Category Physics

This is the silicon based quantum optics lab-on-a-chip. Credit: University of Bristol

The microprocessor inside a computer is a single multipurpose chip that has revolutionized people’s life, allowing them to use one machine to surf the web, check emails and keep track of finances. Now, researchers have pulled off the same feat for light in the quantum world by developing an optical chip that can process photons in an infinite number of ways.

It’s a major step forward in creating a quantum computer to solve problems such as designing new drugs, superfast database searches, and performing otherwise intractable mathematics that aren’t possible for super computers...

A scanning electron microscope image shows the rigid pillar-like bristles of the FLUENCE rake, which is used to apply light-harvesting polymers to a solar cell. The distance between the pillars is 1 micrometer, about one-hundredth the diameter of a human hair. Credit: Z. Bao et al, Nature Communications

When commercialized, this advance could help make polymer solar cells an economically attractive alternative to those made with much more expensive silicon-crystal wafers. In experiments, solar cells made with the tiny rake double the efficiency of cells made without it and are 18% better than cells made using a microscopic straightedge blade.

Polymer-based photovoltaic cells are much cheaper than silicon because they’re made of inexpensive materials that can be simply painted or printed in...

Long-standing concerns about portable electronics include the devices’ short battery life and their contribution to e-waste. One group of scientists is now working on a way to address both of these concerns with the development of a biodegradable nanogenerator made with DNA that can harvest the energy from everyday motion and turn it into electrical power.

The movements we often take for granted – such as walking and tapping on our keyboards – release energy that largely dissipates, unused. Several years ago, scientists figured out how to capture some of that energy and convert it into electricity so we might one day use it to power our mobile gadgetry. Achieving this would not only untether us from wall outlets, but it would also reduce our demand on fossil-fuel-based power sources...

Schematic of the measurement and the reservoir Penning traps. Credit http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature14861

In a stringent test of a fundamental property of the standard model of particle physics, known as CPT symmetry, researchers from the RIKEN-led BASE collaboration at CERN have made the most precise measurements so far of the charge-to-mass ratio of protons and their antimatter counterparts, antiprotons. The work was carried out using CERN’s Antiproton Decelerator, a device that provides low-energy antiprotons for antimatter studies.

All measured antiproton-to-H− cyclotron frequency ratios as a function of time Credit: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature14861

CPT invariance – which the experiment was meant to test – means that a system remains unchanged if three fundamental properties a...