Category Physics

DARKNESS (the DARK-speckle Near-infrared Energy-resolved Superconducting Spectrophotometer) can detect planets around the nearest stars. Credit: Image courtesy of University of California – Santa Barbara

Physicists and astronomers commission the most advanced superconducting camera in the world. Somewhere in the vastness of the universe another habitable planet likely exists. And it may not be that far – astronomically speaking – from our own solar system. Distinguishing that planet’s light from its star, however, can be problematic. But an international team led by UC Santa Barbara physicist Benjamin Mazin has developed a new instrument to detect planets around the nearest stars. It is the world’s largest and most advanced superconducting camera...

This is a conceptual image of spin current flow in a superconductor. Credit: Jason Robinson

Researchers have shown that certain superconductors – materials that carry electrical current with zero resistance at very low temperatures – can also carry currents of ‘spin’. The successful combination of superconductivity and spin could lead to a revolution in high-performance computing, by dramatically reducing energy consumption.

Spin is a particle’s intrinsic angular momentum, and is normally carried in non-superconducting, non-magnetic materials by individual electrons. Spin can be ‘up’ or ‘down’, and for any given material, there is a maximum length that spin can be carried...

The wavelength of emitted light grows, that is, the energy decreases, along the gold nanorod array. A Bose-Einstein condensate forms when an energy minimum of the lattice is reached. Credit: Aalto University / Tommi Hakala and Antti Paraoanu

Nearly a hundred years ago, Albert Einstein and Satyendra Nath Bose predicted that quantum mechanics can force a large number of particles to behave in concert as if they were only a single particle. The phenomenon is called Bose-Einstein condensation, and it took until 1995 to create the first such condensate of a gas of alkali atoms. Although Bose-Einstein condensation has been observed in several systems, the limits of the phenomenon need to be pushed further: to faster timescales, higher temperatures, and smaller sizes...

Rendering of the electronic device in which Majorana particles were observed. The device is made up of a superconductor (blue bar) and a magnetic topological insulator (gray strip). The Majorana particles result in transport channels (shown in red, pink, blue and yellow) in the electronic device. Credit: Courtesy UCLA

U.S. Army-funded researchers at ULCA have found a proverbial smoking gun signature of the long sought-after Majorana particle, and the find, they say, could block intruders on sensitive communication networks...