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) —There has been a lot of talk recently about the possibility of building what has come to be known as a time crystal. In February 2012, Frank Wilczek originally proposed the idea that under certain conditions, physical structures can move in a repeating pattern without expending any energy. Last June, a group of researchers at Berkeley proposed a time crystal could be realized as a persistently rotating ring of charged atoms. Unfortunately a problem with that approach was pointed out by Patrick Bruno, who noted that to be a time crystal, an object must exhibit perpetual motion in its lowest energy state—the ground state. Commenting in Physical Review Letters in March, Bruno showed that the particular example described by Wilczek was actually one of a system in an excited state, and therefore not a time crystal. Taking advantage of recent breakthroughs in the construction of low noise ion traps, Berkeley researchers now plan to build an ion trap that will satisfy the critics. http://phys.org/news286813095.html Physics Fri, 03 May 2013 15:18:34 EST news286813095 A multi-university research team has used a new spectroscopic method to gain a key insight into how light is emitted from layered nanomaterials and other thin films. http://phys.org/news281700382.html Nanotechnology Tue, 05 Mar 2013 10:06:46 EST news281700382 (Phys.org)—Unraveling the complexities of spin-orbital coupling could someday lead to new high-temperature superconductors and workable quantum computers via an elusive phase of matter called a "quantum spin liquid." Two groups of researchers utilizing x-ray beamlines at the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory are delving into the new physics required to develop just such a material. http://phys.org/news274607239.html Physics Thu, 13 Dec 2012 07:47:30 EST news274607239 (Phys.org)—Neutron scientists at the ILL have partnered with researchers from the University of Manchester, the University of Parma, the Rutherford Laboratory and the University of Bern to investigate molecular nanomagnets, materials composed of only a few atoms carrying magnetic moments. Their findings have been published in Nature Physics. http://phys.org/news273834432.html Physics Tue, 04 Dec 2012 09:07:21 EST news273834432 (Phys.org)—A LANL team and collaborators have made advances in the understanding of how carbon nanotubes move charges created by light. The research has applications for cheap, all-carbon-based photovoltaics and light detection elements. Their work measures exciton transport (excitons are small packets of energy made up of positive and negative charges) in carbon nanotubes at room temperature in a colloidal environment. A colloid is a substance that is evenly distributed throughout another substance, generally with particles that are between 1 and 1,000 nanometers in size. The nature of the colloidal environment influences the transport of charge-neutral excitons along the backbone of a carbon nanotube. http://phys.org/news271927501.html Nanotechnology Mon, 12 Nov 2012 07:25:13 EST news271927501 In the field of nanotechnology, electrically-charged particles are frequently used as tools for surface modification. Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and the TU Vienna were at last able to reconcile important issues concerning the effects of highly charged ions on surfaces. http://phys.org/news268303471.html Physics Mon, 01 Oct 2012 09:44:39 EST news268303471 (Phys.org) -- A collaboration of physicists from Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, LMU, Harvard and Caltech detect Higgs-type excitations in a low-dimensional system of ultracold atoms at the transition between different phases of matter. http://phys.org/news262460682.html Physics Wed, 25 Jul 2012 18:45:03 EST news262460682 Physicists have recently devised a new method for handling the effect of the interplay between vibrations and electrons on electronic transport. Their paper is about to be published in the European Physical Journal B. This study, led by scientists from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, and the Centre for Computational Science and Engineering at the National University of Singapore, could have implications for quantum computers due to improvements in the transport of discrete amounts of information, known as qubits, that are encoded in electrons. http://phys.org/news252667104.html Physics Tue, 03 Apr 2012 10:18:30 EST news252667104 Some people like company. Others prefer to be alone. The same holds true for the particles that constitute the matter around us: Some, called bosons, like to act in unison with others. Others, called fermions, have a mind of their own. http://phys.org/news252257802.html Physics Thu, 29 Mar 2012 16:36:49 EST news252257802 (PhysOrg.com) -- By looking at the way electrons are excited, researchers can gain a better understanding of the new field of transparent electronics. http://phys.org/news250321422.html Physics Wed, 07 Mar 2012 05:44:13 EST news250321422 (PhysOrg.com) -- While the most common device for converting light into electricity may be photovoltaic (PV) solar cells, a variety of other devices can perform the same light-to-electricity conversion, such as solar-thermal collectors and rectennas. In a new study, engineers have designed a new device that can convert light of infrared (IR) and visible wavelengths into direct current by using surface plasmon excitations in a simple metal-insulator-metal (MIM) device. http://phys.org/news240049670.html Nanotechnology Wed, 09 Nov 2011 08:28:05 EST news240049670 When doping a disordered magnetic insulator material with atoms of a nonmagnetic material, the conventional wisdom is that the magnetic interactions between the magnetic ions in the material will be weakened. http://phys.org/news238666781.html Physics Mon, 24 Oct 2011 09:20:01 EST news238666781 (PhysOrg.com) -- Due to its high data carrying capacity and low loss, light can serve as an ideal information carrier. However, due to the high speed at which it travels, light is difficult to store. Because the ability to store light is important for optical networks as well as long-distance quantum communication networks, researchers have been investigating various light storage techniques. While previous studies have demonstrated that light can be stored as acoustic excitations, spin excitations, and atomic excitations, scientists have now added storing light as mechanical excitations to this list. http://phys.org/news236853727.html Physics Mon, 03 Oct 2011 09:42:25 EST news236853727 U.S., German and Austrian physicists studying the perplexing class of materials that includes high-temperature superconductors are reporting this week the unexpected discovery of a simple "scaling" behavior in the electronic excitations measured in a related material. The experiments, which were conducted on magnetic heavy-fermion metals, offer direct evidence of the large-scale electronic consequences of "quantum critical" effects. http://phys.org/news199593752.html Physics Thu, 29 Jul 2010 05:20:01 EST news199593752 Physicists at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (Germany) have succeeded in producing a Bose-Einstein condensate from the alkaline earth element calcium. The use of alkaline earth atoms creates new potential for precision measurements, for example for the determination of gravitational fields. http://phys.org/news172824034.html Physics Tue, 22 Sep 2009 07:42:14 EST news172824034