http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (Phys.org) —Researchers at the University of Rochester have applied a sophisticated imaging technique to obtain the first 3D, high-resolution pictures of a recently developed type of optical lenses. They say that using Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) during the manufacturing process allows them to significantly improve the quality of these new and promising lenses. http://phys.org/news286013205.html Physics Wed, 24 Apr 2013 09:11:07 EST news286013205 PET scan, CT and MRI are almost standard in today's diagnostics – highly developed and very sophisticated. Although more capable and less cost-intensive, laser-optical diagnosis methods are, up to now, far less prevalent. FAMOS is aiming to change this. http://phys.org/news283512299.html Technology Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:25:05 EST news283512299 (Phys.org)—The presence of quantum coherence in photosynthesis in plants, bacteria and marine algae at ambient temperatures is well-established. Two such effects that appeared to be unrelated – enhanced solar cell efficiency and population oscillations in photosynthetic antennae – have been detected in natural and artificial light-harvesting systems. Recently, however, scientists at Texas A&M University and University of California-Irvine have shown that these effects are, in fact, deeply connected: Both arise from the same population–coherence coupling term that is noise-induced and does not require coherent light – meaning that these effects will take place under the incoherent conditions of natural solar excitation. By focusing on the fact that charge separation in light-harvesting complexes occurs in a pair of tightly coupled chlorophylls (the so-called "special pair") at the core of plant, bacteria and algae photosynthetic reaction centers (RCs), and using an analogy between the energy level schemes of the core of the reaction center (including the special pair) and those of the laser/photocell quantum heat engines (QHEs), the scientists were able to demonstrate that both effects operate as QHEs that convert solar photon energy into useful work. The scientists predict that when coexisting they can potentially increase charge separation yield by 27%, and conclude that their findings suggest the viability of artificial solar energy devices based on biomimetic quantum heat engine architectures. http://phys.org/news281186550.html Physics Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:23:45 EST news281186550 The researches of the Aalto University and the University of Oulu have succeeded to simulate a phenomenon called motional averaging, which demonstrates that in certain conditions externally-induced fast fluctuations in energy can help stabilize the state of the system. The study shows that noise is not necessarily detrimental to the functioning of quantum devices such as superconducting quantum bits, but under certain circumstances noise can even improve their characteristics. http://phys.org/news279179120.html Physics Mon, 04 Feb 2013 05:45:28 EST news279179120 It was in trying to answer a question related to the functioning of our biological clock that a team lead by Ueli Schibler, a professor at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, has developed a method whose applications are proving to be countless. The researchers wanted to understand how 'timed' signals, present in the blood and controlled by our central clock, located in the brain, act on peripheral organs. http://phys.org/news278854371.html Biology Thu, 31 Jan 2013 12:00:05 EST news278854371 All modern electronics are based on the fundamental concept of electrical charges moving through a circuit. There are, however, alternative schemes that promise faster and more efficient types of computing. An example is spintronics, which is based on the use of the electron's magnetic property—its spin—instead of its electric charge. http://phys.org/news278323298.html Physics Fri, 25 Jan 2013 08:14:38 EST news278323298 Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a popular imaging modality for obtaining three-dimensional, micrometer-resolution pictures of structures that lie beneath the surface of, for example, the human eye or silicon wafers used in the computer industry. The technique could now become even more powerful, thanks to work led by Hon Luen Seck from the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology at A*STAR. The team has found a way to eliminate one of the main noise sources that otherwise blur these images. http://phys.org/news276337584.html Physics Wed, 02 Jan 2013 09:00:01 EST news276337584 In the operating room, surgeons can see inside the human body in real time using advanced imaging techniques, but primary care physicians, the people who are on the front lines of diagnosing illnesses, haven't commonly had access to the same technology – until now. Engineers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have created a new imaging tool for primary care physicians: a handheld scanner that would enable them to image all the sites they commonly examine, and more, such as bacterial colonies in the middle ear in 3-D, or monitor the thickness and health of patients' retinas. The device relies on optical coherence tomography (OCT), a visualization technology that is similar to ultrasound imaging, but uses light instead of sound to produce the images. The team will present their findings at the Optical Society's (OSA) Annual Meeting, Frontiers in Optics (FiO) 2012, taking place Oct. 14 - 18 in Rochester, N.Y. http://phys.org/news268398791.html Physics Tue, 02 Oct 2012 12:13:20 EST news268398791 Even the most skilled and steady surgeons experience minute, almost imperceptible hand tremors when performing delicate tasks. Normally, these tiny motions are inconsequential, but for doctors specializing in fine-scale surgery, such as operating inside the human eye or repairing microscopic nerve fibers, freehand tremors can pose a serious risk for patients. http://phys.org/news267969594.html Physics Thu, 27 Sep 2012 13:00:03 EST news267969594 The trained eye of a dermatologist can identify many types of skin lesions, but human sight only goes so far. Now an international team of researchers has developed an advanced optics system to noninvasively map out the network of tiny blood vessels beneath the outer layer of patients' skin, potentially revealing telltale signs of disease. Such high resolution 3-D images could one day help doctors better diagnose, monitor, and treat skin cancer and other skin conditions. The research was published today in the Optical Society's open-access journal Biomedical Optics Express. http://phys.org/news267705677.html Physics Mon, 24 Sep 2012 11:41:49 EST news267705677 (Phys.org)—The eye, whether in humans or other animals, is truly one of nature's most sophisticated advancements, able to convert light into signals the brain can interpret as imagery, all in real time. Most of the actual work is done at the back of the eye where rods and cones, two types of photoreceptors are located. Cones are primarily responsible for the eye's sensitivity to color, while rods, which are far more numerous (some 120 million exit in one human eye), are more sensitive to light in general. To find out just how sensitive rods are, researchers in Singapore have been studying single rod photoreceptors taken from an African Clawed Frog, and have found, as they describe in their paper published in Physical Review Letters, that such rods are able to discern and count single photons and are also able to determine the coherence of very weak pulses of light. http://phys.org/news266825802.html Physics Fri, 14 Sep 2012 07:17:02 EST news266825802 (Phys.org)—"Quantum weirdness," a phrase related to the power and the un-intuitive nature of quantum reality, is expected to facilitate speeded-up computation—quantum computing—for performing certain specialized tasks, such as factoring numbers. One drawback is that quantum computing depends exquisitely on the parts of a quantum system remaining coherent long enough—even in the face of environmental noise—for the computation to be performed. A proposed scheme should be helpful in sustaining coherence by carefully making mid-calculation corrections. http://phys.org/news266484724.html Physics Mon, 10 Sep 2012 08:32:33 EST news266484724 By outrunning a laser's path of destruction, an international research team has created 3D images of fragile but biologically important molecules inside protein nanocrystals. Using the Linac Coherence Light Source (LCLS), a powerful X-ray laser at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, Calif., the scientists fired femtosecond (one quadrillionth of a second) bursts of light at a stream of tumbling molecules, obliterating them as they pass, but not before capturing otherwise illusive images of their crystalline structures. http://phys.org/news262514669.html Physics Thu, 26 Jul 2012 09:47:38 EST news262514669 A new experiment conducted at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) examines the relationship between quantum coherence, an important aspect of certain materials kept at low temperature, and the imperfections in those materials. These findings should be useful in forging a better understanding of disorder, and in turn in developing better quantum-based devices, such as superconducting magnets. http://phys.org/news261931336.html Physics Thu, 19 Jul 2012 15:42:34 EST news261931336 Doctors can now get a peek behind the eardrum to better diagnose and treat chronic ear infections, thanks to a new medical imaging device invented by University of Illinois researchers. The device could usher in a new suite of non-invasive, 3-D diagnostic imaging tools for primary-care physicians. http://phys.org/news257528690.html Technology Tue, 29 May 2012 16:46:18 EST news257528690 (PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists at the University of California, San Diego have discovered patterns which underlie the properties of a new state of matter. http://phys.org/news252219674.html Physics Thu, 29 Mar 2012 06:01:39 EST news252219674 When American physicist Richard Feynman in 1982 proposed creating a quantum computer that could solve complex problems, the idea was merely a theory scientists believed was far off in the future. http://phys.org/news244878248.html Technology Wed, 04 Jan 2012 05:44:44 EST news244878248 Humans see color thanks to cone cells, specialized light-sensing neurons located in the retina along the inner surface of the eyeball. The actual light-sensing section of these cells is called the outer segment, which is made up of a series of stacked discs, each about 30 nanometers (billionths of a meter) thick. This appendage goes through daily changes in length. Scientists believe that a better understanding of how and why the outer segment grows and shrinks will help medical researchers identify potential retinal problems. But the methods usually used to image the living human eye are not sensitive enough to measure these miniscule changes. Now, vision scientists at Indiana University in Bloomington have come up with a novel way to make the measurements in a living human retina by using information hidden within a commonly used technique called optical coherence tomography (OCT). They discuss their results in the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal Biomedical Optics Express. http://phys.org/news243608911.html Physics Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:08:45 EST news243608911 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers working together from the University of Chicago and Washington University in St. Louis, have found more evidence that suggests quantum effects are at play as plants use energy from the sun to turn carbon dioxide into organic compounds. As they write in their paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, there appears to be a link between coherence and the way energy flows in plants. http://phys.org/news242468257.html Physics Wed, 07 Dec 2011 09:20:01 EST news242468257 (PhysOrg.com) -- Light has its limitations – in this case not velocity, but rather its diffraction limit, which determines the spatial interaction volume in all implementations of optical spectroscopy and is in general also valid for time-resolved studies. One specific technique that has recently become very successful is coherent two-dimensional (2D) spectroscopy. However, because it uses three ingoing waves and one outgoing wave, nanoscale events can be imaged only indirectly by averaging a population of quantum systems in the spectroscopic space. http://phys.org/news238133840.html Physics Tue, 18 Oct 2011 09:20:01 EST news238133840 (PhysOrg.com) -- The world's first x-ray laser, the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), first unveiled in 2009 at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in Palo Alto California, has been undergoing testing by group of physicists determined to find out how many of the photons it emits are synchronized and have found, as they describe in their paper in Physical Review Letters, the x-ray radiation that it produces, is the most coherent ever measured. http://phys.org/news236854043.html Physics Mon, 03 Oct 2011 10:20:01 EST news236854043 Scientists at Cambridge University have shown an amazing degree of control over the most fundamental aspect of an electronic circuit, how electrons move from one place to another. http://phys.org/news235828758.html Physics Wed, 21 Sep 2011 13:00:13 EST news235828758 A team of researchers from four Boston-area institutions led by Nicusor Iftimia from Physical Sciences, Inc. has demonstrated for the first time that optical coherence tomography (OCT), a high resolution optical imaging technique that works by bouncing near-infrared laser light off biological tissue, can reliably distinguish between pancreatic cysts that are low-risk and high-risk for becoming malignant. Other optical techniques often fail to provide images that are clear enough for doctors to differentiate between the two types. http://phys.org/news232799923.html Physics Wed, 17 Aug 2011 11:39:03 EST news232799923 (PhysOrg.com) -- "Scientists have been interested in generating and observing macroscopic quantum superpositions in order to test quantum mechanics at the macroscopic scale," physicist Hyunseok Jeong of Seoul National University in Seoul, South Korea, told PhysOrg.com. "There have been many papers in which the authors claim to have generated mesoscopic or macroscopic superpositions, often called 'Schrodinger cat states.' However, quoting A. J. Leggett in 2002, a question from the theoretical side is ‘What is the correct measure of "Schrodinger's-cattiness"?' It has been considered difficult to answer this question with a general measure, and the answer has remained to be 'very much a matter of personal taste,' quoting Leggett again. Our work now provides scientists with a theoretical tool to quantify and compare different types of quantum superpositions. This can be a step toward rigorous tests of quantum mechanics in a macroscopic limit." http://phys.org/news228541504.html Physics Wed, 29 Jun 2011 08:20:01 EST news228541504 (PhysOrg.com) -- For more than two decades, scientists have been "watching" electrons in atoms make the jump between energy levels in real time. "Atoms have energy levels, and when electrons 'jump' from one level to another, you can detect this optically. You can encode information in real atoms to make a quantum bit, or qubit," Irfan Siddiqi tells PhysOrg.com. http://phys.org/news221723788.html Physics Mon, 11 Apr 2011 06:57:35 EST news221723788 University of Rochester optics professor Jannick Rolland has developed an optical technology that provides unprecedented images under the skin's surface. The aim of the technology is to detect and examine skin lesions to determine whether they are benign or cancerous without having to cut the suspected tumor out of the skin and analyze it in the lab. Instead, the tip of a roughly one-foot-long cylindrical probe is placed in contact with the tissue, and within seconds a clear, high-resolution, 3D image of what lies below the surface emerges. http://phys.org/news217346797.html Physics Sat, 19 Feb 2011 14:06:53 EST news217346797 (PhysOrg.com) -- Did you know that the humble robin uses quantum physics? http://phys.org/news214836535.html Physics Fri, 21 Jan 2011 12:49:18 EST news214836535 Even as the Linac Coherent Light Source delivers X-rays with unprecedented power, marking a new era of X-ray science, a team of SLAC researchers is working to make such X-ray lasers even better. In a paper published yesterday in Physical Review Letters, the "Echo 7" team describes their success at adding an additional, elusive property to such beams: temporal coherence. http://phys.org/news203594871.html Physics Mon, 13 Sep 2010 11:40:01 EST news203594871 A tiny optical device built into a silicon chip has achieved the slowest light propagation on a chip to date, reducing the speed of light by a factor of 1,200 in a study reported in Nature Photonics (published online September 5 and in the November print issue). http://phys.org/news202911983.html Physics Sun, 05 Sep 2010 13:26:55 EST news202911983 A new optical imaging technique described in the journal Review of Scientific Instruments, which is published by the American Institute of Physics, holds the potential to greatly improve angioplasty, a surgery commonly performed to treat patients with a partially or completely blocked coronary artery that restricts blood flow to the heart. http://phys.org/news200657544.html Medicine & Health Tue, 10 Aug 2010 11:50:01 EST news200657544