Device to probe limits of physics
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UK physicists have completed the first crucial element of an experimental device designed to probe the forces that shape our Universe.
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Device boosts prospects for inexpensive quantum cryptography and quantum computing.
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like the one used in Star Wars - could soon be installed on the high-street. Boffins in Japan claim to have developed technology for image chambers - similar
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At NIST's Time and Frequency lab in Colorado, scientists build precision clocks from elements like mercury and ytterbium. The instruments harness general relativity to detect a range of conditions and situations, from heart defects to subterranean oil fields. Just don't ask them what time it is.
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New publications, experiments and breakthroughs in nanotechnology--and what they mean.
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A breakthrough in the way scientists make crystals could lead to a replacement for silicon in electronic devices.
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Cornell University researchers are developing a napkin that will be able to detect bacteria, viruses and other dangerous substances with a mere swipe.
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A detector built from nanowire transistors can identify individual virus particles in real time in unpurified samples.
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NANOTECHNOLOGY -- engineering substances down to billionths of a meter in size -- holds out such promise of providing super-strong materials or desalinating water inexpensively that no one wants to put a red light in its way. But there are enough safety questions to justify more yellow lights than either industry or government has yet deployed.
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Only 12 years old, the field of ultracold physics is already leading scientists to discoveries that seemed like science fiction just a decade ago. Think quantum supercomputers and modeling the big bang.
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Scientists have manipulated carbon atoms to create a material that could be used to create light-based, versus electronic, switches. The material could lead to a supercharged Internet based entirely on light, scientists say.
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British researchers find a way to close a potential flaw in quantum communication systems.
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Scientists develop a device thousands of times smaller than a human hair that can turn radio waves into sound.
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(InfoWorld) - IBM has demonstrated how to perform certain computer functions on single atoms and molecules, a discovery that could someday lead to processors the size of a speck of dust, the company said Thursday. Researchers at IBM's Almaden Research Center in California developed a technique for measuring magnetic anisotropy, a property of the magnetic field that gives it the ability to maintain a particular direction. Being able to measure magnetic anisotropy at the atomic level is a crucial step toward the magnet representing the ones or the zeroes used to store data in binary computer language. In a second report, researchers at IBM's lab in Zurich, Switzerland, said they had used an individual molecule as an electric switch that could potentially replace the transistors used in modern chips. The company published both research reports in Friday's edition of the journal Science. The new technologies are at least 10 years from being used for components in commercial products, but the discoveries will allow scientists to take a large step forward in their quest to replace silicon, said IBM spokesman Matthew McMahon. To build faster, smaller chips, IBM and other chip vendors like Intel and AMD have shrunk the dimensions of chip features from 90 nanometers to 65nm in the current generation of chips and plan to continue to 45nm and 32nm in coming years. The problem is that wires built from silicon tend to leak more electricity at each step on that scale and will eventually reach a limit where they are no longer useful. "Across all our areas of nanotechnology research, we're trying to determine the new kinds of materials we can use in computing when silicon reaches its fundamental limits. The ultimate goal is molecular-level computers, but the interim products will probably be hybrids with current technology, using things like carbon nanotubes," McMahon said. IBM defines nanotechnology as work done at a scale of 100nm or smaller. At that scale, scientists must use a tool called the STM (scanning tunneling microscope) to photograph and manipulate individual atoms as they did in their latest research. Their next challenge is to find a way to make these laboratory demonstrations work at room temperature, he said. Having measured the magnetic anisotropy of a single atom, "their next step is finding atoms that can do it at stable temperatures that are suitable for storage devices. If they can find that, it's still a decade out from commercialization," he said. The Zurich researchers also developed a technique for using a molecule containing two hydrogen atoms as a switch, either on its own or with an adjacent molecule. They are now looking to apply the method to many other molecules, enabling the system to work as a collection of logic gates, the building blocks of microprocessors. Even if the teams reach those goals, they must find a way to manufacture the systems on a large scale, instead of moving single atoms with the STM. One possibility is to use the process of self-assembly, where atoms under certain conditions will naturally form the desired shapes. In May, IBM said it had used that approach to insulate the wires on a chip by creating trillions of tiny, vacuum-filled holes around each one.
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Researchers find way to make tiny structures emit different wavelengths of light.
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An electrically driven laser expands the range of photonic crystal devices.
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A photon entanglement experiment shows progress toward quantum teleportation of data.