Just over 200 years after French engineer and physicist Sadi Carnot formulated the second law of thermodynamics, an international team of researchers has unveiled an analogous law for the quantum world. This second law of entanglement manipulation proves that, just like heat or energy in an idealized thermodynamics regime, entanglement can be reversibly manipulated, a statement which until now had been heavily contested.
Terahertz radiation (THz), electromagnetic radiation with frequencies ranging between 0.1 and 10 THz, could be leveraged to develop various new technologies, including imaging and communication systems. So far, however, a lack of fast and sensitive detectors that can detect radiation across a wide range of frequencies has limited the development of these THz-sensing technologies.
In a recent paper published in Nature Electronics, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Tennessee and other institutes have introduced new photodetectors made of tantalum iridium telluride (TaIrTe₄), a 2D-correlated topological semimetal that exhibits advantageous properties. Most notably, this material exhibits a strong nonlinear Hall effect, a physical effect that entails a transverse voltage in the absence of an external magnetic field, which is nonlinearly proportional to an applied electric field or current.
“THz technology is critical in quantum information technology and biomedical sensing because its frequency resonates with low-energy collective excitations in quantum materials and molecular vibrations in biological matters,” Jun Xiao, senior author of the paper, told Phys.org.
Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, have developed a tunable system that paves the way for more accurate sensing in a variety of technologies, including biomedical diagnostics. The result is published in Nature.
The potential range of technologies is large, stretching from the largest to smallest scales, from detecting gravitational waves in space to sensing the tiny fluctuations in our own bodies.
Optical sensing technologies are already part of everyday life. In recent years, advances in quantum optics have pushed the sensitivity of these devices closer to the so-called standard quantum limit—a practical boundary that arises from the inevitable noise arising from measuring on the smallest scales.
David Deutsch, known as the ‘father of quantum computing’, explains how accepting the reality of quantum mechanics means accepting the multiverse.
How are the branches of a multiverse different from each other?
With a free trial, you can watch David Deutsch debate infinity with George Ellis and Sara Walker at https://iai.tv/video/the-edge-of-the-universe?utm_source=You…of-reality.
The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics says that all possible outcomes of quantum measurements are physically realised in different worlds. These many worlds have proved extremely contentious, with critics arguing that they are mere fantasy. In this exclusive interview, leading physicist David Deutsch explains the philosophy behind the many-worlds interpretation and argues that not only is it the best interpretation of quantum mechanics – it is the only interpretation.
#quantum #quantummechanics #quantumphysics #quantumcomputing.
David Deutsch is a theoretical physicist best known as the founding father of quantum computation and as a key figure and advocate for the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Deutsch is a Visiting Professor of physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation and the Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford University. Interviewed by Charlie Barnett, Senior Producer at the IAI.
Chemists at the School of Science of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have recently made significant progress in photocatalysis by unveiling a “super” photoreductant, marking a major advancement in organic synthesis.
Quantum dots (QDs) hold great promise as photocatalysts for promoting photoredox chemistry. However, their application in photocatalytic organic transformations has lagged behind that of small molecule photosensitizers due to the limited understanding of their photophysics.
While various studies have explored the generation of hot electrons from QDs as a strategy to enhance photoreduction efficiencies, achieving effective hot-electron generation under mild conditions has posed a significant challenge.
Managing radioactive waste is one of the core challenges in the use of nuclear energy. In particular, radioactive iodine poses serious environmental and health risks due to its long half-life (15.7 million years in the case of I-129), high mobility, and toxicity to living organisms.
A Korean research team has successfully used artificial intelligence to discover a new material that can remove iodine for nuclear environmental remediation. The team plans to push forward with commercialization through various industry–academia collaborations, from iodine-adsorbing powders to contaminated water treatment filters.
Professor Ho Jin Ryu’s research team from the Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering, in collaboration with Dr. Juhwan Noh of the Digital Chemistry Research Center at the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology, developed a technique using AI to discover new materials that effectively remove radioactive iodine contaminants. Their research is published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials.
Angular momentum is a fundamental quantity in physics that describes the rotational motion of objects. In quantum physics, it encompasses both the intrinsic spin of particles and their orbital motion around a point. These properties are essential for understanding a wide range of systems, from atoms and molecules to complex materials and high-energy particle interactions.
When a magnetic field is applied to a quantum system, particle spins typically align with or against the field. This well-known effect, known as spin polarization, leads to observable phenomena such as magnetization. Until now, it was widely believed that spin played the dominant role in how particles respond to magnetic fields. However, new research challenges this long-held view.
In this vein, Assistant Professor Kazuya Mameda of Tokyo University of Science, Japan, in collaboration with Professor Kenji Fukushima of School of Science, The University of Tokyo and Dr. Koichi Hattori of Zhejiang University, found that under strong magnetic fields, the orbital motion of magnetovortical matter becomes more significant than spin effects, leading to reversing the overall direction of angular momentum. The study will be published in Physical Review Letters on July 1, 2025.
EPFL scientists have developed a new technique that lets researchers watch, with unprecedented sensitivity, how materials emit polarized light over time.
Light isn’t just bright or dim, colored or plain. Its waves can also twist and turn, in a phenomenon called polarization. Think about the glasses you wear at a 3D movie, which use light polarization to make each eye see a slightly different image, creating the illusion of depth.
Polarization is key for future technologies, from quantum computers to secure communication and holographic displays. Many materials emit light in ways that encode information in its polarization, as if we were using the direction of light waves to send a message. Among these phenomena is a form known as circularly polarized luminescence (CPL), a special type of light emission produced by chiral materials where light waves spiral either left or right as they travel.
Quantum computers still face a major hurdle on their pathway to practical use cases: their limited ability to correct the arising computational errors. To develop truly reliable quantum computers, researchers must be able to simulate quantum computations using conventional computers to verify their correctness—a vital yet extraordinarily difficult task.
Now, in a world-first, researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, the University of Milan, the University of Granada, and the University of Tokyo have unveiled a method for simulating specific types of error-corrected quantum computations—a significant leap forward in the quest for robust quantum technologies.
Quantum computers have the potential to solve complex problems that no supercomputer today can handle. In the foreseeable future, quantum technology’s computing power is expected to revolutionize fundamental ways of solving problems in medicine, energy, encryption, AI, and logistics.