Physics

Two teams of scientists have announced a breakthrough in fusion energy research, demonstrating for the first time the ability to simultaneously achieve high plasma density and confinement in a tokamak reactor. Derived from a Russian acronym, a tokamak is a donut-shaped experimental device that uses magnetic fields to make use of the energy of nuclear…

Scientists have engineered a promising new quantum defect using computational modeling. Published in Nature Communications, the research highlights how cobalt, a common metal, could be key to building future quantum computers. The team began by simulating more than 700 potential defects in tungsten disulfide (WS2), a material with desirable electronic properties. To sift through this…

Advent Diamond, a diamond semiconductor technology, has announced the release of the ClearXCam 2304, a novel X-ray beam monitoring technology. Traditionally, diamond has been employed for X-ray beam monitoring with four-quadrant monitors. The new ClearXCam 2304, however, delivers 2304-pixel images of X-ray beams in real-time, thanks to video-rate imaging. According to Advent Diamond, the new…

Picture this: You’re walking down a busy city street. With each step, the sidewalk beneath your feet captures the energy of your footfall. Nearby, a skyscraper’s windows glimmer, not just with sunlight, but with nanoscale generators converting wind vibrations into electricity. Meanwhile, the roads, covered in piezoelectric crystals, translate vibrations from passing vehicles into electricity.…

There are multiple challenges to developing autonomous microscopy. It requires a balance between the workflows, development of task-specific machine-learning methods, understanding of the interplay between physics discovery and machine learning and end-to-end definition of the discovery workflows. Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a physics-informed, active learning (AL)-driven autonomous microscopy, which enables active…

One of the technological hurdles limiting the future of wireless technology is the reliance on bulky, power-hungry radio frequency processors. These processors require an unwieldy blend of piezoelectric- and transistor-based components, which add bulk and sap valuable energy. But a promising study published in Nature Materials offers a potential solution in phononics, a field of study that harnesses…

The volume of scientific research continues to explode. As a case in point, the pre-print journal arXiv has made more than 1.7 million papers available for download. The resulting file clocks in at more than 4 GB. While no human could read through that many papers — potentially in a lifetime — the large file…

Scientists from the Advanced Photonics Research Institute at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) in Korea and the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics at the University of Maryland have created the world’s strongest terahertz fields of 260 megavolts per centimeter (MV/cm) or equivalent peak intensity of 9 × 1013 watts per…

In this, the tenth episode of the R&D 100 Podcast, we examine the latest technology in superconducting magnets. These magnets have existed since the 1960s, but the field available has been limited by the properties of superconducting materials. So, VP, Editorial Director Paul J. Heney and Senior Editor Aimee Kalnoskas of R&D World spoke with…

From Purdue University: The patent-pending innovation sees texture and depth and perceives physical attributes of people and environments Researchers at Purdue University are advancing the world of robotics and autonomy with their patent-pending method that improves on traditional machine vision and perception. Zubin Jacob, the Elmore Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the…

COMSOL, the maker of the COMSOL Multiphysics simulation software, has opened registration for COMSOL Day: Version 6.0, a series of online events held around the world for the computer-aided engineering (CAE) market. Starting on January 27, there will be four events to introduce COMSOL Multiphysics version 6.0 to a global, multiphysics simulation community of innovators…

From Sandia National Laboratories Sandia National Laboratories is celebrating 25 years of research conducted at its Z Pulsed Power Facility — a gymnasium-sized accelerator commonly referred to as Z or the Z machine. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, only a limited number of former leaders of the pulsed power program at Sandia will gather Friday to…

By Theresa Duque, Berkeley Lab The making of the world’s thinnest magnet: In this video, Berkeley Lab faculty scientist Jie Yao describes how he and his team achieved their record-breaking 2D magnet, the first one-atom-thin magnet that operates at room temperature. (Credit: Jenny Nuss and Marilyn Sargent/Berkeley Lab) The development of an ultrathin magnet that…

In 2018, the U.S. Department of Energy established LaserNetUS, a network of facilities operating ultrapowerful lasers. Organized and funded through DOE’s Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (FES), the new network was created to provide vastly improved access to unique lasers for researchers, and to help restore the U.S.’s once-dominant position in high-intensity laser research. Now,…

By Karen McNulty Walsh The search is on to discover new states of matter, and possibly new ways of encoding, manipulating and transporting information. One goal is to harness materials’ quantum properties for communications that go beyond what’s possible with conventional electronics. Topological insulators — materials that act mostly as insulators but carry electric current…

By Glenn Roberts Jr. U.S. Department of Energy awards announced in July will advance Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) R&D to develop a more effective and compact particle-beam system for cancer treatment, improve particle-beam performance using artificial intelligence, and develop a high-power, rapid-fire laser system for both tabletop and large-scale applications. In total, the…

Researchers from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) are working to develop unobtrusive diagnostics for hypersonic flight testing. The project led by Dr. Nicholas J. Mueschke of SwRI’s Mechanical Engineering Division and Dr. Christopher Combs of UTSA’s College of Engineering is supported by a $125,000 grant from the…

By Theresa Duque A team of scientists led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley has demonstrated a powerful new technique that uses light to measure how electrons move and interact within materials. With this technique, the researchers observed exotic states of matter in stacks of atomically thin…

by Jim McMahon Professor Holger Müller’s Group at UC Berkeley is focused on advancing experimental quantum technology to push the sensitivity of experiments to new levels, and to perform precision measurements of fundamental constants. The group’s work uses methods from atomic, molecular and optical physics. One project is the development of a transportable, multi-axis atom…

Magnetite is the oldest magnetic material known to humans, yet researchers are still mystified by certain aspects of its properties. For example, when the temperature is lowered below 125 K, magnetite changes from a metal to an insulator, its atoms shift to a new lattice structure, and its charges form a complicated ordered pattern. This…

In a multiyear effort involving three national laboratories from across the United States, researchers have successfully built and tested a powerful new magnet based on an advanced superconducting material. The eight-ton device –- about as long as a semi-truck trailer — set a record for the highest field strength ever recorded for an accelerator focusing…

By Ken Strandberg The European X-ray Free-electron Laser (European XFEL), recently completed its first experiments that captured images of an antibiotic-disabling enzyme. Scientists use X-rays to bombard molecules and project molecular smatterings on a sensor that reconstructs what the target looks like.  With these high-energy X-rays we now have 3D visualizations of actual molecules, like…

An international team of researchers has discovered the hydrogen atoms in a metal hydride material are much more tightly spaced than had been predicted for decades — a feature that could possibly facilitate superconductivity at or near room temperature and pressure. Such a superconducting material, carrying electricity without any energy loss due to resistance, would…

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) named Brookhaven National Laboratory, on Long Island, as the site for building an Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), a one-of-a-kind nuclear physics research facility. This announcement, following DOE’s approval of “mission need” (known as Critical Decision 0) on December 19, 2019, enables work to begin on R&D and the conceptual…

Refeyn Ltd., a spinout from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford, has been recognized by two prestigious science and innovation awards for its revolutionary mass photometry technology. Refeyn’s first instrument, the Refeyn OneMP, enables users to measure the mass of single molecules in solution – quickly, simply and accurately. The company’s proprietary…