Category Physics

Massive Solar Wind Disturbance caused Earth’s Magnetosphere to Fly Without its Usual Tail

Massive solar wind disturbance caused Earth’s magnetosphere to fly without its usual tail
A coronal mass ejection in April 2023 caused Earth to grow Alfvén wings. (This CME, with Earth illustrated to scale, took place in 2021.) Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

Like a supersonic jet being blasted with high-speed winds, Earth is constantly being bombarded by a stream of charged particles from the sun known as solar wind.

Just like wind around a jet or water around a boat, these solar wind streams curve around Earth’s magnetic field, or magnetosphere, forming on the sunward side of the magnetosphere a front called a bow shock and stretching it into a wind sock shape with a long tail on the nightside.

Dramatic changes to the solar wind alter the structure and dynamics of the magnetosphere...

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Scientists Identify New Class of Semiconductor Nanocrystals

NRL scientists identify new of semiconductor nanocrystals
Credit: ACS Nano (2024). DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.4c02905

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) scientists confirm the identification of a new class of semiconductor nanocrystals with bright ground-state excitons, a significant advancement in the field of optoelectronics, in an article published in the American Chemical Society (ACS) journal ACS Nano.

The groundbreaking theoretical research could revolutionize the development of highly efficient light-emitting devices and other technologies.

Generally, the lowest-energy exciton in nanocrystals is poorly emitting, earning the name “dark” exciton. Because it slows the emission of light, the dark exciton limits the performance of nanocrystal-based devices like lasers or light-emitting diodes (LEDs)...

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Researchers to present New Tool for Enhancing AI Transparency and Accuracy at conference

SMU researchers to present new tool for enhancing AI transparency and accuracy at IEEE Conference
Clark and Buongiorno’s research explores GAME-KG’s potential across two demonstrations. The first uses the video game Dark Shadows. Credit: SMU

While large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in extracting data and generating connected responses, there are real questions about how these artificial intelligence (AI) models reach their answers. At stake are the potential for unwanted bias or the generation of nonsensical or inaccurate “hallucinations,” both of which can lead to false data.

That’s why SMU researchers Corey Clark and Steph Buongiorno are presenting a paper at the upcoming IEEE Conference on Games, scheduled for August 5-8 in Milan, Italy...

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New Transistor’s Superlative Properties could have Broad Electronics Applications

New transistor's superlative properties could have broad electronics applications
Caption: Schematic showing the crystal structure of the boron nitride key to a new ferroelectric material that MIT researchers and colleagues have used to build a transistor with superlative properties. The schematic shows how the structure can change as two ultrathin layers of boron nitride slide past each other upon application of an electric field. The P stands for polarization, or negative/positive charge. Credit: Ashoori and Jarillo-Herrero labs

In 2021, a team led by MIT physicists reported creating a new ultrathin ferroelectric material, or one where positive and negative charges separate into different layers. At the time, they noted the material’s potential for applications in computer memory and much more...

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