video) 10. Using lasers to bond semiconductor electronics components And others… Scientists map heat beneath […]
Best of Last Year: The top Phys.org articles of 2022
Phys.org December 9, 2022 It was a good year for research of all kinds as three men shared the Nobel Prize in physics for their work that showed that tiny particles separated from one another at great distances can be entangled. Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger won the award for their work showing that the counterintuitive field of quantum entanglement is real and demonstrable…read more.
Chemists create quantum dots at room temperature using lab-designed protein
Phys.org December 12, 2022 Researchers at Princeton University used a lab-designed protein (ConK) which facilitated the formation of cadmium sulfide quantum dots by catalyzing the production of a reactive sulfur species from the amino acid cysteine. ConK catalyzed the desulfurization of cysteine to H2S, which was used to synthesize CdS nanocrystals in solution. The quantum dots had optical properties like those seen in chemically synthesized quantum dots. CdS nanocrystals synthesized using ConK have slower growth rates and a different growth mechanism than those synthesized using natural biomineralization pathways and have two desirable properties not observed during biomineralization using natural proteins […]
Combination of two materials creates high-performance, stretchy nanogenerator
Phys.org December 12, 2022 The intrinsically stretchable triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) suffer from poor performance. To address the challenge, an international team of researchers (China, USA – the Pennsylvania State University) has developed a fully stretchable TENG consisting of an intrinsically stretchable MXene/silicone elastomer and silver nanowires (Ag NWs)-graphene foam nanocomposite. The TENG exhibited high output performance (voltage, current, and power), long-term reliability, and stable electrical output under various extreme deformation conditions. It harvested the intermittent mechanical energy from human bodies to charge various energy storage units such as commercial capacitors for driving wearable electronic devices. They demonstrated the systems in […]
Designing self-assembling ‘smart materials’
Science Daily December 12, 2022 The role of hydrodynamic interactions (HIs) play in the self-organization of colloidal suspensions and biological solutions has remained elusive particularly for charged soft matter systems. Researchers in Japan studied the role of HIs in the self-assembly of oppositely charged colloidal particles, which is a promising candidate for electrical tunable soft materials. In many-body HIs and the coupling between the colloid, ion, and fluid motions they found that, under a constant electric field, oppositely charged colloidal particles formed clusters and percolated into a gel network. They revealed that the cluster-forming tendency originates from the incompressibility-induced “inverse […]
Growing a tiny metallic snowflake
Nanowerk December 10, 2022 Nanoscale structures can aid electronic manufacturing, make materials stronger yet lighter, or aid environmental clean-ups by binding to toxins. An international team of researchers (Australia, New Zealand) developed an extraction method achieved by applying a voltage to the liquid metal solution while vacuum filtrating. The resulting crystals can have intricate morphologies like snowflakes. They used the low-melting-temperature Ga as a “metallic solvent” to synthesize a range of flake-like Zn crystals. They extracted the metallic crystals from the liquid metal solvent by reducing its surface tension using a combination of electrocapillary modulation and vacuum filtration. The crystals […]
International research team creates previously unknown nitrogen compounds
Phys.org December 9, 2022 Non-metal nitrides contain structural units whose existence could not be empirically proven before. An international team of researchers (Germany, Sweden, USA – University of Chicago, France) synthesized previously unknown modification of the phosphorus nitride P₃N₅ at a pressure of 72 gigapascals. At 134 gigapascals, the phosphorus nitride PN₂ formed in the diamond anvil cell. They discovered that a key reason for this extreme strength was that the crystal structures of δ-P₃N₅ and PN₂ consist of a dense network of PN₆ octahedra with a phosphorus atom surrounded by six nitrogen atoms. The polymorph δ-P₃N₅ transformed into another […]
Molecular shape-shifting: New theory on autonomous remodeling of structures
Phys.org December 13, 2022 The capability to self-organize, like living systems, can only be afforded in non-equilibrium conditions, as evident from the energy-consuming nature of dynamical processes. To achieve automated dynamical control of such self-assembled structures and transitions between them, it is necessary to identify the fundamental aspects of non-equilibrium dynamics that can enable such processes. An international team of researchers (Germany, UK) identified programmable non-reciprocal interactions as a tool to achieve such functionalities. The design rule was composed of reciprocal interactions that led to the equilibrium assembly of the different structures, through a process denoted as multifarious self-assembly, and […]