Category Physics

Nanocardboard is made out of an aluminum oxide film with a thickness of tens of nanometers, forming a hollow plate with a height of tens of microns. Its sandwich structure, similar to that of corrugated cardboard, makes it more than ten thousand times as stiff as a solid plate of the same mass. A square centimeter of nanocardboard weighs less than a thousandth of a gram and can spring back into shape after being bent in half.
Credit: University of Pennsylvania

Engineers have demonstrated a new material they call ‘nanocardboard,’ an ultrathin equivalent of corrugated paper cardboard. A square centimeter of nanocardboard weighs less than a thousandth of a gram and can spring back into shape after being bent in half...

Integrating eye tracker into a regular pair of glasses, the system relies on NIR lights and photodiodes for eye tracking and is powered by two thin solar cells on the arms of the glasses.
Credit: Photo courtesy of DartNets Lab

Battery-free eye-tracking glasses developed at Dartmouth College could create an even more realistic experience for augmented reality enthusiasts. The new technology improves player controls for gaming and allows for more accurate image displays.

High power consumption and cost have kept eye trackers out of current augmented reality systems. By using near-infrared lights and photodiodes, Dartmouth’s DartNets Lab has created an energy-efficient, wearable system that tracks rapid eye movements and allows hands-free input of system commands.

The glasses, which can also h...

Payload of the sounding rocket and all those involved in the undertaking, among them scientists of the MAIUS-1 project, employees of the German Aerospace Center, and employees of the Esrange rocket launch site.
Credit: Copyright Thomas Schleuss, DLR

Physicists put in place groundwork for accurately testing Einstein’s equivalence principle. A team of scientists from Germany has succeeded in creating a Bose-Einstein condensate for the first time in space on board a research rocket. On January 23, 2017 at 3:30 a.m. Central European Time, the MAIUS-1 mission was launched into space from the Esrange Space Center in Sweden. After a detailed analysis, the results have been published recently in the journal Nature...

Quantum illustration.
Credit: Stevens Institute of Technology

Researchers have developed a scalable method for creating large numbers of quantum light sources on a chip with unprecedented precision that not only could pave the way for the development of unbreakable cryptographic systems but also quantum computers that can perform complex calculations in seconds that would take normal computers years to finish. Household lightbulbs give off a chaotic torrent of energy, as trillions of miniscule light particles – called photons – reflect and scatter in all directions...