news 2022

New technique could enable processing speeds a million to a billion times faster than today's computers and spur progress in many-body physics Study: Attosecond clocking of correlations between Bloch electrons (DOI: 10.1038/s41586'022 -05190-2) (available when embargo lifts) The key to maximizing traditional or quantum computing speeds lies in our ability to understand how electrons behave in solids, and a collaboration between the University of Michigan and the University of Regensburg captured electron movement in attoseconds-the fastest speed yet.

Pour coffee into a mug and you might notice that the liquid cascading from the jug resembles droplets linked in a chain. Such oscillating "waterfalls" crop up frequently in our daily lives, but their origin is still not fully understood. In a publication that appeared in Physical Review Fluids this week, UvA-IoP physicist Antoine Deblais and coworkers shed light on these chains of liquid.

For fusion reactors like ITER, plasma instabilities are a major challenge. A research team around the nuclear fusion group at TU Wien has now found a promising solution. Nuclear fusion power plants could one day provide a sustainable solution to our energy problems - but to date there is no commercial nuclear fusion reactor in operation.

Because they are extremely stable, so-called "topological states" play an important role in materials research. Now, for the first time, it has been possible to switch such states on and off. A donut is not a breakfast roll. Those are two very clearly distinguishable objects: One has a hole, the other does not.

Scientists at the University of Twente have developed a new technique to effectively trap soundwaves and light, using multilayer silicon nitride waveguides. The research project successfully proved that manipulating light with sound in large-scale circuits is viable and compatible with current production methods Expanding the photonic toolbox In recent decades, chips and electronic devices have become exponentially smaller and faster.

To gild sculptures in the late Middle Ages, artists often applied ultra-thin gold foil supported by a silver base layer. For the first time, scientists at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have managed to produce nanoscale 3D images of this material, known as Zwischgold. The pictures show this was a highly sophisticated mediaeval production technique and demonstrate why restoring such precious gilded artefacts is so difficult.

Researchers from University of Manchester used graphene as an electrode to measure both the electrical force applied on water molecules and the rate at which these break in response to such force. The researchers found that water breaks exponentially faster in response to stronger electrical forces.

Physicists at EPFL have developed a formulation to solve the longstanding problem of electron self-interaction when studying polarons - quasiparticles produced by electron-phonon interactions in materials. The work can lead to unprecedented calculations of polarons in large systems, systematic studies of large sets of materials, and molecular dynamics evolving over long time periods.

The technique could be used to fabricate computer chips that won't get too hot while operating, or materials that can convert waste heat to energy. Computer chips are packed with billions of microscopic transistors that enable powerful computation, but also generate a great deal of heat. A buildup of heat can slow a computer processor and make it less efficient and reliable.

Researchers at Paderborn and Ulm universities are developing the first programmable optical quantum memory Tiny particles that are interconnected despite sometimes being thousands of kilometres apart - Albert Einstein called this 'spooky action at a distance'. Something that would be inexplicable by the laws of classical physics is a fundamental part of quantum physics.

Achieving scalability in quantum processors, sensors, and networks requires novel devices that are easily manipulated between two quantum states. A team led by researchers from the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ÜBerkeley Lab) has now developed a method, using a solid-state "twisted" crystalline layered material, which gives rise to tiny light-emitting points called color centers.

Western scientists have developed a new material that could eventually improve the way drugs are administered to patients, by allowing doctors to "see” exactly whether drugs are reaching the targets and working properly. Lijia Liu By combining a material already used to deliver medication to specific sites in the body with another that glows in the dark (optical probe), chemistry professor Lijia Liu and graduate student Ellie W.T Shiu have created a composite that can be used to track the path of a drug carrier through the human body.

Cobalt-based catalysts could be used to turn mixed plastic waste into fuel, new plastics, and other products. The accumulation of plastic waste in the oceans, soil, and even in our bodies is one of the major pollution issues of modern times, with over 5 billion tons disposed of so far. Despite major efforts to recycle plastic products, actually making use of that motley mix of materials has remained a challenging issue.

With only a little information, researchers can predict the circumstances under which an ecosystem will be stable or unstable. Trying to decipher all of the factors that influence the behavior of complex ecological communities can be a daunting task. However, MIT researchers have now shown that the behavior of these ecosystems can be predicted based on just two pieces of information: the number of species in the community and how strongly they interact with each other.

The stars circle each other every 51 minutes, confirming a decades-old prediction. Nearly half the stars in our galaxy are solitary like the sun. The other half comprises stars that circle other stars, in pairs and multiples, with orbits so tight that some stellar systems could fit between Earth and the moon.

Progress has been made on the path to sunlight-driven production of hydrogen. Chemists from Würzburg present a new enzyme-like molecular catalyst for water oxidation. Mankind is facing a central challenge: it must manage the transition to a sustainable and carbon dioxide-neutral energy economy. Hydrogen is considered a promising alternative to fossil fuels.

A new research group is paving Western's way into a domain with potentially life-changing implications for our access to brain scanning technology. In 2006, Western neuroscientist Adrian Owen found landmark evidence for the consciousness of a patient in a vegetative state when a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan revealed her brain activity after his team told her to imagine herself playing tennis.

New insights into quantum phenomena at phase transitions In the past, quantum phenomena could be investigated only in the realm of just a few atoms. A research team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Technical University of Dresden (TUD) has now discovered conditions for which quantum entanglement dominates on much larger scales.

A team of scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ÜBerkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley have devised a new technique for recycling polyethylene plastic bags and food packaging into propylene or propene gas, a valuable starter material for commercial plastics and commodity chemicals. Recycling polyethylene plastic into new, recyclable plastics could help reduce carbon emissions linked to plastic pollution and landfill.

Neural networks are learning algorithms that approximate the solution to a task by training with available data. However, it is usually unclear how exactly they accomplish this. Two young Basel physicists have now derived mathematical expressions that allow one to calculate the optimal solution without training a network.