Physics and Matter News

Invisibility visualized: German team unveils new software for rendering cloaked objects

Saturday, November 14, 2009 00:00 MST

Scientists and curiosity seekers who want to know what a partially or completely cloaked object would look like in real life can now get their wish -- virtually. A team of researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany has created a new visualization tool that can render a room containing such an object, showing the visual effects of such a cloaking mechanism and its imperfections.

Pushing light beyond its known limits

Friday, November 13, 2009 00:00 MST

Scientists at the University of Adelaide have made a breakthrough that could change the world's thinking on what light is capable of.

Strontium 84 -- just right for forming a Bose-Einstein condensate

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 00:00 MST

Two independent teams have, for the first time, created Bose-Einstein condensates of strontium atoms.

J�lich neutron scientists inaugurate unique device in the US

Monday, November 09, 2009 00:00 MST

A unique large-scale research device from J�lich went into operation in the US yesterday. At the strongest neutron source in the world, the spallation source SNS in Oak Ridge, Tenn., Forschungszentrum J�lich inaugurated a so-called neutron spin echo spectrometer. The NSE spectrometer enables detailed observations to be made of the motion of proteins and polymers. It will thus help to develop improved plastics or to understand metabolic processes in cells.

Researchers create all-electric spintronics

Sunday, November 08, 2009 00:00 MST

Scientists have always attempted to develop spin transistors by incorporating local ferromagnets into device architectures. A far better and practical way to manipulate the orientation of an electron's spin would be by using purely electrical means. A team of researchers led by the University of Cincinnati's Philippe Debray and Marc Cahay is the first to find an innovative and novel way to control an electron's spin orientation using purely electrical means.

Electron self-injection into an evolving plasma bubble

Saturday, November 07, 2009 00:00 MST

A time-varying bubble of electron density in the wake of an ultra-intense laser pulse traps the ambient plasma electrons and accelerates them to high energy producing collimated monoenergetic beams for medical, technological, and physics applications

Precise picture of early universe supports 'dark matter' theory

Saturday, November 07, 2009 00:00 MST

A detailed picture of the seeds of structures in the universe has been unveiled by an international team co-led by a Cardiff University scientist.

Researchers use trident laser to accelerate protons to record energies

Friday, November 06, 2009 00:00 MST

An international team of physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory has succeeded in using intense laser light to accelerate protons to energies never before achieved. Using this technique, scientists can now accelerate particles to extremely high velocities that would otherwise only be possible using large accelerator facilities. Physicists around the world are examining laser particle acceleration and laser produced radiation for potential future uses in cancer treatment.

UD wins $4.4 million to develop next-generation magnets

Friday, November 06, 2009 00:00 MST

The University of Delaware has won a $4.4 million grant from the US Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency to lead a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research project to develop the next generation of high-performance permanent magnets.

Ropes of plasma: Onset and stagnation of 3-D magnetic reconnection

Thursday, November 05, 2009 00:00 MST

Magnetized plasmas occupy a large fraction of our cosmic universe; they exist on our sun, in the earth's magnetosphere, and in astrophysical plasmas.

Upping the power triggers an ordered helical plasma

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 00:00 MST

If you keep twisting a straight elastic string, at some moment it starts kinking in a wild way.

Flipping a photonic shock wave

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 00:00 MST

Physicists at Zhejiang University in China and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a new metamaterial structure that successfully demonstrates reverse Cerenkov radiation.

Pinning down superconductivity to a single layer

Tuesday, November 03, 2009 00:00 MST

Using precision techniques for making superconducting thin films layer-by-layer, physicists at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have identified a single layer responsible for one such material's ability to become superconducting, i.e., carry electrical current with no energy loss. The technique, described in the Oct. 30, 2009, issue of Science, could be used to engineer ultrathin films with "tunable" superconductivity for higher-efficiency electronic devices.

Scientists build first 'frequency comb' to display visible 'teeth'

Monday, November 02, 2009 00:00 MST

Scientists at the University of Konstanz in Germany and the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the United States have built the first optical frequency comb -- a tool for precisely measuring different frequencies of visible light -- that actually looks like a comb.

Dark matter sleuths to design world's largest WIMP catcher

Sunday, November 01, 2009 00:00 MST

Researchers from US and European universities and institutions are collaborating on plans to build an enormous WIMP detector, in hopes of finding the stuff of dark matter. The 20-ton liquid xenon experiment is proposed as a major experiment for the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory, a national lab planned for the former Homestake Mine beneath the Black Hills of South Dakota.