Lifeboat Foundation

For researchers wanting to understand the inner workings of magnetic materials, transmission electron microscopy is an indispensable tool. Because the wavelength of an electron is much shorter than the wavelength of visible light, a beam of electrons transmitted through a thin slice of a material can create an image in which the inner structure of the material is magnified up to 50 million times, many orders of magnitude more than with an optical microscope.

Since transmission electron microscopy, or TEM, was first developed in the 1930s, scientists and engineers have come up with many variations on the technique. Each of these variations suit different applications and come with their own advantages and disadvantages.

Now, researchers at NTNU have come up with a remarkably simple method to solve a long-standing problem in an almost 30-year-old TEM-based technique known as scanning precession electron diffraction, or SPED.

A research collaboration co-led by EPFL has uncovered a surprising magnetic property of an exotic material that might lead to computers that need less than one-millionth of the energy required to switch a single bit.

The world of materials science is constantly discovering or fabricating materials with exotic properties. Among them are the multiferroics, a unique class of materials that can be both magnetized and polarized at the same time, which means that they are sensitive to both magnetic and electric fields.

Having both these properties in a single material has made multiferroics very interesting for research and commercial purposes with potential applications from advanced electronics to next-generation memory storage. By understanding and harnessing the properties of multiferroics, researchers aim to develop more efficient, compact, and even energy-saving technologies.

Researchers from Lancaster University in the UK have discovered how superfluid helium ³ He would feel if you could put your hand into it. Dr. Samuli Autti is the lead author of the research published in Nature Communications.

The interface between the exotic world of quantum physics and classical physics of the human experience is one of the major open problems in modern physics.

Dr. Autti said, In practical terms, we don’t know the answer to the question ‘How does it feel to touch quantum physics?’ These experimental conditions are extreme and the techniques complicated, but I can now tell you how it would feel if you could put your hand into this quantum system.

New research from a consortium of quantum physicists, led by Trinity College Dublin’s Dr. Mark Mitchison, shows that imperfect timekeeping places a fundamental limit to quantum computers and their applications. The team claims that even tiny timing errors add up to place a significant impact on any large-scale algorithm, posing another problem that must eventually be solved if quantum computers are to fulfill the lofty aspirations that society has for them.

The paper is published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

It is difficult to imagine modern life without clocks to help organize our daily schedules; with a digital clock in every person’s smartphone or watch, we take precise timekeeping for granted—although that doesn’t stop people from being late.

The diamond in an engagement ring, the wonder-material graphene and the lead in a humble pencil are all formed from carbon, but display profoundly different characteristics. Carbon materials such as these are among the most famous examples of how diverse properties can emerge in materials, based only on the rearrangement of the structure of atoms.

The goal of the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) in Saitama, Japan, is to develop materials for new, energy-efficient technologies. The usual approach to synthesizing new materials involves looking for improved properties such as strength and durability, or enhanced conduction of electricity and heat.

But CEMS is pioneering an alternative approach that turns that standard approach on its head. First, we think of the properties needed for a new device, use data from RIKEN’s new repository and simulation platform to calculate the atomic structure that provides these features and then build the bespoke material.

Quantum-based systems promise faster computing and stronger encryption for computation and communication systems. These systems can be built on fiber networks involving interconnected nodes which consist of qubits and single-photon generators that create entangled photon pairs.

In this regard, rare-earth (RE) atoms and ions in solid-state materials are highly promising as single-photon generators. These materials are compatible with fiber networks and emit photons across a broad range of wavelengths. Due to their wide spectral range, optical fibers doped with these RE elements could find use in various applications, such as free-space telecommunication, fiber-based telecommunications, quantum random number generation, and high-resolution image analysis. However, so far, single-photon light sources have been developed using RE-doped crystalline materials at cryogenic temperatures, which limits the practical applications of quantum networks based on them.

In a study published in Physical Review Applied on 16 October 2023, a team of researchers from Japan, led by Associate Professor Kaoru Sanaka from Tokyo University of Science (TUS) has successfully developed a single-photon light source consisting of doped ytterbium ions (Yb³⁺) in an amorphous silica optical fiber at room temperature. This newly developed single-photon light source eliminates the need for expensive cooling systems and has the potential to make quantum networks more cost-effective and accessible.

Nuclear fusion holds the promise to generate energy in a clean, safe, and nearly inexhaustible way. The physical idea of fusion involves confining fuels at unearthly temperatures of approximately 150,000,000 degree Celsius which fusion reactions between atomic nuclei can happen. The fuels of interest, deuterium and tritium (isotopes of hydrogen), exist in the state of plasma. Clearly, containing these extremely hot plasmas with solid walls is unfeasible.

A plasma is an ionised gas comprising charged particles, both ions and electrons. Fortunately, the dynamics of charge particles are subject to constraints along magnetic field lines. This insight forms the basis of our current approach: constructing a magnetic bottle using powerful magnetic fields that effectively trap the plasma along these intangible field lines.

One of the most iconic magnetic confinement machine designs is the tokamak — a toroidally-shaped device, often likened to a doughnut. The name ‘tokamak’ is derived from the Russian acronym for ‘to roidal cha mber with ma gnetic c oils.’

Plants are not just able to survive in low gravity such as on the Moon, two new papers suggest – they may prefer it, at least based on the only species to sprout.

When Chang’e 4 landed on the Moon in January 2019 it carried with it a payload that could dictate the future of space exploration: seeds of four plant species it sought to grow on the lunar surface. The germination of a single cotton seed attracted plenty of attention at the time, but there’s more to growth than just sprouting. If crops grown on the Moon are less productive or more fragile than those on Earth, it’s going to be a big problem.

It’s taken more than four years, but important results from the experiment have now been released and they suggest that for all the obstacles to establishing colonies on the Moon and Mars, growing food might not be one. Then again, it’s still very early days.

How are synapses formed, those points of contact that allow the transmission of information from one neuron to the other? Working with an international team, researchers from the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP) have now uncovered a crucial mechanism and elucidated the identity of the axonal transport vesicles that generates synapses. The findings provide an important basis for promoting the regeneration of nerve cells and counteracting the aging process in the future. The results have just been published in the journal Science.

Whether in the brain or in the muscles, wherever there are nerve cells, there are synapses. These contact points between neurons form the basis for the transmission of excitation, i.e. communication between neurons. As in any communication process, there is a sender and a receiver: Nerve cell processes called axons generate and transmit electrical signals thereby acting as signal senders. Synapses are points of contact between axonal nerve terminals (the pre-synapse) and post-synaptic neurons. At these synapses, the electrical impulse is converted into chemical messengers that are received and sensed by the post-synapses of the neighboring neuron. The messengers are released from special membrane sacs called synaptic vesicles.