Eurekalert June 28, 2018 Chiral bobber (ChBs) – which is characterized by several unique properties was predicted theoretically. An international team of researchers (Germany, Sweden, Russia, China) has demonstrated the existence of chiral bobbers in thin films of B20-type FeGe by means of quantitative off-axis electron holography. They showed that ChBs can coexist with skyrmions over a wide range of parameters, which suggests their possible practical applications in novel magnetic solid-state memory devices… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
New coatings make natural fabrics waterproof
Science Daily June 29, 2018 Conventional water-repellent coatings have been shown to persist in the environment and accumulate in our bodies. Researchers at MIT have developed a process that allows for iCVD deposition of durable, conformal short fluorinated polymers stabilized with a crosslinking agent resulting in high hydrophobicity, low liquid adhesion while maintaining initial substrate breathability. To further enhance the dynamic water repellency performance, the chemical treatment is combined with physical texturing making this combined approach a suitable candidate to meet the industrial needs. The process works on different kinds of materials including cotton, nylon, linen and paper, opening a […]
New photodetector could improve night vision, thermal sensing and medical imaging
Phys.org June 28, 2018 Researchers at UCLA laid strips of graphene over a silicon dioxide layer, which itself covers a base of silicon. Then, they created a series of comb-like nanoscale patterns, made of gold, with “teeth” about 100 nanometers wide. The graphene acts as a net to catch incoming photons and then convert them into an electrical signal. The gold comb-shaped nanopatterns transfer the information to a processor, which produces a corresponding high-quality image, even under low-light conditions. The design enables operation across a broad range of light, quicker processing of images and provides greater sensitivity to lower levels […]
Quantum-enhanced sensing of magnetic fields
Science Daily July 2, 2018 Transmon qubit is currently one of the leading candidates for a building block of large-scale quantum computers. An international team of researchers (Finland, Switzerland, Russia) has constructed an artificial atom with an intrinsic magnetic moment that is around 100’000 times larger than that of natural atoms or ions. The coupling of large moment to an external magnetic field makes it possible to accurately measure the strength of the field. The combination of harnessing quantum hardware and quantum algorithms in the context of quantum sensing provides an appealing route towards novel devices that, ultimately, promise to […]
Rotating resonator creates a one-way street for light
Physics World June 29, 2018 An international team of researchers (Israel, USA – University of Central Florida, University of Michigan, China, Japan) used a cylindrical, silica-glass resonator that is rotating on a turbine. An optical fibre is located 320 nm above the spinning resonator. Light travelling along the fibre interacting with the nearby resonator via the light’s short-range evanescent field perceives it to be less dense than light travelling in the opposite direction. This difference in apparent density results in different indices of refraction for light moving in opposite directions allowing the researchers to pass light of the same frequency […]
Sandia light mixer generates 11 colors simultaneously
Eurekalert June 28, 2018 An international team of researchers (USA – Sandia National Laboratories, Germany) has developed an optical mixer using an array of nanocylinders made from gallium arsenide laid out in a square pattern about 840 nanometers apart from one another. They selected two near infrared lasers with wavelengths tuned to the metamaterial’s resonant frequencies. The light from the two lasers — call them frequencies A and B — mix to produce 11 colors from different mixing products including A+A, A+B, B+B, A+A+B, and A+B+B, and so on. This was accomplished without the need to change angles or match […]
A satellite with a harpoon, net and drag sail to capture space junk is in orbit and will be tested soon
Phys.org June 29, 2018 NASA is experimenting with the RemoveDebris spacecraft deployed from the ISS, to conduct a series of active debris removal (ADR) technology demonstrations starting in September 2018. Two CubeSats are launched as artificial debris targets to demonstrate some of the technologies. First CubeSat will inflate its onboard balloon to simulate a larger piece of junk. The RemoveDebris spacecraft will then deploy its net to capture it, then guide it into the Earth’s atmosphere where the net will be released. The second CubeSat will be used to test the mothership’s tracking and ranging lasers, its algorithms, and its […]
Spectral cloaking could make objects invisible under realistic conditions
Phys.org June 28, 2018 Most current cloaking devices can fully conceal the object of interest only when the object is illuminated with just one color of light. Researchers in Canada propose a new conceptual approach enabling the realization of full-field broadband invisibility. This involves a customized and reversible redistribution of the illumination frequency content, allowing the wave to propagate through the object of interest while preventing any interaction between the wave and the object. They demonstrated the concealment of a broadband optical filter from detection with a phase-coherent light pulse of 500 GHz bandwidth, showing full restoration of the complex […]
Where do ideas come from?
Arxiv June 26, 2018 Ideas are nurtured by informal dialogues in environments where mistakes are tolerated, and critical thinking is encouraged. It is therefore crucial to create a space in which challenges are discussed openly and without fear, stimulating new solutions. An excellent historic example was Bell Labs which for decades in the mid-20th century, assembled creative physicists and engineers into a single corridor, where their daily conversations led to the inventions of radio astronomy, the transistor, photovoltaic cells, CCDs and many other breakthroughs. It is essential to include young people in the conversation, since they lack baggage and are […]
Computational intelligence-inspired clustering in multi-access vehicular networks
Phys.org June 28, 2018 Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) have attracted great interest for improving communications between vehicles using infrastructure-less wireless technologies. To overcome the shortcomings of the VANETs, an international team of researchers (Japan, Finland) has proposed a two-level clustering approach where cluster head nodes in the first level try to reduce the MAC layer contentions for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications, and cluster head nodes in the second level are responsible for providing a gateway functionality between V2V and LTE. Simulation results under various Network conditions show that the proposed protocol can achieve 23% throughput improvement in high-density scenarios compared […]