Lifeboat Foundation

Within atomic and laser physics communities, scientist John “Jan” Hall has become a key figure in the history of laser frequency stabilization and precision measurement using lasers. Hall’s work revolved around understanding and manipulating stable lasers in ways that were revolutionary for their time. His work laid a technical foundation for measuring a tiny fractional distance change brought by a passing gravitational wave. His work in laser arrays awarded him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2005.

Building on this foundation, JILA and NIST Fellow Jun Ye and his team embarked on an ambitious journey to push the boundaries of precision measurement even further. This time, their focus turned to a specialized technique known as the Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) method (developed by scientists R. V. Pound, Ronald Drever, and Hall himself), which plays a large role in precision optical interferometry and laser frequency stabilization.

While physicists have used the PDH method for decades in ensuring their laser frequency is stably “locked” to an artificial or quantum reference, a limitation arising from the frequency modulation process itself, called residual amplitude modulation (RAM), can still affect the stability and accuracy of the laser’s measurements.

Solid-state qubits: Forget about being clean, embrace mess, says a new recipe for dense arrays of qubits with long lifetimes.

New findings debunk previous wisdom that solid-state qubits need to be super dilute in an ultra-clean material to achieve long lifetimes. Instead, cram lots of rare-earth ions into a crystal and some will form pairs that act as highly coherent qubits, shows a paper in Nature Physics.

Clean lines and minimalism, or vintage shabby chic? It turns out that the same trends that occupy the world of interior design are important when it comes to designing the building blocks of quantum computers.

Unravel the mysteries of quantum mechanics with a pioneering experiment rolling through a curvy ramp in the dark and pushing the boundaries of our understanding.

An experiment proposed by physicists to unlock macroscopic quantum secrets in complete darkness. Explore the potential of quantum superposition.

The Dark Energy Survey took an entire decade to produce a value for the cosmological constant—and it’s smaller than you might think! There were other stories as well, including one about primeval black holes, and because I am inescapably drawn by the relentless gravity of black hole news, it’s included below, along with two other stories related in one way or another to heads.

Dogs’ primary sense is olfactory, and if their visual perception flags something interesting in the environment, the first thing they do is stick their cute little noses in it. But the opposite is true for humans; we are able to perceive millions of colors, but only a fraction of the olfactory stimuli dogs are usually way too engaged with.

If you smell natural gas in your house, you go looking for the source with your cute little retinas and their super-dense constellation of photoreceptive cells to determine that one of the gas knobs on the stove is open. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University grew retinal organoids in a lab to determine how human visual perception develops.

In the ever-evolving world of financial markets, understanding the unpredictable nature of stock market fluctuations is crucial. A new study has taken a leap in this field by developing an innovative quantum mechanics model to analyze the stock market.

This model not only encompasses economic uncertainty and investor behavior but also aims to unravel the mysteries behind stock market anomalies like fat tails, volatility clustering, and contrarian effects.

The core of this model is quantum mechanics, a pillar of physics known for explaining the behavior of subatomic particles.

A Harvard and QuEra research team conceives the quantum computer as a error-corrected quantum commuting superhighway for qubits.

ICFO and Qurv researchers have fabricated a new high-performance shortwave infrared (SWIR) image sensor based on non-toxic colloidal quantum dots. In their study published in Nature Photonics, they report on a new method for synthesizing functional high-quality non-toxic colloidal quantum dots integrable with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology.

Invisible to our eyes, shortwave infrared (SWIR) light can enable unprecedented reliability, function and performance in high-volume, computer vision first applications in service robotics, automotive and consumer electronics markets. Image sensors with SWIR sensitivity can operate reliably under adverse conditions such as bright sunlight, fog, haze and smoke. Furthermore, the SWIR range provides eye-safe illumination sources and opens up the possibility of detecting material properties through molecular imaging.

Colloidal quantum dots (CQD) based image sensor technology offers a promising technology platform to enable high-volume compatible image sensors in the SWIR. CQDs, nanometric semiconductor crystals, are a solution-processed material platform that can be integrated with CMOS and enables accessing the SWIR range. However, a fundamental roadblock exists in translating SWIR-sensitive quantum dots into key enabling technology for mass-market applications, as they often contain heavy metals like lead or mercury (IV-VI Pb, Hg-chalcogenide semiconductors). These materials are subject to regulations by the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS), a European directive that regulates their use in commercial consumer electronic applications.

Embark on a captivating journey into the world of DNA computing in this odyssey! Join us as we unravel the secrets behind this cutting-edge technology, where the building blocks of life transform into powerful computational tools. From its intriguing origins to the complex processes of molecular magic, we unravel the secrets behind DNA’s newfound role as a liquid computer. Join our enlightening odyssey as we venture through the historical milestones and the innovative techniques that have propelled this field into the future. Discover how DNA molecules, once the code of life, are now decoding complex problems, ushering in an era of limitless possibilities. Don’t miss out on this exciting adventure – the future of molecular computing awaits!\.

An experiment demonstrates a record long quantum coherence time that exceeds 20 milliseconds for a germanium vacancy in diamond.