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In the last year, two independent groups have observed electrons behaving like quasiparticles with fractional amounts of charge, like –²⁄₃ and –³⁄₅, without the influence of a magnetic field.

In the 127 years since the electron was discovered, it has undergone more scrutiny than perhaps any other particle. As a result, its properties are not just well known, but rote, textbook material: Electrons have a smidgen of mass and negative electric charge. In a conductor, they swim relatively unimpeded as a current; in an insulator, they barely move.

Over time, caveats have cropped up. Under an intense magnetic field, for example, electrons can lose their individual identities and form “quasiparticles”: collective entities, like the shape formed by a school of fish. But even these collective states have been well cataloged.

Continue reading “Physicists Puzzle Over Emergence of Strange Electron Aggregates” »

The team spent years perfecting an intricate process for manufacturing two-dimensional arrays of atom-sized qubit microchiplets and transferring thousands of them onto a carefully prepared complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) chip. This transfer can be performed in a single step.

“We will need a large number of qubits, and great control over them, to really leverage the power of a quantum system and make it useful. We are proposing a brand new architecture and a fabrication technology that can support the scalability requirements of a hardware system for a quantum computer,” says Linsen Li, an electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) graduate student and lead author of a paper on this architecture.

Microscopic chinks in material just several atoms thick have the potential to advance a multitude of quantum technologies, new research shows – getting us closer to the widespread use of quantum networks and sensors.

Right now, storing quantum data in the spin properties of electrons, known as spin coherence, requires a very particular and delicate laboratory setup. It’s not something you can do without a carefully controlled environment.

Here, an international team of researchers managed to demonstrate observable spin coherence at room temperature, using the tiny defects in a layered 2D material called Hexagonal Boron Nitride (hBN).

Group theory and first-principles calculations combine to predict which antiferromagnets have potentially useful net surface magnetization.

Antiferromagnetism was discovered in the 1930s by Louis Néel but had long been considered of scientific, not practical, interest. Antiferromagnets (AFM) are internally magnetic, but the magnetic moments of their atoms and molecules are antiparallel to each other, canceling out and resulting in no net magnetization. This cancellation renders bulk antiferromagnets effectively invisible to external magnetic fields, so that their magnetic properties are difficult to harness in applications. Recently, however, a new paradigm has appeared—antiferromagnetism-based spintronics—which seeks to apply antiferromagnets’ unique properties (such as fast spin dynamics, the absence of strong stray fields, and the stability of these materials) to the processing and storage of information [1].

In a surprise discovery, Flinders University nanotechnology researchers have produced a range of different types of gold nanoparticles by adjusting water flow in the novel vortex fluidic device—without the need for toxic chemicals. The article, “Nanogold Foundry Involving High-Shear-Mediated Photocontact Electrification in Water,” has been published in Small Science.

Ask anyone working in quantum computing and they may tell you they have been dealing with the frustratingly contrarian and intricately delicate state of entanglement since the beginning of time. However, a new study suggests this might be impossible. In fact, entanglement may have been absent in the earliest moments of the universe, researchers are reporting — a hypothesis that would — if validated — challenge our understanding of quantum mechanics and the nature of time itself.

The research, detailed in a paper by Jim Al-Khalili, of the University of Surrey and Eddy Keming Chen, University of California, San Diego and published on the pre-print server ArXiv, explores the so-called entanglement past hypothesis. In the study, the researchers explore why time only flows in one direction, a fundamental concept in both quantum physics and thermodynamics.

According to the researchers the concept of quantum entanglement, where two particles become so deeply linked that their properties seem to remain interconnected regardless of the distance between them, is central to modern quantum mechanics. It’s also a key ingredient for the potential of quantum computers to tackle massively complex calculations. It’s also why quantum computing is so vexing, because entanglement can be disrupted by external influences, leading to a process known as decoherence.

This laser can simply control the weather to induce rain restoring regions back to their original states. It could also prevent weather aswell too. This could be used in cities to control the weather.

The adage “Everyone complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it,” may one day be obsolete if researchers at the University of Central Florida’s College of Optics & Photonics and the University of Arizona further develop a new technique to aim a high-energy laser beam into clouds to make it rain or trigger lightning.

The solution? Surround the beam with a second beam to act as an energy reservoir, sustaining the central beam to greater distances than previously possible. The secondary “dress” beam refuels and helps prevent the dissipation of the high-intensity primary beam, which on its own would break down quickly. A report on the project, “Externally refueled optical filaments,” was recently published in Nature Photonics.

Continue reading “‘Dressed’ Laser Aimed at Clouds May be Key to Inducing Rain, Lightning” »

Predicted way back in the 1960s, the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 completed the Standard Model. Here’s why it remains fascinating.

System charts the evolution of complex quantum states.