Category Technology/Electronics

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have invented a way to produce hair-like strands, fibers and bristles using a common, low-cost 3-D printer. Credit: Carnegie Mellon University

3D printers typically produce hard plastic objects, but researchers have found a way to produce hair-like strands, fibers and bristles using a common, low-cost printer. The technique for producing 3D printed hair is similar to, and inspired by the way that gossamer plastic strands are extruded when a person uses a hot glue gun.

“You just squirt a little bit of material and pull away,” said Gierad Laput. The plastic hair is produced strand by strand, so the process isn’t fast – it takes about 20-25 minutes to generate hair on 10 square millimeters...

Scientists have developed a new optical detector from graphene which reacts very rapidly to incident light of all different wavelengths and even works at room temperature. It is the first time that a single detector has been able to monitor the spectral range from visible light to infrared radiation and right through to terahertz radiation. The HZDR scientists are already using the new graphene detector for the exact synchronization of laser systems.

A tiny flake of graphene on silicon carbide and a futuristic-looking antenna, and there it is – the new graphene detector. Like no other single detector system which has gone before, this comparatively simple and inexpensive construct can cover the enormous spectral range from visible light all the way to terahertz radiation...

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...