ScienceDaily

A technology that mimics the structure of a lobster's eyes is now being applied to a new instrument that could help revolutionize X-ray astronomy and keep astronauts safe on the International Space Station.

Using newly developed imaging technology, chemists have confirmed years of theoretical assumptions about water molecules, the most abundant and one of the most frequently studied substances on Earth.

Scientists have discovered how adding trace amounts of water can tremendously speed up chemical reactions -— such as hydrogenation and hydrogenolysis —- in which hydrogen is one of the reactants, or starting materials.

For the first time, scientists have seen an X-ray-irradiated mineral go to two different states of matter in about 40 femtoseconds. Scientists heated graphite to induce a transition from solid to liquid and to warm-dense plasma.

Physicists have made a breakthrough that improves understanding of matter-light interactions. Their research allows double ionization events to be observed at the time scale of attoseconds and shows that these ionization events occur earlier than thought -- a key factor to improve knowledge of correlated electron dynamics.

Researchers have taken a step toward overcoming a key obstacle in commercializing "hyperbolic metamaterials," structures that could bring optical advances including ultrapowerful microscopes, computers and solar cells.

Theorists and experimenters have explored the unique properties of topological insulators, where electrons may flow on the surface without resistance, with spin orientations and directions intimately related. Recent research opens exciting prospects for practical new room-temperature spintronic devices that can exploit control of electron spin as well as charge.

A strong laser beam can remove an electron from an atom – a process which takes place almost instantly. This phenomenon could now be studied with a time resolution of less than ten attoseconds (ten billionths of a billionth of a second). Scientists succeeded in watching an atom being ionized and a free electron being “born”.  These measurements yield valuable information about the electrons in the atom, which up until now  hasn't been experimentally accessible, such as the time evolution of the electron’s quantum phase – the beat to which the quantum waves oscillate.

There's nothing worse than a shonky pool table with an unseen groove or bump that sends your shot off course: a new study has found that the same goes at the nano-scale, where the "billiard balls" are tiny electrons moving across a "table" made of the semiconductor gallium arsenide. Physicists have shown that in this game of "semiconductor billiards," small bumps have an unexpectedly large effect on the paths that electrons follow.

Drawing on powerful computational tools and a state-of-the-art scanning transmission electron microscope, materials science and engineering researchers have discovered a new nanometer-scale atomic structure in solid metallic materials known as metallic glasses.

A new approach to generating terahertz radiation will lead to new imaging and sensing applications. The low energy of the radiation means that it can pass through materials that are otherwise opaque, opening up uses in imaging and sensing — for example, in new security scanners. In practice, however, applications have been difficult to implement.

Physicists have just explained a puzzling water anomaly -- a deviation from the common form -- of water ice that has been largely neglected and never before explained.

Researchers have boosted the efficiency of a novel source of white light called quantum dots more than tenfold, making them of potential interest for commercial applications.

Chemists have solved a molecular mystery. The overwhelming majority of proteins and other functional molecules in our bodies display a striking molecular characteristic: They can exist in two distinct forms that are mirror images of each other, like your right hand and left hand. Surprisingly, each of our bodies prefers only one of these molecular forms.

Engineers have succeeded in realizing a new material class through the manufacturing of a stable crystalline metafluid, a pentamode metamaterial. Using new nanostructuring methods, these materials can now be realized for the first time with any conceivable mechanical properties.

Physicists have traced the double ionization of argon atoms on attosecond time scales. When an intense laser pulse interacts with an atom it generates agitation on the micro scale. The most likely outcome of this interaction is single ionization, where one electron is ejected from the atom. From time to time, however, two electrons can be removed from the atom, resulting in the more complex process of double ionization. The detailed course of this process on attosecond time scales (an attosecond is a billionth of a billionth of a second) has now been observed.

New insight into the behaviour of atomic nuclei may explain how gigantic star explosions, or supernovas, have formed the elements that are crucial to humankind.

Using a refined technique for trapping and manipulating nanoparticles, researchers have extended the trapped particles' useful life more than tenfold. This new approach, which one researcher likens to "attracting moths," promises to give experimenters the trapping time they need to build nanoscale structures and may open the way to working with nanoparticles inside biological cells without damaging the cells with intense laser light.

Scientists have shown how a form of nanocrystallography can be carried out using a transmission electron microscope -- an instrument found in many chemistry and materials science laboratories.

There has been a surprise discovery of ‘significant’ refraction of gamma rays which opens the door to nuclear photonics and the use of high energetic light beams to investigate the atomic nucleus.   Isotope specific gamma ray microscopes could remotely search for harmful nuclear materials or provide less destructive and more selective medical imaging.

Researchers have developed a novel way of producing light pulses that are "superluminal" -- in some sense they travel faster than the speed of light. The new method could be used to improve the timing of communications signals and to investigate the propagation of quantum correlations.

A new solid-state device uses one beam of light to switch another beam of light from one direction to another. It uses one-fifth the power -- only 90 atto-joules -- than the previous all-optical switch.

Researchers have developed a novel screening technology that allows large batches of metal oxide nanomaterials to be assessed in a rapid fashion based on their ability to trigger biological responses that are dependent on the electron transfer properties of semiconductor metal oxides. The team discovered that the cells in our bodies contain electronically active molecules that can participate in these electron transfer reactions upon contact with metal oxides.

Researchers have developed a prototype radiation-detection system that uses rare-earth elements and other materials at the nanoscale. The system could be used to enhance radiation-detection devices used at ports, border crossings, airports and elsewhere.

Virginia Tech released the results of its 2012 rating for adult football helmets that is designed to assess a helmet’s ability to reduce the risk of concussion.A total of three helmets achieved a “5 star” mark, which is the highest rating awarded by the Virginia Tech Helmet Ratings™.

Scientists have successfully sent a highly accurate clock signal across the many hundreds of kilometers of countryside that separate two institutions.

Engineers have created nanoscale single crystals that can produce the red, green, or blue laser light needed in digital displays. The size determines color, but all the pyramid-shaped quantum dots are made the same way of the same elements. In experiments, light amplification required much less power than previous attempts at the technology. The team's prototypes are the first lasers of their kind.

Researchers have directed the first self-assembly of nanoparticles into multi-layered thin films of gold that are device-ready for potential applications in computer memory storage, energy harvesting, energy storage, remote-sensing, catalysis, light management and plasmonics.

Many regard nuclear fusion as the main energy source of the future. Among others, the ITER project is seeking to turn this venture into reality and is making use of the Tokamak reactor for this purpose. Reactors of this type have a number of control problems, and to solve them the electronics engineers have come up with some tools.

In the future, optical fibers could connect all optical atomic clocks within Europe -- a milestone for various users of optical frequencies in research and industry.

Physicists have discovered a previously unknown particle composed of three quarks in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator. A new baryon could thus be detected for the first time at the LHC. The baryon known as Xi_b^* confirms fundamental assumptions of physics regarding the binding of quarks.

"Quantum critical points" (QCP) in exotic electronic materials can act much like polarizing "hot button issues" in an election. On either side of the QCP, electrons fall into line and behave as traditionally expected, but the new study finds traditional physical laws break down at the critical point itself.

Two lamps are brighter than one. This simple truism does not necessarily apply to lasers, as a team of scientists found out. When one laser is shining and next to it another laser is turned on gradually, complex interactions between the two lasers can lead to a total shutdown and no light is emitted anymore. For technologies connecting the fields of electronics and photonics, this result may be very important.

Scientists have designed a method to evaluate different conductors for use in metamaterial structures, which are engineered to exhibit properties not possible in natural materials.

Microscopic particles are being coaxed by engineers to assemble themselves into larger crystalline structures by the use of varying concentrations of microscopic particles and magnetic fields.

Researchers have developed a new concept for use in a high-speed genomic sequencing device that may have the potential to substantially drive down costs.

Physicists have discovered a possible solution to a mystery that has long baffled researchers working to harness fusion. If confirmed by experiment, the finding could help scientists eliminate a major impediment to the development of fusion as a clean and abundant source of energy for producing electric power.

Physicists have, for the first time, demonstrated in an experiment that the decision whether two particles were in an entangled or in a separable quantum state can be made even after these particles have been measured and may no longer exist.

Through a combination of atomic-scale materials design and ultrafast measurements, researchers have revealed new insights about how heat flows across an interface between two materials. The researchers demonstrated that a single layer of atoms can disrupt or enhance heat flow across an interface, a finding with implications for future technologies and for materials research.

A miniature atom-based magnetic sensor has passed an important research milestone by successfully measuring human brain activity. The lightweight sensor potentially could be used for biomedical applications such as studying mental processes and advancing the understanding of neurological diseases.

An expert on statistical mechanics shows that the income distributions for the richest 3 percent and the poorer 97 percent conform to different physics principles.

Using lasers to excite just one atom from a cloud of ultra-cold rubidium gas, physicists have developed a new way to rapidly and efficiently create single photons for potential use in optical quantum information processing -- and in the study of dynamics and disorder in certain physical systems.

Researchers have developed a technique for encapsulating liquids of nanocrystals between layers of graphene so that chemical reactions in the liquids can be imaged with an electron microscope. With this technique, movies can be made that provide unprecedented direct observations of physical, chemical and biological phenomena that take place in liquids on the nanometer scale.

Harnessing the energy of sunlight can be as simple as tuning the optical and electronic properties of metal oxides at the atomic level to make an artificial crystal or super-lattice ‘sandwich,’ says a scientist.

Autonomous, self-replicating robots -- exobots -- are the way to explore the universe, find and identify extraterrestrial life and perhaps clean up space debris in the process, according to an engineer, who notes that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence -- SETI -- is in its 50th year.

Record speed, low-voltage, and ultra-small size make nanodots a "triple threat" for electronic memory in computers and other electronic devices.

An eerie quantum force may one day help separate the surfaces in tiny machines for frictionless movement. More than half-a-century ago, the Dutch theoretical physicist Hendrik Casimir calculated that two mirrors placed facing each other in a vacuum would attract. The mysterious force arises from the energy of virtual particles flitting into and out of existence, as described by quantum theory. Now a scientist in Japan, has predicted that in certain circumstances a reversal in the direction of the so-called Casimir force would be enough to levitate an extremely thin plate.

Scientists explain why a microalgae bioreactor redesign provides an order-of-magnitude improvement over conventional cultivation methods.

Some rare cosmic rays pack an astonishing wallop, with energies prodigiously greater than particles in human-made accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider. Their sources are unknown, although scientists favor active galacti nuclei or gamma-ray bursts. If so, gamma-ray bursts should produce ultra-high-energy neutrinos, but scientists searching for these with IceCube, the giant neutrino telescope at the South Pole, have found exactly zero. The mystery deepens.

A new type of quantum bit called a "phase-slip qubit" has enabled the world's first-ever experimental demonstration of coherent quantum phase slip. The groundbreaking result sheds light on an elusive phenomenon whose existence -- a natural outcome of the theory of superconductivity -- has long been speculated, but never actually observed.

An electron has been observed to decay into two separate parts, each carrying a particular property of the electron: a spinon carrying its spin -- the property making the electron behave as a tiny compass needle -- and an orbiton carrying its orbital moment -- which arises from the electron's motion around the nucleus. These newly created particles, however, cannot leave the material in which they have been produced.

Although cosmic rays were discovered 100 years ago, their origin remains one of the most enduring mysteries in physics. Now, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a massive detector in Antarctica, is homing in on how the highest energy cosmic rays are produced.

The most accurate study so far of the motions of stars in the Milky Way has found no evidence for dark matter in a large volume around the Sun. According to widely accepted theories, the solar neighborhood was expected to be filled with dark matter, a mysterious invisible substance that can only be detected indirectly by the gravitational force it exerts. But a new study by a team of astronomers in Chile has found that these theories just do not fit the observational facts. This may mean that attempts to directly detect dark matter particles on Earth are unlikely to be successful.

Researchers have mathematically shown that particles charged in a magnetic field can escape into infinity without ever stopping. One of the conditions is that the field is generated by current loops situated on the same plane. At the moment this is a theoretical mathematical study, but researchers have recently demonstrated that, in certain conditions, magnetic fields can send particles to infinity.

Scientists have discovered an entirely new carbon-based material that is synthesized from the "wonder kid" of the carbon family, graphene. The discovery, which the researchers are calling "graphene monoxide (GMO)," pushes carbon materials closer to ushering in next-generation electronics.

Could computers ever beat the best 'go' players? Although unthinkable at this stage, this could soon become possible, thanks to theorists. For the first time, scientists have applied network theory to a game of strategy.

Researchers in Australia have developed the fastest random number generator in the world by listening to the 'sounds of silence'. The researchers have tuned their very sensitive light detectors to listen to vacuum -- a region of space that is empty.

Scientists in the Netherlands have succeeded for the first time in detecting a Majorana particle. In the 1930s, Italian physicist Ettore Majorana deduced from quantum theory the possibility of the existence of a very special particle, a particle that is its own anti-particle: the Majorana fermion. That 'Majorana' would be right on the border between matter and anti-matter.

Electron microscopy has led to a new theory to explain intriguing properties in a material with potential applications in capacitors and actuators.

How hydrogen -- the most abundant element in the cosmos -- responds to extremes of pressure and temperature is one of the major challenges in modern physical science. Moreover, knowledge gleaned from experiments using hydrogen as a testing ground on the nature of chemical bonding can fundamentally expand our understanding of matter. New work has enabled researchers to examine hydrogen under pressures never before possible.