Phys.org September 22, 2021 The loss of melting ice from land masses such as Greenland and Antarctica are causing the planet’s crust to warp slightly, even in spots more than 1,000 kilometres from the ice loss. A team of researchers in the US (Harvard University, Columbia University) analyzed satellite data on melt from 2003 to 2018 and studied changes in Earth’s crust to measure the shifting of the crust horizontally. They found that in some places the crust was moving more horizontally than it was lifting. They demonstrated that mass changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet and high latitude glacier […]
The nanophotonics orchestra presents: Twisting to the light of nanoparticles
Science Daily September 20, 2021 In 3D isotropic liquids, optical third-harmonic generation is forbidden, with circularly polarized light (CPL). Yet the associated nonlinear susceptibility directly influences the optical properties at the fundamental frequency by intensity dependence. An international team of researchers (UK, Germany) has revealed the hidden third-harmonic optical properties upon circularly polarized light (CPL) by demonstrating a new effect, in hyper-Rayleigh scattering. The intensity of light scattered at the third-harmonic frequency of the CPL incident light depends on the chirality of the scatterers. It is referred to as third harmonic (hyper) Rayleigh scattering optical activity (THRS OA) and was […]
New optical ‘transistor’ speeds up computation up to 1,000 times, at lowest switching energy possible
Phys.org September 22, 2021 Based on light-matter coupling, an international team of researchers (Russia, Switzerland, Germany, UK) created an optical switch which in a proof-of-principle demonstration achieved switching with just one photon at room temperature. The switch could act as a component that links devices by shuttling data between them in the form of optical signals, and serve as an amplifier, boosting the intensity of an incoming laser beam by a factor of up to 23,000. The device relies on two lasers to set its state to “0” or “1” and to switch between them. The switching occurs inside a […]
A new way to control qubits
Phys.org September 22, 2021 A team of researchers in the US (NIST, University of Colorado, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of Oregon, UT Austin) demonstrated high-fidelity laser-free universal control of two trapped-ion qubits by creating both symmetric and antisymmetric maximally entangled states with fidelities of 1+0−0.0017 and 0.9977+0.0010−0.0013, respectively (68 per cent confidence level), corrected for initialization error. They used a scheme based on radiofrequency magnetic field gradients combined with microwave magnetic fields that is robust against multiple sources of decoherence and usable with essentially any trapped ion species. The scheme has the potential to perform simultaneous entangling operations on […]
New quantum transmission protocol has higher data transmission rate, robustness against interference
Phys.org September 22, 2021 One of the fundamental principles enabling entanglement-based quantum communication security is the fact that interfering with one photon will destroy entanglement and thus be detectable. However, this property is also the greatest obstacle. Random encounters of traveling photons, losses, and technical imperfections make noise an inevitable part of any quantum communication scheme, severely limiting distance, key rate, and environmental conditions in which quantum key distribution can be employed. Using photons entangled in their spatial degree of freedom, an international team of researchers (China, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Slovakia) has shown that the increased noise resistance of […]
Physicists make square droplets and liquid lattices
Nanowerk September 15, 2021 To study if the non-equilibrium structures can be controlled or be useful researchers in Finland subjected combinations of oils with different dielectric constants and conductivities to an electric field. When an electric field turned on over the mixture, electrical charge accumulated at the interface between the oils shearing the interface out of thermodynamic equilibrium. The liquids were confined into a thin, nearly two-dimensional sheet taking various droplets and patterns. The droplets could be made into squares and hexagons with straight sides. The two liquids could be also made to form into interconnected lattices, grid patterns that […]
Scientists develop the next generation of reservoir computing
Phys.org September 21, 2021 Reservoir computing is a machine learning algorithm developed in the early 2000s and used to solve the “hardest of the hard” computing problems. It requires very small training data sets, uses linear optimization, and thus requires minimal computing resources. It does that using an artificial neural network which is a black box. A team of researchers in the US (Ohio State University, industry, Clackson University) investigated the “black box” and found that the whole reservoir computing system could be greatly simplified, dramatically reducing the need for computing resources and saving significant time. They tested their concept […]
Scientists still don’t know how far melting in Antarctica will go, or the sea level rise it will unleash
Phys.org September 21, 2021 Ice loss from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets was the largest contributor to sea level rise in recent decades. Adapting to the projected sea level rise that will have widespread effects in Australia and around the world due to ice sheet melt are so wide that developing ways for societies to adapt will be incredibly expensive and difficult. An international scientific collaboration known as the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project (ISMIP6) is quantifying how much Antarctic ice sheets will contribute to sea level rise has identified basal melt, the melting of ice shelves from underneath, […]
Winged microchip is smallest-ever human-made flying structure
Science Daily September 22, 2021 An international team of researchers (South Korea, UK, USA – Northwestern University, University of Wisconsin, University of Connecticut, University of Illinois, University of Purdue, China, Hong Kong) studied wind-dispersed seeds to build microfliers and optimized its aerodynamics to ensure that it falls at a slow velocity in a controlled manner. They fabricated precursors to flying structures in flat, planar geometries and bonded them onto a slightly stretched rubber substrate. When the stretched substrate is relaxed, a controlled buckling process occurred causing the wings to “pop up” into precisely defined three-dimensional forms. It included sensors, a […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of September 17, 2021
01. Just by changing its shape, scientists show they can alter material properties 02. Laser loops create ultrafast electric currents in solid materials 03. Magnetic field turns handed superconductor into liquid crystal-like nematic state 04. New DNA-based chip can be programmed to solve complex math problems 05. Researchers create nanoparticle paste to make perovskite solar cells more efficient 06. Scientists Built a New Kind of Invisibility Cloak, But It’s Not For Your Eyes 07. Scientists solve mystery of icy plumes that may foretell deadly supercell storms 08. A three-qubit entangled state has been realized in a fully controllable array of […]