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Stable ferroaxial states offer a new type of light-controlled non-volatile memory

Ferroic materials such as ferromagnets and ferroelectrics underpin modern data storage, yet face limits: They switch slowly, or suffer from unstable polarization due to depolarizing fields respectively. A new class, ferroaxials, avoids these issues by hosting vortices of dipoles with clockwise or anticlockwise textures, but are hard to control.

Researchers at the Max-Planck-Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) and the University of Oxford now show that bi-stable ferroaxial states can be switched with single flashes of polarized terahertz light. This enables ultrafast, light-controlled and stable switching, a platform for next-generation non-volatile data storage. The work is published in the journal Science.

Modern society relies on , where all information is fundamentally encoded in a of 0s and 1s. Consequently, any physical system capable of reliably switching between two stable states can, in principle, serve as a medium for digital data storage.

Freely levitating rotor spins out ultraprecise sensors for classical and quantum physics

With a clever design, researchers have solved eddy-current damping in macroscopic levitating systems, paving the way for a wide range of sensing technologies.

Levitation has long been pursued by stage magicians and physicists alike. For audiences, the sight of objects floating midair is wondrous. For scientists, it’s a powerful way of isolating objects from external disturbances.

This is particularly useful in the case of rotors, as their torque and , used to measure gravity, gas pressure, momentum, among other phenomena in both classical and , can be strongly influenced by friction. Freely suspending the rotor could drastically reduce these disturbances, and now, researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have designed, created, and analyzed such a macroscopic device, bringing the magic of near-frictionless levitation down to Earth through precision engineering.

Controlling atomic interactions in ultracold gas ‘at the push of a button’

Changing interactions between the smallest particles at the touch of a button: Quantum researchers at RPTU have developed a new tool that makes this possible. The new approach—a temporally oscillating magnetic field—has the potential to significantly expand fundamental knowledge in the field of quantum physics. It also opens completely new perspectives on the development of new materials.

Computer chips, imaging techniques such as imaging, , transistors, and : many milestones in our modern everyday world would not have been possible without the discoveries of quantum physics. What is remarkable is that it was only about a hundred years ago that physicists discovered that the world at the smallest scales cannot be explained by the laws of classical physics.

Atoms and their components, protons, neutrons, and electrons—but also light particles—sometimes exhibit physical behaviors that are unknown in the macroscopic world. To this day, the quantum world therefore holds unclear and surprising phenomena that—once understood and controllable—could revolutionize future technologies.

A new method to build more energy-efficient memory devices could lead to a sustainable data future

A research team led by Kyushu University has developed a new fabrication method for energy-efficient magnetic random-access memory (MRAM) using a new material called thulium iron garnet (TmIG) that has been attracting global attention for its ability to enable high-speed, low-power information rewriting at room temperature. The team hopes their findings will lead to significant improvements in the speed and power efficiency of high-computing hardware, such as that used to power generative AI.

The work is published in npj Spintronics.

The rapid spread of generative AI has made the power demand from data centers a global issue, creating an urgent need to improve the energy efficiency of the hardware that runs the technology.

California physicist and Nobel laureate John Martinis won’t quit on quantum computers

A California physicist and Nobel laureate who laid the foundation for quantum computing isn’t done working.

For the last 40 years, John Martinis has worked—mostly within California—to create the fastest computers ever built.

“It’s kind of my professional dream to do this by the time I’m really too old to retire. I should retire now, but I’m not doing that,” the now 67-year-old said.

Ultra-Thin LED Brings Natural Sunlight Indoors

Scientists have created a light as thin as paper that emits a gentle, natural glow similar to sunlight.

By using a precise mix of quantum dots, the team reproduced the full color range of daylight. The design could lead to more comfortable, eye-friendly lighting and next-generation display screens.

Paper-Thin Breakthrough in LED Technology.

Scientists Discover the Secret to This Bizarre Creature’s Extraordinarily Long Life

A few tiny molecular tweaks may explain why naked mole-rats live nearly ten times longer than similar species. Researchers believe the key to the naked mole-rat’s remarkable lifespan may come down to small but significant differences in just four amino acids. A recent study found that evolutionar

Two Black Holes Locked in a Death Spiral Imaged in Stunning First

The complex dance of two black holes locked in a doomed orbit has been revealed in a first-of-its-kind direct radio image.

It’s the first time astronomers have directly imaged the distinct jets of both black holes in a known binary – finally confirming the model of the double core of a galaxy called OJ 287.

In OJ 287, located some 3.5 billion light-years away, the intricate, extreme interplay between the two central supermassive black holes has been documented for decades. This is the first image to capture smoking-gun signatures of both objects, however.

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