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EPFL researchers have developed a hybrid device that significantly improves existing, ubiquitous laser technology.

The team at EPFL’s Photonic Systems Laboratory (PHOSL) has developed a chip-scale laser source that enhances the performance of semiconductor lasers while enabling the generation of shorter wavelengths. This pioneering work, led by Professor Camille Brès and postdoctoral researcher Marco Clementi from EPFL’s School of Engineering represents a significant advance in the field of photonics, with implications for telecommunications, metrology, and other high-precision applications.

Innovative integration for improved coherence and visibility.

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A groundbreaking study introduces advanced nanometric optomechanical cavities, paving the way for more efficient quantum networks and improving quantum computing and communication technologies.

The ability to transmit information coherently in the band of the electromagnetic spectrum from microwave to infrared is vitally important to the development of the advanced quantum networks used in computing and communications.

A study conducted by researchers at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil, in collaboration with colleagues at ETH Zurich in Switzerland and TU Delft in the Netherlands, focused on the use of nanometric optomechanical cavities for this purpose. These nanoscale resonators promote interaction between high-frequency mechanical vibrations and infrared light at wavelengths used by the telecommunications industry.

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Researchers at Western Sydney University in Australia have teamed up with tech giants Intel and Dell to build a massive supercomputer intended to simulate neural networks at the scale of the human brain.

They say the computer, dubbed DeepSouth, is capable of emulating networks of spiking neurons at a mind-melting 228 trillion synaptic operations per second, putting it on par with the estimated rate at which the human brain completes operations.

The project was announced at this week’s NeuroEng Workshop hosted by Western Sydney’s International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS), a forum for luminaries in the field of computational neuroscience.

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This post is also available in: he עברית (Hebrew)

Researchers from the Human-centric Artificial Intelligence Centre at the University of Technology Sydney have developed a portable, non-invasive system that can turn silent thoughts into text.

The technology is expected to aid communication for people who are unable to speak due to illness or injury, as well as enable seamless communication between humans and machines (like operating a bionic arm or a robot).

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Bulky and hard to wrangle, molecules have long defied physicists’ attempts to lure them into a state of controlled quantum entanglement, whereby the molecules are intimately linked even at a distance.

Now, for the first time, two separate teams have succeeded in entangling pairs of ultra-cold molecules using the same method: microscopically precise optical ‘tweezer traps’

Quantum entanglement is a bizarre yet fundamental phenomenon of the quantum realm that physicists are trying to tap into to create the first, commercial quantum computers.

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Potentially very useful discovery.

Scientists have solved a decades-long puzzle and unveiled a near unbreakable substance that could rival diamond as the hardest material on Earth. The research is published in the journal Advanced Materials.

Researchers found that when carbon and nitrogen precursors were subjected to and pressure, the resulting materials—known as carbon nitrides—were tougher than cubic boron nitride, the second hardest material after diamond.

The breakthrough opens doors for to be used for industrial purposes including protective coatings for cars and spaceships, high-endurance cutting tools, solar panels and photodetectors, experts say.

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A recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal and presented at this week’s American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting 2023 examines how 17 exoplanets could harbor interior oceans of liquid water, and possibly even geysers, much like two moons within our solar system, Europa and Enceladus. This study was conducted by a team of researchers across academia and multiple research institutions and holds the potential to help scientists better understand the prospects and conditions for finding life beyond our solar system, including the examination of how life could form outside of a star’s habitable zone (HZ).

Image of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, and its geysers taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in November 2010, which could mirror exoplanets with interior oceans and geysers. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

“Our analyses predict that these 17 worlds may have ice-covered surfaces but receive enough internal heating from the decay of radioactive elements and tidal forces from their host stars to maintain internal oceans,” said Dr. Lynnae Quick, who is a planetary geophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and lead author of the study. “Thanks to the amount of internal heating they experience, all planets in our study could also exhibit cryovolcanic eruptions in the form of geyser-like plumes.”

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