Science Daily September 9, 2021 The strongest supercell thunderstorms typically feature an above-anvil cirrus plume (AACP), which is a plume of ice and water vapor in the lower stratosphere that occurs downwind of the ambient stratospheric flow in the lee of overshooting deep convection. AACP-origin hydration of the stratosphere has a poorly constrained role in ozone destruction and surface warming. A team of researchers in the US (Stanford University, University of Wisconsin) used large eddy simulations corroborated by radar observations to understand the physics of AACP generation. They showed that the overshooting top of a simulated supercell can act as […]
A three-qubit entangled state has been realized in a fully controllable array of spin qubits in silicon
Phys.org September 10, 2021 Researchers in Japan have developed a device consisting of a triple quantum dot on a silicon/silicon–germanium heterostructure and controlled through aluminum gates. Each quantum dot can host one electron, whose spin-up and spin-down states encode a qubit. An on-chip magnet generates a magnetic-field gradient that separates the resonance frequencies of the three qubits, so that they can be individually addressed. They first entangled two of the qubits by implementing a two-qubit gate and then realized three-qubit entanglement by combining the third qubit and the gate. The resulting three-qubit state had a remarkably high state fidelity of […]
Triangular honeycombs: Physicists design novel quantum material
Nanowerk September 14, 2021 Using molecular beam techniques researchers in Germany succeeded in depositing a single layer of indium atoms as triangular lattice on a silicon carbide crystal as support resulting in indenene. The relevant electrons occupy free space in between the indium positions. Their charge fills the “negative” of the triangular indium lattice which is actually a honeycomb lattice. Unlike graphene, indenene needs not to be cooled down to ultra-low temperatures to manifest its properties as a topological insulator. The simple structure of indenene represents at the same time a challenge: as soon as the single layer of indium […]
A universal system for decoding any type of data sent across a network
MIT News September 9, 2021 An international team of researchers (USA – MIT, Boston University, Ireland) has created the first silicon chip which, unlike most error correcting codes, is able to decode any code, regardless of its structure, with maximum accuracy, using a universal decoding algorithm called Guessing Random Additive Noise Decoding (GRAND). GRAND works by guessing the noise that affected the message and uses the noise pattern to deduce the original information. It generates a series of noise sequences in the order they are likely to occur, subtracts them from the received data, and checks to see if the […]
World’s first discovery of liquid directional steering on a bio-inspired surface
Phys.org September 16, 2021 A liquid deposited on a surface tends to move along directions that reduce surface energy, which is mainly dictated by surface properties rather than liquid properties, such as surface tension. Achieving well-controlled directional steering remains challenging because the liquid-solid interaction mainly occurs in the 2D domain. An international team of researchers (China, Hong Kong) has shown that the spreading direction of liquids with different surface tensions can be tailored by designing 3D capillary ratchets that create an asymmetric and 3D spreading profile both in and out of the surface plane. Such directional steering is also accompanied […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of September 10, 2021
01. Brain-inspired memory device 02. Creating a non-radiating source of electromagnetism 03. Enhancing photoelectric efficiency 04. GaN-on-diamond semiconductor material that can take the heat – 1000 C to be exact 05. Graphene valleytronics: Paving the way to small-sized room-temperature quantum computers 06. Lead-free rare-earth-based double perovskite nanocrystals with near-infrared emission 07. Tapping into magnets to clamp down on noise in quantum information 08. Physicists engineer new property out of ‘white’ graphene 09. Researchers reveal a novel metal where electrons flow with fluid-like dynamics 10. Researchers use gold film to enhance quantum sensing with qubits in a 2D material And others… […]
Brain-inspired memory device
Science Daily September 2, 2021 Profuse dendritic-synaptic interconnections among neurons in the neocortex embed intricate logic structures enabling sophisticated decision-making and dynamically reconfigure providing flexibility and adaptability to changing environments. To advance the performance of logic circuits, an international team of researchers (Singapore, Ireland, USA – industry, university of Oklahoma, Texas A&M College Station) used voltage-driven conditional logic interconnectivity among five distinct molecular redox states of a metal–organic complex to embed a ‘thicket’ of decision trees having 71 nodes within a single memristor. The resultant current–voltage characteristic of this molecular memristor exhibited eight recurrent and history-dependent non-volatile switching transitions between […]
Creating a non-radiating source of electromagnetism
Phys.org September 7, 2021 An international team of researchers (Russia, Germany, Australia) investigated radiation properties of physical systems composed of a single ultrahigh permittivity dielectric hollow disk excited by electric or magnetic point like dipole antennas, placed inside the inner bore. Using analytical and numerical methods, they demonstrated that such systems could support anapole states with total suppression of far-field radiation and thereby exhibit the properties of electric or magnetic nonradiating sources. They showed that the suppression of the far-field radiated power is a result of the destructive interference between radiative contributions of the point like dipole antennas and the […]
Decaying forest wood releases 10.9 billion tons of carbon yearly, which will increase with climate change
Phys.org September 2, 2021 The amount of carbon stored in deadwood is equivalent to about 8 per cent of the global forest carbon stocks. The decomposition of deadwood is largely governed by microorganisms and insects contributing to variations in the decomposition rates. An international team of researchers from a number of countries including Germany and USA conducted a field experiment of wood decomposition across 55 forest sites and 6 continents to show that the deadwood decomposition rates increase with temperature, and the strongest temperature effect is found at high precipitation levels. As a net effect insects accelerate the decomposition in tropical […]
Enhancing photoelectric efficiency
Phys.org September 6, 2021 Researchers at Michigan State University performed a comprehensive theoretical analysis of photoemission from metal surfaces due to laser illumination ranging from ultraviolet wavelengths of 200 nanometers to near-infrared wavelengths of 1200 nanometers. By analyzing photoemission mechanisms, current density, and quantum efficiency for this range of wavelengths, they found the electron emission mechanism varies depending on the laser wavelength, laser intensity and DC bias field. The calculations showed quantum efficiency can be nonlinearly increased through electron heating produced by intense sub-picosecond laser pulses, emphasizing the importance of laser heating. Quantum efficiency increased the most at laser wavelengths […]