Even with the quantum rules governing the Universe, there are limits to what matter can withstand. Beyond that, black holes are unavoidable.
Category: quantum physics – Page 448
Photonic chip transforms single beam of light into multiple beams, each with a panoply of different properties
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have devised a photonic circuit on a chip that transforms a single incoming beam of laser light into a panoply of new beams, each with a host of different optical properties.
The newly generated beams—which retain the frequency of the original beam—simultaneously exit the circuit at different locations along the chip. That allows scientists and engineers to select the specific characteristics of one or more beams needed for a particular application.
Precision shaping and controlling beams of visible light are critical for diagnosing and studying human diseases, trapping atoms that form the basis of the world’s most accurate clocks, quantum computing, and many other quantum-based technologies.
Telecom-band-integrated multimode photonic quantum-memory
Quantum memory that depends on quantum-band integration is a key building block used to develop quantum networks that are compatible with fiber communication infrastructures. Quantum engineers and IT specialists have yet to create such a network with large capacity to form an integrated multimode photonic quantum memory at telecom band.
In a new report in Science Advances, Xueying Zhang and a research team in electronic science, physics, and information technology described fiber-integrated multimode storage of a single photon at telecom band on a laser-written chip.
The storage device made of fiber-pigtailed erbium (Er3+) doped lithium niobate (Er3+:LiNbO3), presented a memory system integrated with telecom-band fiber-integrated on-chip components. The outcomes of the study highlight a pathway for future quantum networks to come in to being, based on integrated photonics devices.
When electrons slowly vanish during cooling: Researchers observe an effect unique to the quantum world
Many substances change their properties when they are cooled below a certain critical temperature. Such a phase transition occurs, for example, when water freezes. However, in certain metals there are phase transitions that do not exist in the macrocosm. They arise because of the special laws of quantum mechanics that apply in the realm of nature’s smallest building blocks.
It is thought that the concept of electrons as carriers of quantized electric charge no longer applies near these exotic phase transitions. Researchers at the University of Bonn and ETH Zurich have now found a way to prove this directly. Their findings allow new insights into the exotic world of quantum physics. The publication has now been released in the journal Nature Physics.
If you cool water below zero degrees Celsius, it solidifies into ice. In the process, it abruptly changes its properties. As ice, for example, it has a much lower density than in a liquid state—which is why icebergs float. In physics, this is referred to as a phase transition.
Research team synchronizes single photons using an atomic quantum memory
A long-standing challenge in the field of quantum physics is the efficient synchronization of individual and independently generated photons (i.e., light particles). Realizing this would have crucial implications for quantum information processing that relies on interactions between multiple photons.
Researchers at Weizmann Institute of Science recently demonstrated the synchronization of single, independently generated photons using an atomic quantum memory operating at room-temperature. Their paper, published in Physical Review Letters, could open new avenues for the study of multi-photon states and their use in quantum information processing.
“The project idea came about several years ago, when our group and the group of Ian Walmsley demonstrated an atomic quantum memory with an inverted atomic-level scheme compared to the typical memories—the ladder memory, named fast ladder memory (FLAME),” Omri Davidson, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. “These memories are fast and noise-free, and therefore they are useful for synchronization of single photons.”
Novel Raman technique breaks through 50 years of frustration
Raman spectroscopy—a chemical analysis method that shines monochromatic light onto a sample and records the scattered light that emerges—has caused frustration among biomedical researchers for more than half a century. Due to the heat generated by the light, live proteins are nearly destroyed during the optical measurements, leading to diminishing and non-reproducible results. As of recently, however, those frustrations may now be a thing of the past.
A group of researchers with the Institute for Quantum Sciences and Engineering at Texas A&M University and the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) have developed a new technique that allows low-concentration and low-dose screenings of protein-to-ligand interactions in physiologically relevant conditions.
Titled thermostable-Raman-interaction-profiling (TRIP), this new approach is a paradigm-shifting answer to a long-standing problem that provides label-free, highly reproducible Raman spectroscopy measurements. The researchers published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.