Scientists observing from boats knew little of the underwater behavior of the world’s smallest marine dolphin, the Hector’s dolphin.
Now, a paper has revealed a hidden world—including an array of acrobatics. The research is published in the journal Conservation Letters.
Barrel rolls, dives up to 120m deep, and upside-down feeding near the sea floor were behaviors discovered through tracking devices.
Phononic circuits are emerging devices that can manipulate sound waves (i.e., phonons) in ways that resemble how electronic circuits control the flow of electrons. Instead of relying on wires, transistors and other common electronic components, these circuits are based on waveguides, topological edge structures and other components that can guide phonons.
Phononic circuits are opening new possibilities for the development of high-speed communication systems, quantum information systems and various other technologies.
To be compatible with existing infrastructure, including current microwave communication systems, and to be used to develop highly performing quantum technologies, these circuits should ideally operate at gigahertz (GHz) frequencies. This essentially means that the sound waves they generate and manipulate oscillate billions of times per second.
An EPFL Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering has developed a device that significantly dampens the flow-induced vibration caused by rotating parts, such as those in boat propellers, turbines and hydraulic pumps. His device can be produced with a 3D printer and has recently been patented.
It’s a classic case of beginner’s luck. Thomas Berger had just started his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at EPFL’s School of Engineering when he made his now-patented discovery, which is published in Scientific Reports.
His thesis built on work he had started as a master’s student, but with the help of a 3D printer. This led to the promising technology that’s now attracting interest from investors.
With the surging popularity for electric vehicles (EVs), rapid charging is a challenge as it requires power delivery exceeding 1 MW (which can power about 1,000 homes). Conventional charging stations rely on bulky line frequency transformers (LFTs), which are expensive due to extensive use of copper and iron. These stations also have multiple conversion stages involving stepping up or down current, or converting AC to DC and vice versa. This can greatly increase cost and reduce efficiency.
To solve this problem, researchers at the Department of Electrical Engineering (EE), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), in collaboration with Delta Electronics India, have developed a novel cascaded H-bridge (CHB)-based multiport DC converter that directly connects to the medium-voltage AC (MVAC) electricity grid. This eliminates the need for large and expensive LFTs.
Published in IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, the study shows that such converters can help address the growing power demands of fast-charging EV stations, crucial for scaling up India’s EV infrastructure.
Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, together with international collaborators, have developed a new electron microscopy method that has enabled the first-ever imaging of vibrations, or phonons, in specific directions at the atomic scale.
In many crystallized materials, atoms vibrate differently along varying directions, a property known as vibrational anisotropy, which strongly influences their dielectric, thermal and even superconducting behavior. Gaining a deeper understanding of this anisotropy allows engineers to tailor materials for use in electronics, semiconductors, optics and quantum computing.
In a paper published in Nature, the UC Irvine-led team details the workings of its momentum-selective electron energy-loss spectroscopy technique and its power to unveil the fundamental lattice dynamics of functional materials.
With the rapid development of wearable electronics, neurorehabilitation, and brain-machine interfaces in recent years, there has been an urgent need for methods to conformally wrap thin-film electronic devices onto biological tissues to enable precise acquisition and regulation of physiological signals.
Conventional methods typically rely on external pressure to force devices onto conformal contact. However, when applied to uneven three-dimensional surfaces such as skin, brain, or nerves, they generate significant internal stress which can easily damage fragile metal circuits and inorganic chips. This is an obstacle to the advancement of flexible electronics.
In a study published in Science, Prof. Song Yanlin’s team from the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with collaborators from Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Nanyang Technological University, and Tianjin University, propose a new film transfer strategy named as drop-printing, which has potential applications in bioelectronics, flexible displays, and micro-/nano-manufacturing.
In a collaboration showing the power of innovation and teamwork, physicists and engineers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory developed a mobile muon detector that promises to enhance monitoring for spent nuclear fuel and help address a critical challenge for quantum computing.
Similar to neutrons, scientists use muons, fundamental subatomic particles that travel at nearly the speed of light, to allow scientists to peer deep inside matter at the atomic scale without damaging samples. However, unlike neutrons, which decay in about 10 minutes, muons decay within a couple of microseconds, posing challenges for using them to better understand the world around us.
The new detector achieves an important step toward ensuring the safety and accountability of nuclear materials and supports the development of advanced nuclear reactors that will help address the challenges of waste management. It also acts as a key step toward developing algorithms and methods to manage errors caused by cosmic radiation in qubits, the basic units of information in quantum computing. The development of the muon detector at ORNL reflects the lab’s strengths in discovery science enabled by multidisciplinary teams and powerful research tools to address national priorities.
In quantum mechanics, particles such as electrons act like waves and can even interfere with themselves—a striking and counterintuitive feature that defies our classical view of reality. We know this kind of interference happens in space, where different paths can overlap and combine, but what if we could take it further? What if we could control quantum interference in time, where electrons created at different moments interfere?
In a new study published in Physical Review Letters, a team of researchers developed a novel technique—chirped laser-assisted dynamic interference—to manipulate temporal quantum interference during photoionization.
By using extreme-ultraviolet pulses with time-varying central frequency, in combination with intense infrared laser fields, they guided electron motion with unprecedented precision.
Quantum physics often reveals phenomena that defy common sense. A new theory of quantum scarring deepens our understanding of the connection between the quantum world and classical mechanics, sheds light on earlier findings and marks a step forward toward future technological applications.
Quantum mechanics describes the behavior of matter and energy at microscopic scales, where randomness seems to prevail. Yet even within seemingly chaotic systems, hidden order may lie beneath the surface. Quantum scars are one such example: they are regions where electrons prefer to travel along specific pathways instead of spreading out uniformly.
Researchers at Tampere University and Harvard University previously demonstrated in their article published in “Quantum Lissajous Scars” that quantum scars can form strong, distinctive patterns in nanostructures, and that their shapes can even be controlled. Now, the Quantum Control and Dynamics research group at Tampere University’s Physics Unit is taking these findings further. In their new article, the researchers report that quantum scars significantly enhance electron transport in open quantum dots connected to electrodes. The work is published in the journal Physical Review B.
Data may challenge and reshape current models of solar wind evolution.
A recent study led by Dr. Michael Starkey of the Southwest Research Institute has delivered the first observational evidence from the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) Mission of pickup ions (PUIs) and their related wave activity in the solar wind near Earth. NASA launched the MMS mission in 2015, deploying four spacecraft to study Earth’s magnetosphere, the magnetic field that protects the planet from harmful solar and cosmic radiation.
Formation and behavior of PUIs.