Phys.org February 10, 2024 One of the most prominent climate tipping elements is the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), which can potentially collapse because of the input of fresh water in the North Atlantic. Although AMOC collapses have been induced in complex global climate models by strong freshwater forcing, the processes of an AMOC tipping event have so far not been investigated. Researchers in the Netherlands have shown results of the first tipping event in the Community Earth System Model, including the large climate impacts of the collapse. Using these results, they developed a physics-based and observable early warning signal […]
Researchers develop eco-friendly ‘magnet’ to battle microplastics
Phys.org February 12, 2024 Removal of micro- and nano-plastics from water is challenging using conventional separation methods. A new class of solvents composed of hydrogen bond donors and acceptors called Deep eutectic solvents (DES) have been proposed as a cheaper alternative to ionic liquids. Hydrophobic DES derived from natural compounds (NADES) show promise as extractants in liquid–liquid extractions. Researchers at the University of Kentucky investigated the extraction efficiency of micro- and nano-plastics including polyethylene terephthalate, polystyrene, and a bioplastic polylactic acid from fresh water and saltwater using three hydrophobic NADES. The extraction efficiencies were in a range of 50–93% (maximum […]
Researchers directly detect interactions between viruses and their bacterial hosts in soil
Phys.org February 13, 2024 Majority of the Bacteriophages are uncharacterized, and their hosts are unknown. A team of researchers in the US (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Oregon Health & Science University, Iowa State University) applied high-throughput chromosome conformation capture (Hi–C) to directly capture phage-host relationships. Some hosts had high centralities in bacterial community co-occurrence networks, suggesting phage infections have an important impact on the soil bacterial community interactions. They observed increased average viral copies per host (VPH) and decreased viral transcriptional activity following a two-week soil-drying incubation, indicating an increase in lysogenic infections. Soil drying also altered the observed phage […]
Researchers solve a foundational problem in transmitting quantum information
Phys.org February 13, 2024 To investigate light-matter hybrid excitations in a quantum dot (QD) THz resonator coupled system researchers in Japan fabricated a gate-defined QD near a THz split-ring resonator (SRR) by using a AlGaAs/GaAs two-dimensional electron system. By illuminating the system with THz radiation, the QD showed a current change whose spectrum exhibited coherent coupling between the electrons in the QD and the SRR as well as coupling between the two-dimensional electron system and the SRR. The latter coupling entered the ultrastrong coupling regime and the electron excitation in the QD also exhibited coherent coupling with the SRR with […]
Scientists Slowed Down Light by 10,000 Times in an Experiment
Science Alert February 11, 2024 The metasurface analogue of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) provides a chip-scale platform for achieving light delay and storage, high Q factors, and greatly enhanced optical fields. Researchers in China developed a new approach for realizing collective EIT-like bands with a measured Q factor reaching 2750 in silicon metasurfaces in the near-infrared regime. It employed the coupling between two collective resonances, the Mie electric dipole surface lattice resonance (SLR) and the out-of-plane/in-plane electric quadrupole SLR (EQ-SLR). The collective EIT-like resonance could have diverging Q factor and group delay due to the bound state in the continuum […]
Single proton illuminates perovskite nanocrystals-based transmissive thin scintillators
Science Daily February 1, 2024 Current particle detectors use bulk crystals, and thin-film organic scintillators have low light yields and limited radiation tolerance. An international team of researchers (Singapore, China) has developed transmissive thin scintillators made from CsPbBr3 nanocrystals, designed for real-time single proton counting. The scintillators exhibited exceptional sensitivity, with a high light yield when subjected to proton beams. The enhanced sensitivity was attributed to radiative emission from biexcitons generated through proton-induced upconversion and impact ionization. The scintillators could detect as few as seven protons per second, a sensitivity level far below the rates encountered in clinical settings. According […]
Spiral-shaped lens provides clear vision at a range of distances and lighting conditions
Phys.org February 8, 2024 Lens design is of paramount importance in the evolving world of technology, where compactness and high optical performance are a necessity. Freeform design techniques allow us to transcend traditional limitations, but creating new optics remains a substantial challenge unless we consider unconventional physical phenomenon. Researchers in France introduced a lens type based on freeform design, employing spiralization of one of its diopters that resulted in optical vortices. This enabled multifocality, primarily serving needs in ophthalmology; however, its potential applications could broadly impact many other domains. According to the researchers their lens design could be crucial in […]
What did the electron ‘say’ to the phonon in the graphene sandwich?
Phys.org February 12, 2024 Understanding electron-phonon interactions is fundamentally important and has crucial implications for device applications. However, in twisted bilayer graphene near the magic angle, this understanding is currently lacking. An international team of researchers (Spain, Japan, USA – MIT, Germany) studied electron-phonon coupling using time- and frequency-resolved photovoltage measurements as direct and complementary probes of phonon-mediated hot-electron cooling. They found a remarkable speedup in cooling of twisted bilayer graphene near the magic angle: the cooling time was a few picoseconds from room temperature down to 5 kelvin, whereas in pristine bilayer graphene, cooling to phonons becomes much slower […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of February 09, 2024
01. New ion cooling technique could simplify quantum computing devices 02. Breaking boundaries in quantum photonics: New nanocavities unlock new frontiers in light confinement 03. Key innovation in photonic components could transform supercomputing technology 04. Magnesium protects tantalum, a promising material for making qubits 05. Deciphering the deep dynamics of electric charge 06. Research team takes a fundamental step toward a functioning quantum internet 07. Whole-infrared-band camouflage with dual-band radiative heat dissipation 08. Strange New Kind of Magnetism Found Lurking In Material Just Six Atoms Thick 09. Scientists shed light on the inner workings of a new class of unconventional […]
Breaking boundaries in quantum photonics: New nanocavities unlock new frontiers in light confinement
Phys.org February 5, 2024 Confinement of light into nanocavities which enhances light–matter interactions generally come at the cost of absorption and low resonator quality factors. An international team of researchers (Israel, USA – Cornell University, Kansas State University, Germany, Spain) suggested an alternative optical multimodal confinement mechanism, unlocking the potential of hyperbolic phonon polaritons in isotopically pure hexagonal boron nitride. They produced deep-subwavelength cavities and demonstrated several orders of magnitude improvement in confinement approaching the intrinsic quality factor of hexagonal boron nitride polaritons. The quality factors they obtained exceeded the maximum predicted by impedance-mismatch considerations indicating that confinement was boosted […]