Category Physics

. On-chip visible-to-infrared supercontinuum generation with more than 495 THz spectral bandwidth Credit: http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OE.23.019596

Sending information with the help of light is an exciting prospect for future technologies. It requires ‘light chips’, made of a special glass (already known for their extremely low losses) which now have been equipped with ‘active’ functionalities, eg generating, strengthening, and modulating light. Their chip is capable of creating a very wide light spectrum that runs from blue to infrared, 470 to 2130 nm wavelengths. By doing so they have made a light chip with the largest frequency range ever.

The width and regularity of the light spectrum plays a central role in fiber optics info transfer...

An artist’s impression of the HD 100546 system. A planet that is still in the process of forming could be boosting a transfer of material from the gas-rich outer part of the disk to the inner regions. Credit: David Cabezas Jimeno (SEA)

Surprising findings in observations of parent star HD 100546.

Dr Ignacio Mendigutía, University of Leeds, said: “Nobody has ever been able to probe this close to a star that is still forming and which also has at least one planet so close in. “We have been able to detect for the first time emission from the innermost part of the disk of gas that surrounds the central star. Unexpectedly, this emission is similar to that of ‘barren’ young stars that do not show any signs of active planet formation.”

They used Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), Chil...

Scientists announced the first observation of a dynamic vortex Mott transition, which experimentally connects the worlds of quantum mechanics and classical physics and could shed light on the poorly understood world of non-equilibrium physics. Credit: Image courtesy Valerii Vinokur, Argonne National Laboratory/Science

It also could shed light on non-equilibrium physics, which is poorly understood but governs most of what occurs in our world. The finding may also represent a step towards more efficient electronics based on the Mott transition.

Magnetic fields penetrate superconducting material in the form of tiny filaments called vortices, which control the electronic and magnetic properties of the materials...

The researchers have discovered 2 craters in Jämtland. One is enormous, while the other is a tenth of the size of the first. “The 2 meteorite impacts occurred at the same time, 458 million years ago, and formed these two craters,” says Prof Erik Sturkell. They found one of the craters 20 kilometres south of Östersund in Brunsflo. This is an enormous crater, with a diameter of 7.5 kilometres. The smaller crater is located 16 kilometres from there, and has a diameter of 700 metres.

“Around 470 million years ago, 2 large asteroids collided in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and many fragments were thrown off in new orbits. Many of these crashed on Earth, such as these two in Jämtland,” says Erik Sturkell.

Jämtland was under the sea at the time, with a water depth of 500m at th...