Category Physics

Artist”s impression of a single-atom electron spin, hosted in a silicon crystal and dressed by an oscillating electromagnetic field. Credit: Arne Laucht/UNSW

Australian engineers have created a new quantum bit which remains in a stable superposition for 10 times longer than previously achieved, dramatically expanding the time during which calculations could be performed in a future silicon quantum computer. The new quantum bit, made up of the spin of a single atom in silicon and merged with an electromagnetic field – known as ‘dressed qubit’ – retains quantum information for much longer that an ‘undressed’ atom, opening up new avenues to build and operate the superpowerful quantum computers of the future.

Andrea Morello,CQC2T, UNSW said:”Our decade-long research program had already establi...

Chalmers’ e-paper contains gold, silver and PET plastic. The layer that produces the colours is less than a micrometre thin. Credit: Mats Tiborn

Less than a micrometre thin, bendable and giving all the colours that a regular LED display does, it still needs 10X less energy than a Kindle tablet. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have developed the basis for a new electronic “paper.” When Chalmers researcher Andreas Dahlin and his PhD student Kunli Xiong were working on placing conductive polymers on nanostructures, they discovered that the combination would be perfectly suited to creating electronic displays as thin as paper.

“The ‘paper’ is similar to the Kindle tablet,” says Andreas Dahlin...

The interior of the fusion experiment Alcator C-Mod at MIT recently broke the plasma pressure record for a magnetic fusion device. The interior of the donut-shaped device confines plasma hotter than the interior of the sun, using high magnetic fields. Postdoc Ted Golfinopoulos, shown here, is performing maintenance between plasma campaigns. Photo: Bob Mumgaard/Plasma Science and Fusion Center

On Friday, Sept. 30, at 9:25 p.m. EDT, scientists and engineers at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center made a leap forward in the pursuit of clean energy. The team set a new world record for plasma pressure in the Institute’s Alcator C-Mod tokamak nuclear fusion reactor...

Electrostatically Driven Nanoballoon Actuator, Nano Letters (2016). http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b02394

Molecular sized machines could in the future be used to control important mechanisms in the body. In a recent study, researchers at University of California, Berkeley and Umeå University show how a nanoballoon comprising a single carbon molecule can be controlled electrostatically to switch between an inflated and a collapsed state. Inflatable balloon actuators are commonly used for macroscopic applications to lift buildings, as impact protection in cars or to widen narrowed or obstructed arteries or veins. At the micro scale they are used as micro pumps and in nature jumping spiders create microformat fluid-filled cushions to power their legs in explosive jumps.

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