Science Daily May 3, 2018 Researchers in Singapore have designed a microchip called BATLESS that switches to the minimum-power mode and operates with a tiny power consumption of about half a nanoWatt when the battery is exhausted. The power management technique enables operations to be self-started, while being powered directly by the tiny on-chip solar cell, with no battery assistance. The chip’s ability to switch between minimum energy and minimum power mode translates into aggressive miniaturisation of batteries from centimetres down to a few millimetres… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Magnetized plasmas that twist light can produce powerful microscopes and more
Phys.org May 7, 2018 An optical vortex is a light wave with a twisting wavefront around its propagation axis and null intensity in the beam center. Accessible intensity of optical vortices have been limited to material ionization threshold which might be removed by using the plasma medium. Researchers at Princeton University propose the design of suitably magnetized plasmas which, functioning as a q-plate, leads to a direct conversion from a high-intensity Gaussian beam into a twisted beam. A circularly polarized laser beam in the plasma accumulates an azimuthal-angle-dependent phase shift and hence forms a twisting wavefront. Extremely high-resolution images are […]
Making new layered superconductors using high entropy alloys
Science Daily May 4, 2018 Use of layered materials with a molecular structure consisting of alternating superconducting layers and “blocking layers” acting as insulating spacers is used to design new superconductors that retain superconducting properties at higher temperatures. Researchers in Japan have created new superconductors made of layers of bismuth sulfide and a high entropy rare earth alloy oxyfluoride, containing five rare earth elements – lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, and samarium – at the same crystallographic site. The new material retains superconducting properties over a wider range of lattice parameters than materials without high-entropy-alloy states. The work promises a new […]
A microscopic roundabout for light—team develops a magnet-free optical circulator
Phys.org May 4, 2018 To break the symmetry of light propagation, instead of magnet, an international team of researchers (The Netherlands, USA – UT Austin, City University of New York, City College of New York) created circulating behavior using a microscale glass ring resonator by letting light in the ring interact with the ring’s mechanical vibrations. Careful control of the optical paths in the structure ensures that light from each input constructively interferes in exactly the right output. They demonstrated that circulation can be actively tuned and it can be turned on and off by controlling the frequency and power […]
Motorizing fibres with geometric zero-energy modes
Phys.org May 4, 2018 An international team of researchers (France, Switzerland, Germany) used responsive materials to generate structures with built-in complex geometries, linear actuators and microswimmers. The results suggest that complex, fully functional machines composed solely from shape-changing materials might be possible. They show that prestrained polymer fibres closed into rings exhibit self-actuation and continuous motion when placed between two heat baths due to elastic deformations that arise from rotational-symmetry breaking around the rod’s axis. Their findings illustrate a simple but robust model to create active motion in mechanically prestrained objects… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Picking one photon out of the flow
Science Daily May 3, 2018 An international team of researchers (Denmark, Germany, USA – NIST) has implemented photonic memory. The general idea was to first store an optical field, and then send another one through the medium. Photons in the second beam take notice of the stored photons and interact with them in such a way that exactly one photon is tagged and later discarded on retrieval. Being robbed of a single photon, the original light beam is left in a peculiar quantum state that has numerous scientific and technological applications. This method paves the way towards future quantum communication […]
R&D Special Focus: Looking Back at Past R&D 100 Award Recipients
R&D Magazine May 3, 2018 Over the past few weeks, R&D Magazine has taken an in-depth look at some of the 2017 R&D 100 Awardees on rdmag.com. The full list of 2017 R&D 100 awardees can be viewed here … read more.
A surprising new superconductor
Science Daily May 1, 2018 A team of researchers in the US (NIST, University of Colorado, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Argonne National Laboratory, Syracuse University) has shown that electroplated rhenium (Re) films in multilayers with metals such as Cu, Au, and Pd have an enhanced superconducting critical temperature relative to previous methods of preparing Re. The dc resistance and magnetic susceptibility indicate a critical temperature of approximately 6 K. It meets ideal characteristics desired for use in circuit boards for ultrafast, next-generation computing applications: superconducting at higher, easier-to-achieve critical temperatures, easy to work with mechanically, non-toxic, and melts at high […]
Swarms of low-resource sensors to probe the ionosphere
Phys.org May 1, 2018 There are fundamental questions about energy and disturbances in plasmas that require measurements at many points in time to understand. NASA is sponsoring a team developing a new type of payload to collect ionospheric plasma data at multiple points near a suborbital main payload. These low-resource, easily reproducible payloads—called Bobs—were developed for the NASA Isinglass auroral sounding rocket mission. Each payload carries two thermal ion sensors (retarding potential analyzers) as well as a small commercial inertial measurement unit like that found in a handheld video game controller… read more.
Time Crystals Multiply
American Physical Society Synopsis May 1, 2018 A time crystal is a collection of objects that spontaneously form a pattern in time. A discrete time crystal (DTC) is a robust phase of driven systems that breaks the discrete time translation symmetry of the driving Hamiltonian. Recent experiments have observed DTC signatures in two distinct systems. Researchers at Yale University show nuclear magnetic resonance observations of DTC signatures in a third, strikingly different system: an ordered spatial crystal. They use a novel DTC echo experiment to probe the coherence of the driven system. They show that interactions during the pulse of […]