Category Physics

Scientists have developed a terahertz (THz) transmitter capable of signal transmission at a per-channel data rate of >10 Gb/s over multiple channels at ~300 GHz. The aggregate multi-channel data rate exceeds 100 gigabits per second. The transmitter was implemented as a silicon CMOS integrated circuit, which would have a great advantage for commercialization and consumer use.

This technology could open a new frontier in wireless communication with data rates 10X higher than current technology allows. The THz band is a new, vast frequency resource not currently used for wireless communications. Its frequencies are even higher than those used by the mm-wave wireless local area network (57 GHz to 66 GHz), and bandwidths are much wider...

UAlberta electrical engineering PhD student Gem Shoute (second from right) is the lead author on a research paper demonstrating a powerful new flexible transistor. The team: electrical engineering professor Doug Barlage, Triranta Muneshwar, Shoute and materials engineering professor Ken Cadien, published its work in Nature Communications. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Alberta

Engineering first with applications in displays to medical imaging and renewable energy production.The transistor is easily scaled and has power-handling capabilities at least 10X greater than commercially produced thin film transistors...

UB knot theorist Bill Menasco. The whiteboard in the background depicts drawings of mathematical knots and surfaces that Menasco created from memory. Credit: Douglas Levere – See more at: http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2016/02/017.html#sthash.1rCiO0em.dpuf

But take it from Bill Menasco, a knot theorist of 35 years: This field of mathematics, rich in aesthetic beauty and intellectual challenges, and has applications. It involves the study of mathematical knots, which differ from real-world knots in that they have no ends. Each one is a string that crosses over itself a number of times, then reconnects with itself to form a closed loop. Today, we know the study of knots could have applications in surprising areas...

The figure shows how a small, elongated drop of quark-gluon plasma is formed when two atomic nuclei hit each other a bit off center. The angular distribution of the emitted particles makes it possible to determine the properties of the quark-gluon plasma, including the viscosity. Credit: State University of New York

Researchers collided lead atoms with extremely high energy in the 27 km long particle accelerator. The primordial soup is a quark-gluon plasma and researchers have measured its liquid properties with great accuracy at the LHC’s top energy. A few billionths of a second after the Big Bang, the universe was made up extremely hot and dense primordial soup of quarks and gluons. By colliding lead nuclei at a record-high 5...