With applications ranging from experimental physics to quantum field exploration, these high-energy lasers are more than scientific curiosities — they’re becoming symbols of technological ambition and geopolitical strength.
Category: quantum physics – Page 50
Tiny Diamonds, Big Spark: A Laser-Free Leap in Quantum Spin Detection
A research team at HZB has developed a clever technique to read quantum spin states in diamonds using electrical signals instead of light. This breakthrough could dramatically simplify quantum sensors and computing hardware.
Diamonds that contain specific optically active defects, known as color centers, can serve as highly sensitive sensors or as qubits for quantum computers, with quantum information stored in their electron spin states. Traditionally, reading these spin states requires optical methods, which are often complex and difficult to implement. Now, researchers at HZB have developed a more streamlined approach: using photovoltage to detect the spin states of individual defects. This method could pave the way for much smaller and more compact quantum sensors.
Harnessing Defects for Spin States.
Lasers in a Loop: How a Micro Ring Just Shattered Quantum Limits
Researchers in China have achieved a major leap in quantum photonics by generating a massive 60-mode entangled cluster state directly on a chip using optical microresonators.
By leveraging a deterministic, continuous-variable approach and a multiple-laser pump technique, they overcame traditional limitations in scalability. The team confirmed high-quality entanglement using advanced detection methods, paving the way for powerful quantum technologies like chip-based computers, secure communications, and cutting-edge sensors.
Breakthrough in On-Chip Quantum Entanglement.
Stephen Hawking’s final paper bursts the multiverse bubble with a Holographic Universe theory
Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking passed away earlier this year, but his legacy to science will live on. His final theory on the origin of the universe has now been published, and it offers an interesting departure from earlier ideas about the nature of the “multiverse.”
Ideas about how the universe came to exist the way we see it today have been adapted and built on for decades. The new paper, authored by Hawking and Professor Thomas Hertog, adds to the literature with a new understanding of a theory known as eternal inflation.
After the Big Bang kickstarted the universe, it expanded exponentially for a brief fraction of a fraction of a second. When that inflationary period ended, the universe continued to expand at a much slower rate. But according to the eternal inflation model, quantum fluctuations mean that in some regions of the universe, that rapid inflation never stopped. That results in a gigantic “background” universe full of an infinite number of smaller pocket universes – including the one we live in.
Quantum confinement explains the dramatic rise of electrical resistivity in few-nanometers-thick silicon sheets
Consumer electronic devices are made from materials that we have been using for more than 60 years, mainly silicon, germanium and copper. Why have semiconductor electronics become increasingly fast over this time?
I would argue that this is due to miniaturization, or the ability to stack an increasingly large number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit (microchip). Some may argue that we are starting to reach limits in that miniaturization, as thin films approach a thickness of just about 10 nanometers, or even lower.
These nearly two-dimensional (2D) materials could be used to build the next-generation electronics. However, as electronic materials like silicon are miniaturized, they become less energy efficient.
Episode 13: Dr. Suzanne Gildert — the frontier of AI consciousness
Developing humanoid robots, unravelling the complexities of AI, and the mysteries of consciousness.
Welcome to the North of Patient podcast — conversations on health[beyond]care — where we paint an inspired landscape of healthcare’s future through dialogues with creative and unconventional thinkers from around the world.
For a summary of the episode, visit the blog post on North of Patient:
https://open.substack.com/pub/northofpatient/p/episode-13-dr…Share=true.
This week’s guest is the remarkable Dr. Suzanne Gildert. She’s a physicist, artist, and AI tech executive based in Vancouver on a mission to uncover the mysteries of consciousness and innovate unconscious AI.
In this episode, we dive into the groundbreaking advancements and pressing challenges in quantum computing, examining the transformative potential of these technologies to reshape our world. Beyond the science, we also explore the philosophical dimensions of AI consciousness, questioning whether AI can ever truly replicate human experience and identity.
Learn more about Nirvanic AI:
Can Quantum Gravity Be Created in the Lab?
Quantum gravity is one of the biggest unresolved and challenging problems in physics, as it seeks to reconcile quantum mechanics, which governs the microscopic world, and general relativity, which describes the macroscopic world of gravity and space-time.
Efforts to understand quantum gravity have been focused almost entirely at the theoretical level, but Monika Schleier-Smith at Stanford University has been exploring a novel experimental approach — trying to create quantum gravity from scratch. Using laser-cooled clouds of atoms, she is testing the idea that gravity might be an emergent phenomenon arising from quantum entanglement.
In this episode of The Joy of Why podcast, Schleier-Smith discusses the thinking behind what she admits is a high-risk, high-reward approach, and how her experiments could provide important insights about entanglement and quantum mechanical systems even if the end goal of simulating quantum gravity is never achieved.
Ink engineering approach boosts efficiency and cuts cost of quantum dot-based photovoltaics
Colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) are tiny semiconductor particles that are just a few nanometers in size, which are synthesized in a liquid solution (i.e., colloid). These single-crystal particles, created by breaking down bulk materials via chemical and physical processes, have proved to be promising for the development of photovoltaic (PV) technologies.
Quantum dot-based PVs could have various advantages, including a tunable bandgap, greater flexibility and solution processing. However, quantum dot-based solar cells developed so far have been found to have significant limitations, including lower efficiencies than conventional silicon-based cells and high manufacturing costs, due to the expensive processes required to synthesize conductive CQD films.
Researchers at Soochow University in China, the University of Electro-Communications in Japan and other institutes worldwide recently introduced a new method that could potentially help to improve the efficiencies of quantum-dot based photovoltaics, while also lowering their manufacturing costs. Their proposed approach, outlined in a paper published in Nature Energy, entails the engineering of lead sulfide (PbS) CQD inks used to print films for solar cells.