Category Physics

Researchers at MIT have explored the secrets behind the conch shell’s extraordinary impact resilience. The findings are reported in a new study by MIT graduate student Grace Gu (right), postdoc Mahdi Takaffoli (left), and McAfee Professor of Engineering Markus Buehler. Credit: Melanie Gonick/MIT

Three-tiered structure of these impact-resistant shells could inspire better helmets, body armor. As recent research has demonstrated, one type of shell stands out above all the others in its toughness: the conch. Now, researchers at MIT have explored the secrets behind these shells’ extraordinary impact resilience. And they’ve shown that this superior strength could be reproduced in engineered materials, potentially to provide the best-ever protective headgear and body armor.

Conch shells “have ...

Researchers develop technique to electrically manipulate light through interaction with an atomically thin semiconductor. Credit: Image courtesy of North Carolina State University

Researchers from North Carolina State University have discovered a technique for controlling light with electric fields. “Our method is similar to the technique used to provide the computing capabilities of computers,” says Linyou Cao, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at NC State. “In computers, an electric field is used to turn electric current on or off, which corresponds to logic 1 and logic 0, the basis of binary code. With this new discovery, a light may be controlled to be strong or weak, spread or focused, pointing one direction or others by an electric field...

University of Central Florida Assistant Professor Debashis Chanda and physics PhD student Daniel Franklin have made a breakthrough that could produce much higher resolution for TVs, smartphones and other video screens.

Researchers at the University of Central Florida have developed a new color changing surface tunable through electrical voltage – a breakthrough that could lead to 3X the resolution for televisions, smartphones and other devices. With current technology, each of the pixels contain 3 subpixels – one red, one green, one blue. Assistant Professor Debashis Chanda and physics doctoral student Daniel Franklin have come up with a way to tune the color of these subpixels...

These images show the orbital paths of electrons trapped within a circular region within graphene. In the classical orbit (top image), an electron that travels in a complete circuit has the same physical state as when it started on the path. However, when an applied magnetic field reaches a critical value, (bottom image), an electron completing a circuit has a different physical state its original one. The change is called a Berry phase, and the magnetic field acts as a switch to turn the Berry phase on. The result is that the electron is raised to a higher energy level.
Credit: Christopher Gutiérrez, Daniel Walkup/NIST

The discovery promises new insight into quantum theory and may lead to new quantum electronic devices...