Phys.org August 20, 2024 The exponential growth of data is challenging to analyze and extract relevant and useful data. In chemistry there is a demand for tools that can visualize molecular datasets in a convenient graphical way. Researchers in Austria proposed a new, ready-to-use, multi-tool, and open-source framework for visualizing and navigating chemical space. The framework adhered to the low-code/no-code (LCNC) paradigm, provided a KNIME (KoNstanz Information MinEr) node, a web-based tool, and a Python package, making it accessible to a broad cheminformatics community. They demonstrated how this framework could be adapted for the visualization of chemical space and visual […]
Tag Archives: S&T Austria
Study unveils complexity of zoonotic transmission chains
Phys.org July 15, 2024 The eco-epidemiology of zoonoses is often oversimplified to host-pathogen interactions while findings derived from global datasets are rarely directly transferable to smaller-scale contexts. Researchers in Austria compiled a dataset of naturally occurring zoonotic interactions in Austria, spanning 1975–2022 and introduced zoonotic web to describe the complex relationships between zoonotic agents, their hosts, vectors, food, and environmental sources. They demonstrated that the most influential zoonotic sources were human, cattle, chicken, and some meat products confirming the increased probability of zoonotic spillover at human-cattle and human-food interfaces. They characterized six communities of zoonotic agent sharing driven by highly […]
Quantum entangled photons react to Earth’s spin
Phys.org June 14, 2024 Optical quantum interferometers are of particular interest because of mature methods for generating and manipulating quantum states of light. Their increased sensitivity promises to enable tests of quantum phenomena. However, this requires long and decoherence-free processing of quantum entanglement, which, for large interferometric areas, remains unexplored territory. Researchers in Austria developed a table-top experiment using maximally path-entangled quantum states of light in a large-scale interferometer sensitive enough to measure the rotation rate of Earth with high sensitivity. According to the researchers further improvements to their methodology will enable tests for fundamental physics allowing the exploration of […]
Switching nanomagnets using infrared lasers
Phys.org June 11, 2024 Metal phthalocyanines are topical objects of ongoing research and particularly interesting due to their magnetic properties. However, while the current focus lies almost exclusively on spin-Zeeman-related effects, the high symmetry of the molecule and its circular shape suggests the exploitation of light-induced excitation of 2-fold degenerate vibrational states in order to generate, switch, and manipulate magnetic fields at the nanoscale. The underlying mechanism is a molecular pseudorotation that can be triggered by infrared pulses and gives rise to a quantized, small, but controllable magnetic dipole moment. Researchers in Austria investigated the optical stimulation of vibrationally induced […]
Holographic message encoded in simple plastic
Phys.org March 18, 2024 Researchers in Austria produced a sub-terahertz holographic image of a two-dimensional 576-bit data code using a diffractive phase-plate element. The phase plate was designed to encode a focused image of the data code into a phase modulation profile. The complex phase plate structure is fabricated from polylactic acid using fused deposition modeling, a common three-dimensional-printing technique. The simplified optical setup, consisted of a 0.14 THz diverging source, the holographic phase plate, and a scanning detector, without the need for additional optical elements. The information stored in the data code was an example of a cryptographic private […]
Bacteria as blacksmiths – new method to assemble unconventional materials
Nanowerk July 27, 2023 When in equilibrium, thermal forces agitate molecules, which then diffuse, collide, and bind to form materials. However, the space of accessible structures in which micron-scale particles can be organized by thermal forces is limited, owing to the slow dynamics and metastable states. Active agents in a passive fluid generate forces and flows, forming a bath with active fluctuations. Two unanswered questions are whether those active agents can drive the assembly of passive components into unconventional states and which material properties they will exhibit. Researchers in Austria showed that passive, sticky beads immersed in a bath of […]
Wiring up quantum circuits with light
Science Daily May 18, 2023 Quantum entanglement is a key resource in currently developed quantum technologies. Sharing this fragile property between superconducting microwave circuits and optical or atomic systems would enable new functionalities, but this has been hindered by an energy scale mismatch of >104 and the resulting mutually imposed loss and noise. Researchers in Austria created and verified entanglement between microwave and optical fields in a millikelvin environment. Using an optically pulsed superconducting electro-optical device, they showed entanglement between propagating microwave and optical fields in the continuous variable domain. According to the researchers their work not only paves the […]
A blueprint for a quantum computer in reverse gear
Phys.org May 4, 2023 If two integers are entered as the input value, the computer circuit returns their product. Researchers in Austria developed inversion of algorithms with the help of quantum computers. The logic of the circuit was encoded within ground states of a quantum system. Both multiplication and factorization could be understood as ground-state problems and solved using quantum optimization methods. The core of their work was the encoding of the basic building blocks of the multiplier circuit, specifically AND gates, half, and full adders with the parity architecture as the ground state problem on an ensemble of interacting […]
Two qudits fully entangled
Science Daily April 20, 2023 Quantum information carriers, just like most physical systems, naturally occupy high-dimensional Hilbert spaces. Instead of restricting them to a two-level subspace, these high-dimensional (qudit) quantum systems are emerging as a powerful resource for the next generation of quantum processors. Yet harnessing the potential of these systems requires efficient ways of generating the desired interaction between them. Researchers in Austria experimentally demonstrated implementation of a native two-qudit entangling gate up to dimension 5 in a trapped-ion system. This was achieved by generalizing a recently proposed light-shift gate mechanism to generate genuine qudit entanglement in a single […]
How to fire projectiles through materials without breaking anything
Nanowerk November 28, 2022 Researchers in Austria bombarded ultrathin materials with highly charged ions to explain why sometimes the projectile penetrates the material layer without any noticeable change in the material and sometimes the material layer around the impact site is also completely destroyed. They found that it is not the momentum of the projectile that is mainly responsible for the holes, but its electric charge. When an ion with multiple positive charge hits the material layer, it attracts a larger number of electrons and takes them with it leaving a positively charged region in the material layer. Graphene’s high […]