Phys.org December 1, 2021 An international team of researchers (USA – UC Berkeley, Japan) believe that to surpasses the limits of Moore’s Law magnons can be harnessed to carry information. Since the electrons themselves remain stationary as magnons pass through them, there is no heat to be dissipated, the major limiting factor in Moore’s Law. Magnons carry spins faster and with lower heat dissipation than electrons. They are starting with heterostructures of Mott insulators and heavy metals that will enable them to add and remove spin in the Mott insulator. They are fabricating a prototype Topological Magnon Transistor (TMT) in […]
New chip hides wireless messages in plain sight
Science Daily November 23, 2021 Traditional encryption methods are challenging to scale for high-bandwidth, ultralow-latency applications. An alternative approach is to use physical-layer techniques that rely on the physics of signal propagation to incorporate security features without the need for an explicit key exchange. Ensuring security using directional, narrow-beam-like features of mm-wave/THz signals has proven to be vulnerable to passive eavesdroppers. An international team of researchers (USA – Princeton University, China) has developed a space-time modulation approach that ensures security by enforcing loss of information through selective spectral aliasing towards the direction of eavesdroppers, even though the channel can be […]
Polymer that folds and unfolds under UV radiation
Phys.com November 30, 2021 An international team of researchers (Japan, Switzerland, UK) built the supramolecular polymer from monomers that formed six-membered rosettes stacked on top of one another to give an infinitely long chain. An intrinsic curvature generated along the stacked rosettes caused the nanofibers to twist up and fold into a helical structure. The folding could be removed by triggering a “light switch”. UV-light irradiation caused the monomer to bend, forming a kink in the molecule, reducing the rotation of the rosette, and unfolding the helical structure. A second switch which works using temperature prevented the entire polymer from […]
Potential step toward new superconductors
Nanowerk December 2, 2021 An international team of researchers (USA – Harvard University, Spain, Finland) describe for the first time an unexpected path electrons can take through 2D, highly structured materials: That path is called branched flow. Branched flow has been seen in 3D, chaotic systems like gases, tsunamis, and even light ricocheting through soap bubbles but nobody expected to see branched flow in 2D periodic systems. The challenge is controlling the branched flow. However, if scientists learn to control the newly discovered branched flow, they won’t need phonons; they can matchmake the electrons themselves through their custom superwires and […]
Programmable interaction between quantum magnets
Nanowerk November 26, 2021 Using Floquet engineering researchers in Germany created a Rydberg states in an ultracold atomic gas. By applying a sequence of spin manipulations, they changed the symmetry properties of the Hamiltonian modifying the relaxation behavior of the total spin. According to the researchers engineering a wide range of Hamiltonians opens vast opportunities for implementing quantum simulation of nonequilibrium dynamics in a single experimental setting. The studies are an important step towards a better understanding of basic processes in complex quantum systems…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Researchers propose method to increase charge of supercapacitors
Nanowerk December 1, 2021 For ionic liquids, not only are the charge and size of each ion important, but so too are such characteristics as dipole moment on a cation and static polarizability which determines the particle’s ability to get an induced dipole moment in the external electrical field. An international team of researchers (Russia, Germany) analysed how differential capacitance behaves depending on the voltage given the growing permanent dipole moment and static polarizability of cations for ionic liquids and electrolyte solutions. In both cases, the growth of polarizability or permanent dipole moment of cations leads to considerable growth of […]
Researchers propose a simpler design for quantum computers
Phys.org November 29, 2021 It is challenging to construct large numbers of gates for photons and connect them in a reliable fashion to perform complex calculations. Researchers at Stanford University have proposed a scalable architecture for a photonic quantum computer using readily available components – a fiber optic cable, a beam splitter, a pair of optical switches and an optical cavity, and the size of the machine doesn’t increase with the size of the quantum program you want to run. The design consists of two main sections – a storage ring and a scattering unit. The storage ring is a fiber […]
Revolutionary intelligent transistor can be adapted to perform very different tasks
Nanowerk December 1, 2021 An international team of researchers (Austria, France) has created a prototype of a flexible transistor harnessing the special properties of germanium and the use of dedicated program gate electrodes. They connected two electrodes with an extremely thin wire made of germanium, which is connected to metal on both sides with clean interface. A gate electrode is place above the germanium segment. The transistor also has a control electrode, which is placed on the interfaces between germanium and metal which can dynamically program the function of the transistor. The fusion of electron and hole conduction together with […]
Shrinking qubits for quantum computing with 2D materials
Nanowerk December 1, 2021 The capacitor electrodes that comprise the qubits in quantum computers must be large to avoid lossy dielectrics. This hinders scaling degrading individual qubit addressability and limiting the spatial density of qubits. An international team of researchers (USA – Columbia University, Raytheon BBN Technologies, Japan) took advantage of the unique properties of van der Waals (vdW) materials to reduce the qubit area by >1000 times while preserving the capacitance while maintaining quantum coherence. The qubits combine conventional aluminum-based Josephson junctions with parallel-plate capacitors composed of crystalline layers of superconducting niobium diselenide and insulating hexagonal boron nitride. The […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of November 26, 2021
01. ‘Super jelly’ can survive being run over by a car (with Video) 02. By keeping ferroelectric ‘bubbles’ intact, researchers pave way for new devices 03. Doing photon upconversion a solid – Crystals that convert light to more useful wavelengths 04. An exploration of tipping in complex systems 05. How sugar-loving microbes could help power future cars 06. Iodine successfully tested in satellite ion thrusters 07. Magnetic symmetry is not just like looking in a mirror (w/video) 08. New device modulates visible light—without dimming it—with the smallest footprint and lowest power consumption 09. New ultrahard diamond glass synthesized 10. Researchers […]