Category Physics

Image of diamond anvils compressing molecular hydrogen. At higher pressure the sample converts to atomic hydrogen, as shown on the right. Credit: R. Dias and I.F. Silvera

Physicists succeed in creating ‘the holy grail of high-pressure physics’. Nearly a century after it was theorized, Harvard scientists have succeeded in creating the rarest – and potentially one of the most valuable – materials on the planet. The material – atomic metallic hydrogen – was created by Thomas D. Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences Isaac Silvera and post-doctoral fellow Ranga Dias. In addition to helping scientists answer fundamental questions about the nature of matter, the material is theorized to have a wide range of applications, including as a room-temperature superconductor.

“This is the holy grail of...

Vanadium dioxide (VO2) nanobeams synthesized by Berkeley researchers show exotic electrical and thermal properties. In this false-color scanning electron microscopy image, thermal conductivity was measured by transporting heat from the suspended heat source pad (red) to the sensing pad (blue). The pads are bridged by a VO2 nanobeam. Credit: Junqiao Wu/Berkeley Lab

The findings of vanadium dioxide properties could lead to a wide range of applications, such as thermoelectric systems that convert waste heat from engines and appliances into electricity, window coatings. For most metals, the relationship between electrical and thermal conductivity is governed by the Wiedemann-Franz Law. Simply put, the law states that good conductors of electricity are also good conductors of heat...

This is an illustration of a photon gun. A quantum dot (the yellow symbol) emits one photon (red wave packet) at a time. The quantum dot is embedded in a photonic crystal structure, which is obtained by etching holes (black circles) in a semiconductor material. Due to the holes, the photons cannot be emitted in all directions, but only along the waveguide, which is formed by omitting a number of holes. Credit: Illustration: Søren Stobbe, NBI

Advanced photonic nanostructures are well on their way to revolutionising quantum technology for quantum networks based on light. Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute have now developed the first building blocks needed to construct complex quantum photonic circuits for quantum networks...

Stretch-and-release fabrication, testing and optimization of a flexible ceramic armor inspired from fish scales,” by Robert Martini and François Barthelat, Bioinspiration and Biomimetics: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-3190/11/6/066001

Ceramic-covered gloves offer industrial workers increased protection from piercing. They started with striped bass. Over a 2-year period the researchers went through about 50 bass, puncturing or fracturing hundreds of fish scales under the microscope, to try to understand their properties and mechanics better. “The people at the fish market must have wondered what we were up to,” says François Barthelat smiling ruefully...