Category Physics

Superconducting currents during reading various states of the memory cell are shown. The greater current the larger arrow. Credit: Authors of the study

Golubov et al have proposed creating basic memory cells based on quantum effects in “sandwiches” of a superconductor – dielectric (or other insulating material), which were predicted in the 1960s by the British physicist Brian Josephson. The electrons in these “sandwiches” (they are called “Josephson junctions”) are able to tunnel from one layer of a superconductor to another, passing through the dielectric like balls passing through a perforated wall.

“With the operational function that we have proposed in these memory cells, there will be no need for time-consuming magnetization and demagnetization processes...

FingerIO allows you to interact with mobile devices by writing or gesturing on any nearby surface by turning a smartphone or smartwatch into an active sonar device. Credit: Dennis Wise, University of Washington

As mobile and wearable devices such as smartwatches grow smaller, it gets tougher for people to interact with screens the size of a matchbook. That could change with a new tech developed by Un of Washington computer scientists and electrical engineers called FingerIO. It tracks fine-grained finger movements by turning a smartphone or smartwatch into an active sonar system using the device’s own microphones and speakers.

Because sound waves travel through fabric and do not require a line of sight, users can even interact with a phone inside a front pocket or a smartwatch hidden under...

The CAROS has been introduced in various media. Credit: Copyright KAIST

The integrity of large structures like bridges, high-rise buildings, wind turbines, and large aircrafts is deeply related with security. Today, due to the aging of large structures and the potential concerns about their collapse, interest in structural health monitoring has risen all over the world. Though there has been a great deal of research on the inspection of inaccessible large structures using mobile robots, since most existing robots require the installation of additional infrastructure or use magnetic-based technology or vacuum adhesion, it is difficult to apply those technologies to structures with diverse surface shapes and materials.

Professor Hyun Myung, KAIST has developed CAROS (Climbing Aerial RObot Sy...

Figure illustrates puddles of localized quasi-condensates found using a quantum Monte Carlo simulation of trapped atoms in a disordered lattice. Individual puddles, consisting of 10-20 particles each, are incoherent relative to each other. The Bose glass is composed of these puddle-like structures. Credit: Ushnish Ray, University of Illinois

Using some of the largest supercomputers available, physics researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have produced one of the largest simulations ever to help explain one of physics most daunting problems. “This result was a fantastic collaboration between theory and experiment,” explained Prof. Brian DeMarco. “One of the grandest and most impactful frontiers of physics is the quantum many-particle problem...