Category Physics

This new single-agent phototherapy system may form a valuable new approach to fighting cancer. Credit: Graphic courtesy of Oregon State University

Oregon State University today announced an important advance in the field of cancer imaging and phototherapy. It uses a single chemical compound, silicon naphthalocyanine, that has both diagnostic and therapeutic value. It makes cancer cells glow when exposed to near-infrared light, so a surgeon can identify the cancer and remove it + the compound creates heat and reactive oxygen species within any remaining cancer cells, killing them.

In tests completed with laboratory animals, tumors were completely eradicated without side effects, and did not return...

The shape and polarization of a conventional laser beam from a laser pointer mimics quantum entanglement when the laser beam has a polarization dependent shape. This can be used to encode twice as many bits of information as when the laser beam is “separable.” Credit: Giovanni Milione

In a classic eureka moment, a team of physicists is showing how beams from ordinary laser pointers mimic quantum entanglement with the potential of doubling the data speed of laser communication. Described by Albert Einstein as “spooky action at a distance,” when two quantum things are entangled, if one is ‘touched’ the other will ‘feel it,’ even if separated by a great distance.

“At the heart of quantum entanglement is ‘nonseparability’ — two entangled things are described by an unfactorizable equation,” sai...

“Device” is a disc 250 nm in diameter that is capable of switching optical pulses at femtosecond rates (femtosecond is a one millionth of one billionth of a second). Credit: Maxim Scherbakov et al

Researchers developed an ultrafast all-optical switch based on nonlinear dielectric silicon nanostructures. The operation of the switching is based on the interaction between 2 femtosecond pulses; at the same time, the undesirable free-carrier effects are suppressed. Ultrafast optical switching will permit to create data transmission and processing devices which will handle speeds high enough to download 1000s of HD-movies/sec.

Photons address the data transmission problem better than electrons...