Category Physics

The Daya Bay experiment measures the antineutrinos produced by the reactors of the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant and the Ling Ao Nuclear Power Plant in mainland China. The photo shows a panoramic view of the Daya Bay reactor complex. Credit: Roy Kaltschmidt, Berkeley Lab

Members of the International Daya Bay Collaboration, who track the production and flavor-shifting behavior of electron antineutrinos generated at a nuclear power complex in China, have obtained the most precise measurement of these subatomic particles’ energy spectrum ever recorded. The data generated from the world’s largest sample of reactor antineutrinos indicate 2 intriguing discrepancies with theoretical predictions and provide an important measurement that will shape future reactor neutrino experiments.

Studying the b...

Gallium-arsenide nanowires are on a silicon surface. Credit: Thomas Stettner/Philipp Zimmermann / TUM

Physicists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed a nanolaser, a thousand times thinner than a human hair. Thanks to an ingenious process, the nanowire lasers grow right on a silicon chip, making it possible to produce high-performance photonic components cost-effectively. This will pave the way for fast and efficient data processing with light in the future. Ever smaller, ever faster, ever cheaper – since the start of the computer age the performance of processors has doubled on average every 18 months. 50 years ago already, Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore prognosticated this astonishing growth in performance. And Moore’s law seems to hold true to this day.

But the mi...

In a new paper published in Science, researchers at the Harvard and Raytheon BBN Technology have advanced our understanding of graphene’s basic properties, observing for the first time electrons in a metal behaving like a fluid. Credit: Peter Allen/Harvard SEAS

Researchers have made a breakthrough in our understanding of graphene’s basic properties, observing for the first time electrons in a metal behaving like a fluid. This research could lead to novel thermoelectric devices as well as provide a model system to explore exotic phenomena like black holes and high-energy plasmas. In order to make this observation, the team improved methods to create ultra-clean graphene and developed a new way measure its thermal conductivity.

In ordinary, 3D metals, electrons hardly interact with each othe...