Category Physics

Twisted Edison: Filaments Curling at the Nanoscale Produce Light Waves that Twirl as they Travel

Behind the bulb, a screen displays the temperature of the glowing filament. The wavelengths of light emitted by the filament depend on its temperature, and how well the filament twirls the light depends on how close the wavelengths are to the pitch of the filament’s twists. Credit: Brenda Ahearn/Michigan Engineering

Bright, twisted light can be produced with technology similar to an Edison light bulb, researchers at the University of Michigan have shown. The finding adds nuance to fundamental physics while offering a new avenue for robotic vision systems and other applications for light that traces out a helix in space.

“It’s hard to generate enough brightness when producing twisted light with traditional ways like electron or photon luminescence,” said Jun Lu, an adjunct research i...

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Researchers take ‘Significant Leap Forward’ with Quantum Simulation of Molecular Electron Transfer

A crystal with 171Yb+ -172Yb+ ions is trapped in an ultra-high vacuum system. The researchers use different lasers to perform the simulation: one pair of lasers (indicated by the purple arrows) is used to simulate the coherent part of the evolution, while another laser (the blue arrow) is used to simulate and control the environment. (Image courtesy of Guido Pagano/Rice University.)

Discovery could advance renewable energy technologies, molecular electronics and quantum computing. Researchers at Rice University have made a meaningful advance in the simulation of molecular electron transfer — a fundamental process underpinning countless physical, chemical and biological processes...

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Charge your Phone in your Pocket with New Wireless Technology

Revolutionary technology allows for wireless charging of mobile devices anytime, anywhere
PTE measurement results at the ERWPT resonance frequency in the midrange (2m): Almost the same PTE in the lateral plane (xy-plane), demonstrating arrangement free characteristics, while the PTE and resonance frequency vary depending on the z-direction position. Credit: Advanced Science (2024). DOI: 10.1002/advs.202407827

A groundbreaking advancement in technology is paving the way for mobile phones and other electronic devices to recharge simply by being kept in a pocket. This innovative system enables wireless charging throughout three-dimensional (3D) spaces, encompassing walls, floors, and air.

On December 12, Professor Franklin Bien and his research team in the Department of Electrical Engineering at UNIST announced the creation of a revolutionary electric resonance-based wire...

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LLMs are becoming more Brain-like as they advance, researchers discover

LLM representations mirror human brain responses more closely as LLMs become more advanced
The methodology for predicting brain responses to speech from LLM embeddings, to assess the similarity of various LLMs to the brain. Credit: Gavin Mischler (Figure adapted from Mischler et al., Nature Machine Intelligence, 2024).

Large language models (LLMs), the most renowned of which is ChatGPT, have become increasingly better at processing and generating human language over the past few years. The extent to which these models emulate the neural processes supporting language processing by the human brain, however, has yet to be fully elucidated.

Researchers at Columbia University and Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research Northwell Health recently carried out a study investigating the similarities between LLM representations on neural responses...

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