Recent Comments

    Category Physics

    New Chip could bring highest level of Encryption to any Mobile Device

    September 8, 2016, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    Using photonic integrated circuit technology, researchers made a tiny, yet fast quantum random number generator. The small chip in the middle of the picture contains two of the random number generators, which together measure 6 by 2 millimeters. For comparison, the coin is 16.25 millimeters in diameter.

    Using photonic integrated circuit technology, researchers made a tiny, yet fast quantum random number generator. The small chip in the middle of the picture contains two of the random number generators, which together measure 6 by 2 millimeters. For comparison, the coin is 16.25 millimeters in diameter. Credit: Daniel Bartolome & Ona Bombí, ICFO

    For the first time, engineers have developed a fast random number generator based on a quantum mechanical process that could deliver the world’s most secure encryption keys in a package tiny enough to use in a mobile device...

    Read More

    Breakthrough in Materials Science: Scientists Bond Metals with nearly all Surfaces

    September 8, 2016, Categories  Technology/Electronics, Chemistry/Nanotechnology, Physics

    Aluminium plates which have only been sandblasted (in the background of the picture) cannot be glued successfully. The two glued plates separate again at the interface between glue and metal – this can be seen by the fact that there is no white glue residue visible on one of the two plates. The aluminium plates in the foreground of the picture were treated with the etching process “nanoscale-sculpturing” before being glued. These plates could also be separated. But the white glue particles left on both plates demonstrate that the bond between metal and glue is not broken, but rather the glue itself. Credit: Photo/Copyright: Julia Siekmann / Kiel University

    Aluminium plates which have only been sandblasted (in the background of the picture) cannot be glued successfully. The two glued plates separate again at the interface between glue and metal – this can be seen by the fact that there is no white glue residue visible on one of the two plates. The aluminium plates in the foreground of the picture were treated with the etching process “nanoscale-sculpturing” before being glued. These plates could also be separated. But the white glue particles left on both plates demonstrate that the bond between metal and glue is not broken, but rather the glue itself. Credit: Photo/Copyright: Julia Siekmann / Kiel University

    Through this “nanoscale-sculpturing” process, metals such as aluminium, titanium, or zinc can permanently be joined with nearly a...

    Read More

    New Breed of Optical Soliton Wave discovered

    September 7, 2016, Categories  Physics

    Optical microcavities in which the solitons were created Credit: Qi-Fan Yang/Caltech

    Optical microcavities in which the solitons were created Credit: Qi-Fan Yang/Caltech

    Applied scientists have discovered a new type of optical soliton wave that travels in the wake of other soliton waves, hitching a ride on and feeding off of the energy of the other wave. Solitons are localized waves that act like particles: as they travel across space, they hold their shape and form rather than dispersing as other waves do. They were first discovered in 1834 when Scottish engineer John Scott Russell noted an unusual wave that formed after the sudden stop of a barge in the Union Canal that runs between Falkirk and Edinburgh. Russell tracked the resulting wave for 1or 2 miles, and noted that it preserved its shape as it traveled, until he ultimately lost sight of it.

    He dubbed his discovery ...

    Read More

    Fish ‘Biowaste’ converted to Piezoelectric Energy Harvesters

    September 6, 2016, Categories  Physics, Technology/Electronics

    Fish 'biowaste' converted to piezoelectric energy harvesters

    Waste fish scales (upper left corner) are used to fabricate flexible nanogenerator (lower left) that power up more than 50 blue LEDs (lower right). An enlarged microscopic view of a fish scale shows the well-aligned collagen fibrils (upper right). The possibility of making a fish scale transparent (middle) and rollable (extreme left lower corner) is also illustrated. Credit: Sujoy Kuman Ghosh and Dipankar Mandal/Jadavpur University

    Large quantities of fish are consumed in India on a daily basis, which generates a huge amount of fish “biowaste” materials. In an attempt to do something positive with this biowaste, a team of researchers at Jadavpur University in Koltata, India explored recycling the fish byproducts into an energy harvester for self-powered electronics...

    Read More