Category Physics

This diagram shows the setup for an imaging method that mapped electrical signals using a sheet of graphene and an infrared laser. The laser was fired through a prism (lower left) onto a sheet of graphene. An electrode was used to send tiny electrical signals into a liquid solution (in cylinder atop the graphene), and a camera (lower right) was used to capture images mapping out these electrical signals. (Credit: Halleh Balch and Jason Horng/Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley)

Team creates a system to visualize faint electric fields. Scientists have enlisted the exotic properties of graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of carbon, to function like the film of an incredibly sensitive camera system in visually mapping tiny electric fields in a liquid...

New MIT research could offer a way of making tiny movable parts with no solid connections between the pieces, potentially eliminating a major source of wear and failure in microelectromechanical machines. The new system uses a layer of liquid droplets to support a tiny, movable platform. Credit: Daniel Preston/Device Research Lab

A platform floating on tiny droplets, using hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces, could provide precise motion control for optical devices, MEMS and other systems. Microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS, are tiny machines fabricated using equipment and processes developed for the production of electronic chips and devices...

This tiny radio — whose building blocks are the size of two atoms — can withstand extremely harsh environments and is biocompatible, meaning it could work anywhere from a probe on Venus to a pacemaker in a human heart. Credit: Eliza Grinnell/Harvard SEAS

Harvard engineers have made the world’s smallest radio receiver – built out of an assembly of atomic-scale defects in pink diamonds. This tiny radio—whose building blocks are the size of two atoms—can withstand extremely harsh environments and is biocompatible, meaning it could work anywhere from a probe on Venus to a pacemaker in a human heart. The research was led by Marko Loncar, Tiantsai Lin Professor of Electrical Engineering at SEAS, and his graduate student Linbo Shao.

This tiny radio — whose building blocks are the size of two ...

Intricately-shaped pulses of light pave a speedway for the accelerated dynamics of quantum particles, enabling faster switching of a quantum bit. Credit: Image courtesy Peter Allen

Speeding up control over quantum states in atomic and nanoscale systems could lead to leaps for the emerging field of quantum technology. An international collaboration between physicists recently demonstrated a new framework for faster control of a quantum bit. Their experiments on a single electron in a diamond chip could create quantum devices that are less prone to errors when operated at high speeds.

To understand their experiment, one can look to the ultimate setting for speed in classical dynamics: the oval racetracks at the Indianapolis or Daytona 500...