Category Physics

A Light Bright and Tiny: Scientists build a better Nanoscale LED

A glowing purple bar representing the LED is attached to a green surface by a yellow metal contact.
Credit: B. Nikoobakht, N. Hanacek/NIST
The fin LED pixel design includes the glowing zinc oxide fin (purple), isolating dielectric material (green), and metal contact (yellow atop green). The microscopic fins, which the research team arranged into comb-like arrays, show an increase in brightness of 100 to 1,000 times over conventional submicron-sized LED designs. 

New design overcomes long-standing LED efficiency problem – and can transform into a laser to boot. A new design for light-emitting diodes (LEDs) developed by a team including scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) may hold the key to overcoming a long-standing limitation in the light sources’ efficiency...

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Simple Mod makes Quantum States Last 10,000 times longer

Quantum coherance
From left: Scientists Kevin Miao, Chris Anderson and Alexandre Bourassa work on quantum research in the Awschalom lab at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.
Photo by David Awschalom

Simple innovation expected to open multiple new avenues for quantum science. If we can harness it, quantum technology promises fantastic new possibilities. But first, scientists need to coax quantum systems to stay yoked for longer than a few millionths of a second.

A team of scientists at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering announced the discovery of a simple modification that allows quantum systems to stay operational – or “coherent” – 10,000 times longer than before...

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Fundamentally new approach to Ultrasound Imaging.

North Carolina State University researchers have demonstrated a new technique for creating ultrasound images. The new approach is substantially simpler than existing techniques and could significantly drive down technology costs.

North Carolina State University researchers have demonstrated a new technique for creating ultrasound images. The new approach is substantially simpler than existing techniques and could significantly drive down technology costs.

“Conventional ultrasound devices have a receiver that detects ultrasonic waves and converts them into an electrical signal, which is then sent to a computer that processes the signal and converts it into an image,” says Xiaoning Jiang, co-corresponding author of a paper on the work and a Duncan Distinguished Professor of Mechanical...

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Quantum Materials quest could benefit from Graphene that buckles

Graphene buckling
Simulated mountain and valley landscape created by buckling in graphene. The bright linked dots are electrons that have slowed down and interact strongly. Image: Yuhang Jiang

Cooled graphene mimics effect of enormous magnetic fields that would benefit electronics. Graphene, an extremely thin two-dimensional layer of the graphite used in pencils, buckles when cooled while attached to a flat surface, resulting in beautiful pucker patterns that could benefit the search for novel quantum materials and superconductors, according to Rutgers-led research in the journal Nature.

Quantum materials host strongly interacting electrons with special properties, such as entangled trajectories, that could provide building blocks for super-fast quantum computers...

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