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Category: quantum physics

Ultrafast fluorescence pulse technique enables imaging of individual trapped atoms

Researchers at the ArQuS Laboratory of the University of Trieste (Italy) and the National Institute of Optics of the Italian National Research Council (CNR-INO) have achieved the first imaging of individual trapped cold atoms in Italy, introducing techniques that push single-atom detection into new performance regimes.

By combining intense, microsecond-scale fluorescence pulses with fast re-cooling, the team demonstrated record-speed, low-loss imaging of individual ytterbium atoms—capturing clear single-atom signals in just a few microseconds while keeping more than 99.5% of the atoms trapped and immediately reusable.

This approach allows researchers to distinguish multiple atoms within a single optical tweezer without significant blurring, enabling precise onsite atom counting rather than the binary “zero-or-one” detection typical of existing methods. This capability is key for scaling neutral-atom quantum computers, advancing next-generation atomic clocks, and enhancing quantum simulators that probe complex many-body physics.

Scalable method enables ultrahigh-resolution quantum dot displays without damaging performance

Over the past decade, colloidal quantum dots (QDs) have emerged as promising materials for next-generation displays due to their tunable emission, high brightness, and compatibility with low-cost solution processing. However, a major challenge is achieving ultrahigh-resolution patterning without damaging their fragile surface chemistry. Existing methods such as inkjet printing and photolithography-based processes either fall short in resolution or compromise QD performance.

To address this, a research team led by Associate Professor Jeongkyun Roh from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Pusan National University, Republic of Korea, has introduced a universal, photoresist-free, and nondestructive direct photolithography method for QD patterning. Instead of exposing QDs to harsh chemical modifications, the team engineered a photocrosslinkable blended emissive layer (b-EML).

This layer is formed by mixing QDs with a hole-transport polymer and a small fraction of an ultraviolet (UV)-activated crosslinker, enabling precise patterning while preserving QD integrity. The study was published in the journal of Advanced Functional Materials on 29 September 2025.

Anything-goes “anyons” may be at the root of surprising quantum experiments

In the past year, two separate experiments in two different materials captured the same confounding scenario: the coexistence of superconductivity and magnetism. Scientists had assumed that these two quantum states are mutually exclusive; the presence of one should inherently destroy the other.

Now, theoretical physicists at MIT have an explanation for how this Jekyll-and-Hyde duality could emerge. In a paper appearing today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team proposes that under certain conditions, a magnetic material’s electrons could splinter into fractions of themselves to form quasiparticles known as “anyons.” In certain fractions, the quasiparticles should flow together without friction, similar to how regular electrons can pair up to flow in conventional superconductors.

If the team’s scenario is correct, it would introduce an entirely new form of superconductivity — one that persists in the presence of magnetism and involves a supercurrent of exotic anyons rather than everyday electrons.

From Decoherence to Coherent Intelligence: A Framework for the Emergence of AI Structure through Recursive Reasoning

This paper develops a thermodynamic framework for understanding the coherence of both biological and artificial cognition. We formalize thermodynamic coherence as an expression of information processing constrained by entropy and temperature, establishing a quantitative link between physical energy states and cognitive stability. Building on foundational concepts from statistical mechanics, quantum biology, and information theory, we argue that intelligence emerges as an ordered process, one that locally resists entropy through orderly reasoning work that generates coherent structure. The resulting framework is applied to wave function collapse, consciousness models, and machine reasoning, showing that coherence serves as a universal condition for stable cognition across domains.

Introducing TinyAleph: Revolutionizing How Computers Understand Meaning with Primes and Oscillators

Imagine if meaning — the elusive essence of language and thought — could be broken down into mathematical building blocks as fundamental as prime numbers. What if computers could “reason” by synchronizing oscillators, much like neurons firing in harmony in our brains?

That’s the bold idea behind TinyAleph, a new framework and library I’ve developed for semantic computing. Unlike today’s AI models that gobble up massive datasets to mimic understanding, TinyAleph grounds meaning in pure math: primes, hypercomplex algebra, and dynamic oscillators.

In this article, I’ll walk you through the core ideas of TinyAleph, stripping away the academic jargon to show why this could be a game-changer for AI, cryptography, and even quantum-inspired simulations. No PhD required — just an open mind.

Anything-goes ‘anyons’ may be at the root of surprising quantum experiments

“When you have anyons in the system, what happens is each anyon may try to move, but it’s frustrated by the presence of other anyons,” Todadri explains. “This frustration happens even if the anyons are extremely far away from each other. And that’s a purely quantum mechanical effect.”

Even so, the team looked for conditions in which anyons might break out of this frustration and move as one macroscopic fluid. Anyons are formed when electrons splinter into fractions of themselves under certain conditions in two-dimensional, single-atom-thin materials, such as MoTe2. Scientists had previously observed that MoTe2 exhibits the FQAH, in which electrons fractionalize, without the help of an external magnetic field.

Quantum entanglement could connect drones for disaster relief, bypassing traditional networks

Any time you use a device to communicate information—an email, a text message, any data transfer—the information in that transmission crosses the open internet, where it could be intercepted. Such communications are also reliant on internet connectivity, often including wireless signal on either or both ends of a transmission.

But what if two—or 10, or 100, or 1,000—entities could be connected in such a way that they could communicate information without any of those security or connectivity concerns?

That’s the challenge that Alexander DeRieux, a Virginia Tech Ph.D. student and Bradley Fellow in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, under the advisement of Professor Walid Saad, set out to tackle using quantum entanglement. In short, they used the unique properties of quantum bits, or qubits, as a method of transmitting information.

New microchips mimic human nerves to boost speed and cut power waste

At the same time, estimates from the US indicate that power consumption from IT applications has doubled over the past eight years, with the rise of AI. Researchers from California’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory suggest that more than half of the electricity used by data centers will be used solely for AI by 2028.

This puts the rapid advance of the digital revolution at risk as energy demand can no longer be met. Traditional silicon chips, which draw power even when idle, are becoming a critical limitation. As a result, researchers worldwide are exploring alternative microelectronic technologies that are far more energy-efficient.

To address the challenge, the team will begin developing superconducting circuits on January 1. These circuits, which were first envisioned by Hungarian-American mathematician and physicist John von Neumann in the 1950s, exploit quantum effects to transmit data using extremely short voltage pulses.

Cosmic knots may finally explain why the Universe exists

Knotted structures once imagined by Lord Kelvin may actually have shaped the universe’s earliest moments, according to new research showing how two powerful symmetries could have created stable “cosmic knots” after the Big Bang. These exotic objects may have briefly dominated the young cosmos, unraveled through quantum tunneling, and produced heavy right-handed neutrinos whose decays tipped the balance toward matter over antimatter.

In 1867, Lord Kelvin pictured atoms as tiny knots in an invisible medium called the ether. That picture turned out to be wrong, since atoms are built from subatomic particles rather than twists in space. Yet his discarded idea of knotted structures may still help explain one of the deepest questions in science: why anything in the universe exists at all.

A team of physicists in Japan has now shown that knotted structures can naturally appear in a realistic particle physics model that also addresses several major mysteries, including the origins of neutrino masses, dark matter, and the strong CP problem. Their study, published in Physical Review Letters, suggests that such “cosmic knots” could have formed in the violently changing early universe, briefly taken over as a dominant form of energy, and then collapsed in a way that slightly favored matter over antimatter. As they formed and decayed, these knots would have stirred spacetime itself, producing a distinctive pattern of gravitational waves that future detectors might be able to pick up, which is rare for a problem that is usually very difficult to test directly.

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