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Category: computing – Page 619

The realization of a single-quantum-dot heat valve

While many research teams worldwide are trying to develop highly performing quantum computers, some are working on tools to control the flow of heat inside of them. Just like conventional computers, in fact, quantum computers can heat up significantly as they are operating, which can ultimately damage both the devices and their surroundings.

A team of researchers at University Grenoble Alpes in France and Centre of Excellence—Quantum Technology in Finland has recently developed a single-quantum-dot heat valve, a that can help to control the flow of heat in single-quantum-dot junctions. This heat valve, presented in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, could help to prevent quantum computers from overheating.

“With the miniaturization of electronic components handling of excess heat at nanoscales has become an increasingly important issue to be addressed,” Nicola Lo Gullo, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. “This is especially true when one wants to preserve the quantum nature of a device; the increase in temperature does typically result in the degradation of the quantum properties. The recent realization of a photonic heat-valve by another research group ultimately inspired us to create a heat valve based on a solid-state quantum dot.”

The new ‘gold rush’ for green lithium

All the clean technologies that we need to combat climate change – whether that’s wind turbines, solar panels or batteries, they’re all really, really mineral intensive.

Cornwall, 1864. A hot spring is discovered nearly 450m (1485ft) below ground in the Wheal Clifford, a copper mine just outside the mining town of Redruth. Glass bottles are immersed to their necks in its bubbling waters, carefully sealed and sent off for testing. The result is the discovery of so great a quantity of lithium – eight or 10 times as much per gallon as had been found in any hot spring previously analysed – that scientists suspect “it may prove of great commercial value”.

But 19th-Century England had little need for the element, and this 50C (122F) lithium-rich water continued steaming away in the dark for more than 150 years.

Fast forward to autumn 2020, and a site nearby the Wheal Clifford in Cornwall has been confirmed as having some of the world’s highest grades of lithium in geothermal waters. The commercial use for lithium in the 21st Century could not be clearer. It is found not only inside smart phones and laptops, but is now vital to the clean energy transition, for the batteries that power electric vehicles and store energy so renewable power can be released steadily and reliably.

DARPA Looks to Light up Integrated Photonics with Chip-Scale Laser Development

DARPA Looks to Light up Integrated Photonics with Chip-Scale Laser DevelopmentAgency announces performer teams selected for LUMOS program.

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First demonstrated sixty years ago, the laser has become an essential technology in today’s world. It has transformed diverse fields including communications, sensing, manufacturing, and medicine. More recently, innovations in integrated photonics have allowed the miniaturization of key optical components and the ability to arrange several elements on a single silicon chip. When combined with lasers, these photonic integrated circuits (PICs) have the potential to replace large and costly optical systems with chip-scale solutions. However, due to differences in the properties of the materials that compose them, lasers and PICs are difficult to combine onto the same platform, limiting the benefits of integration and preventing broad technology impact.

To address this challenge, DARPA developed the Lasers for Universal Microscale Optical Systems (LUMOS) program, which aims to bring high-performance lasers to advanced photonics platforms. As highlighted in the recent program kick-off meeting, LUMOS will address several commercial and defense applications by directing efforts across three distinct Technical Areas.

The first LUMOS Technical Area brings high-performance lasers and optical amplifiers into advanced domestic photonics manufacturing foundries. Two research teams were selected in this area: Tower Semiconductor and SUNY Polytechnic Institute. These performers will work to demonstrate flexible, efficient on-chip optical gain in their photonics processes to enable next-generation optical microsystems for communications, computing, and sensing. LUMOS technologies will be made available to future design teams through DARPA-sponsored multi-project wafer runs.

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Scientists unveil latest femtosecond laser

Would you like to capture a chemical transformation inside a cell live? Or maybe revolutionize microchips’ production by printing paths in a layer that has a thickness of just 100 nanometers? These and many other goals can now be achieved with the latest femtosecond laser created by a team of scientists led by Dr. Yuriy Stepanenko.

These days, there is a multitude of laser light sources. They each have their characteristics and different applications, such as observing stars, treating illnesses, and surface micro-machining. “Our goal is to develop new ones,” says Yuriy Stepanenko, head of the team of Ultrafast Laser Techniques at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences. “We deal with sources that produce ultrashort pulses of light. Really very, very short—femtosecond pulses (that’s a part of a second with 15 zeros after the decimal point). This is the scale on which, for example, intracellular chemical reactions take place. To see them, we have to ” take a photo” in this very short time. And thanks to the new laser, we can do just that.

We can also use our source for the very precise removal of materials from various surfaces without destroying them, says the scientist. We could, for example, clean the Mona Lisa using this method without damaging the layers of paint. We would only remove dust and dirt, a layer about 10 nanometers thick, explains Dr. Stepanenko, one of the authors of a study recently published in the Journal of Lightwave Technology.

Quantum Entanglement of Electrons Using Heat

Quantum entanglement is key for next-generation computing and communications technology, Aalto researchers can now produce it using temperature differences.

A joint group of scientists from Finland, Russia, China, and the USA have demonstrated that temperature difference can be used to entangle pairs of electrons in superconducting structures. The experimental discovery, published in Nature Communications, promises powerful applications in quantum devices, bringing us one step closer towards applications of the second quantum revolution.

The team, led by Professor Pertti Hakonen from Aalto University, has shown that the thermoelectric effect provides a new method for producing entangled electrons in a new device. “Quantum entanglement is the cornerstone of the novel quantum technologies. This concept, however, has puzzled many physicists over the years, including Albert Einstein who worried a lot about the spooky interaction at a distance that it causes,” says Prof. Hakonen.

Sci-Fi UI Episode 1: The Expanse

In this episode of Sci-Fi UI, we’ll find out whether the computer interfaces in The Expanse can actually be built in the real world. In Sci-Fi UI, we deep-dive into the UI of tomorrow to see if we can learn anything about building better UI today.

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AJ Campbell.

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Oculus Quest Hand Tracking Review:

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Engineers find antioxidants improve nanoscale visualization of polymers

Reactive molecules, such as free radicals, can be produced in the body after exposure to certain environments or substances and go on to cause cell damage. Antioxidants can minimize this damage by interacting with the radicals before they affect cells.

Led by Enrique Gomez, professor of chemical engineering and and engineering, Penn State researchers have applied this concept to prevent imaging damage to conducting polymers that comprise soft electronic devices, such as , organic transistors, bioelectronic devices and flexible electronics. The researchers published their findings in Nature Communications today (Jan. 8).

According to Gomez, visualizing the structures of conducting polymers is crucial to further develop these materials and enable commercialization of soft electronic devices—but the actual imaging can cause damage that limits what researchers can see and understand.

The World’s First Quantum Phase Battery Is Here

O,.o circa 2020.

Their quantum phase battery consists of an n-doped InAs nanowire forming the core of the battery (the pile) and Al superconducting leads as poles. It is charged by applying an external magnetic field, which then can be switched off.

Cristina Sanz-Fernández and Claudio Guarcello, also from CFM, adapted the theory to simulate the experimental findings.

The battery is being further developed and improved at CFM premises in a collaboration between the Nanophysics Lab and the Mesoscopic Physics Group. These advances could contribute to enormous advances that many say will come from the field of quantum computing.