Category Physics

Physicists at The Australian National University (ANU) are using nanoparticles to develop new sources of light that will allow us to “peel back the curtain” into the world of extremely small objects – thousands of times smaller than a human hair – with major gains for medical and other technologies.

The findings, published in Science Advances, could have major implications for medical science by offering an affordable and effective solution to analyse tiny objects that are too small for microscopes to see, let alone the human eye. The work could also be beneficial for the semiconductor industry and improving quality control of the fabrication of computer chips.

The ANU technology uses carefully engineered nanoparticles to increase the frequency of light that cameras and ...

Emerging AI applications, like chatbots that generate natural human language, demand denser, more powerful computer chips. But semiconductor chips are traditionally made with bulk materials, which are boxy 3D structures, so stacking multiple layers of transistors to create denser integrations is very difficult.

However, semiconductor transistors made from ultrathin 2D materials, each only about three atoms in thickness, could be stacked up to create more powerful chips...

From access cards and key fobs to Blu...

Revolutionary design could combine superconductor levitation, lossless electricity transmission, and liquid hydrogen transportation into one system. Superconductors can conduct electricity without any resistance or power loss, and they can effortlessly cause magnets to levitate above them. These properties would make superconductors useful for high-speed trains or long-distance power transmission, except for one glaring problem: superconductors only work at low temperatures, more than a hundred degrees below zero.

This one requirement makes building a hyperefficient electrical grid or high-speed rail netwo...