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. At its most basic level, understanding chemistry means understanding what electrons are doing. Research published in the Journal of Chemical Physics not only maps the movement of electrons in real time but also observes a concerted electron and proton transfer that is quite different from any previously known phase transitions in the model crystal, ammonium sulfate. By extending X-ray powder diffraction into the femtosecond realm, the researchers were able to map the relocation of charges in the ammonium sulfate crystal after they were displaced by photoexcitation. http://phys.org/news204267085.html Physics Tue, 21 Sep 2010 05:51:46 EST news204267085 (PhysOrg.com) -- In Swinburne University's 'cold molecules lab', where temperatures one millionth of a degree above absolute zero are routinely achieved, researchers are making significant advances in understanding the weird and wonderful world of quantum mechanics. http://phys.org/news202624318.html Physics Thu, 02 Sep 2010 05:34:07 EST news202624318 Measurements taken* at the National Institute of Standards and Technology may help physicists develop a clearer understanding of high-temperature superconductors, whose behavior remains in many ways mysterious decades after their discovery. A new copper-based compound exhibits properties never before seen in a superconductor and could be a step toward solving part of the mystery. http://phys.org/news202562620.html Physics Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:23:53 EST news202562620 Superconductors are more than 150 times more efficient at carrying electricity than copper wires. However, to attain the superconducting state, these materials have to be cooled below an extremely low, so-called transition temperature, at which point normal electrical resistance disappears. Developing superconductors with higher transition temperatures is one of physics' greatest quests. http://phys.org/news201355600.html Physics Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:06:54 EST news201355600 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 An international group of physicists from the University of Augsburg in Germany, the University of Florida in Gainesville, and the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen have succeeded in creating a theoretical modelling of the microscopic defects in superconductors and in discovering the main cause for the drastic drop in the electric current. The results have been published in the internationally recognized scientific journal, Nature Physics. http://phys.org/news197901636.html Physics Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:41:32 EST news197901636  (PhysOrg.com) -- The first batch of a new range of powerful superconductors which could revolutionise the production of machines like hospital MRI scanners and protect the national grid has been developed by scientists. http://phys.org/news197898064.html Physics Fri, 09 Jul 2010 12:41:57 EST news197898064 Scientists at JILA, working with Italian theorists, have discovered another notable similarity between ultracold atomic gases and high-temperature superconductors, suggesting there may be a relatively simple shared explanation for equivalent behaviors of the two very different systems. http://phys.org/news197806277.html Physics Thu, 08 Jul 2010 11:11:36 EST news197806277 When high-temperature superconductors were first announced in the late 1980s, it was thought that they would lead to ultra-efficient magnetic trains and other paradigm-shifting technologies. http://phys.org/news196855931.html Physics Sun, 27 Jun 2010 13:00:26 EST news196855931 What could be better than diamond when it comes to a superhard material for electronics under extreme thermal and pressure conditions? Quite possibly BC5, a diamond-like material with an extremely high boron content that offers exceptional hardness and resistance to fracture, but unlike diamond, it is a superconductor rather than an insulator. A research team in China studying BC5 describes its potential in the Journal of Applied Physics. http://phys.org/news196429125.html Physics Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:39:06 EST news196429125 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of scientists from Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and the Brookhaven National Laboratory has fabricated thin films patterned with large arrays of nanowires and loops that are superconducting -- able to carry electric current with no resistance — when cooled below about 30 kelvin (-243 degrees Celsius). Even more interesting, the scientists showed they could change the material's electrical resistance in an unexpected way by placing the material in an external magnetic field. http://phys.org/news195731760.html Physics Mon, 14 Jun 2010 10:56:30 EST news195731760 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of U.S. and Chinese physicists are zeroing in on critical effects at the heart of the latest high-temperature superconductors -- but they're using other materials to do it. http://phys.org/news194272741.html Physics Fri, 28 May 2010 13:39:20 EST news194272741 Researchers from the Universities of Liverpool and Durham have fitted another piece into the superconductivity puzzle that could help in the quest to bring down the cost of technologies such as MRI scanners and some energy storage applications that rely on superconductors. The result is published online in the journal Nature (19th May 2010). http://phys.org/news193939881.html Physics Mon, 24 May 2010 17:30:02 EST news193939881 New images of iron-based superconductors are providing telltale clues to the origin of superconductivity in a class of ceramic materials known as pnictides. The images reveal that electrons responsible for the superconducting currents in some pnictides tend to flow primarily along the boundaries between the crystal grains that make up the superconductors. The research, which is reported in a pair of papers appearing in the current issue of the journal Physical Review B, may help physicists to find new superconducting compounds that can carry current without the electrical resistance that plagues conventional metal conductors. http://phys.org/news193316852.html Physics Mon, 17 May 2010 12:07:57 EST news193316852 (PhysOrg.com) -- To build a quantum computer, it's essential to be able to quickly and efficiently manipulate the quantum states of qubits. The qubits, which are the basic unit of quantum information, can be composed of many different kinds of materials, although some work much better than others. With the goal of identifying which physical entities make the best qubits, a team of physicists from the University of California, Santa Barbara, has developed a list of characteristics and qualities that a material defect called deep centers should have in order to exhibit superior quantum mechanical properties. http://phys.org/news192184786.html Physics Tue, 04 May 2010 09:40:08 EST news192184786 (PhysOrg.com) -- A research team at RIKEN, Japan’s flagship research organisation has experimentally determined the mechanism underlying the formation of electron pairs in iron-based high-temperature superconductors. The landmark finding, reported in the April 23rd issue of Science, establishes a key role for magnetism in superconductivity. http://phys.org/news191170099.html Physics Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:48:48 EST news191170099 (PhysOrg.com) -- "Chiral superconductivity is the dream of mankind," Carlo Beenakker tells PhysOrg.com. "All sorts of scientists are working on it, and there are many labs trying to create materials that are predicted to provide chiral p-wave superconductivity." http://phys.org/news191150483.html Physics Thu, 22 Apr 2010 10:22:09 EST news191150483 (PhysOrg.com) -- Like Clark Kent, who often forgoes his social life to become Superman, materials that become superconducting must sacrifice at least one of their natural properties to attain the ability to transfer electric current with zero resistance. At the NSLS and Brookhaven's Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), a team of researchers has explored this internal conflict in a class of iron-based superconductors, materials that could be used to develop energy-saving applications such as high-efficient power lines. http://phys.org/news190568465.html Physics Thu, 15 Apr 2010 19:18:50 EST news190568465 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have developed the world's most efficient single photon detector, which is able to count individual particles of light traveling through fiber optic cables with roughly 99 percent efficiency. The team’s efforts could bring improvements to secure electronic communication, advanced quantum computation and the measurement of optical power. http://phys.org/news190484122.html Physics Wed, 14 Apr 2010 18:30:01 EST news190484122 (PhysOrg.com) -- Superconductors, the wonder materials that transport electricity without any resistance or energy loss, appear to be more complex than previously thought, according to research published online this week in Nature Physics by scientists at the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science, a joint institute of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University. http://phys.org/news189798601.html Physics Tue, 06 Apr 2010 18:50:21 EST news189798601 (PhysOrg.com) -- As part of the effort to better understand how superconductors transport electricity with zero resistance, a team of researchers has demonstrated a new way to count the number of a material's "holes" - locations where electrons are absent. Knowing more about holes, which, like electrons, are thought to interact with each other to produce superconducting current within a material, could help scientists develop superconductors for applications like more-efficient power transmission or magnetic-levitation high-speed trains. http://phys.org/news188756870.html Physics Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:28:37 EST news188756870 Superconductors, materials in which current flows without resistance, have tantalizing applications. But even the highest-temperature superconductors require extreme cooling before the effect kicks in, so researchers want to know when and how superconductivity comes about in order to coax it into existence at room temperature. Now a team has shown that, in a copper-based superconductor, tiny areas of weak superconductivity hold up at higher temperatures when surrounded by regions of strong superconductivity. http://phys.org/news187872793.html Physics Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:53:30 EST news187872793 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists from Okayama University in Japan have discovered that the hydrocarbon picene can be made to superconduct when potassium atoms are interspersed with the picene crystals and the doped picene is cooled. http://phys.org/news187421406.html Physics Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:00:01 EST news187421406 (PhysOrg.com) -- A breakthrough approach by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers and their collaborators in fabricating thin films of a new superconducting material has yielded promising results: The material has a current-carrying potential 500 times that of previous experiments, making it significant for a variety of practical applications. http://phys.org/news186667839.html Physics Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:40:02 EST news186667839 At the quantum level, the forces of magnetism and superconductivity exist in an uneasy relationship. Superconducting materials repel a magnetic field, so to create a superconducting current, the magnetic forces must be strong enough to overcome the natural repulsion and penetrate the body of the superconductor. But there's a limit: Apply too much magnetic force, and the superconductor's capability is destroyed. http://phys.org/news186168291.html Physics Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:25:18 EST news186168291 Superfluid mixtures of atoms can boil and freeze at ultra-low temperatures. This freezing can result in the formation of supersolids of atoms that can flow alongside each other without friction, but are still set in a fixed structure, says Dutch researcher Koos Gubbels. His research results are contributing to the understanding of superconductors - materials that might help to resolve the energy problem. http://phys.org/news185201084.html Physics Sun, 14 Feb 2010 12:50:01 EST news185201084 Physicists have long wondered whether hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, could be transformed into a metal and possibly even a superconductor -- the elusive state in which electrons can flow without resistance. They have speculated that under certain pressure and temperature conditions hydrogen could be squeezed into a metal and possibly even a superconductor, but proving it experimentally has been difficult. http://phys.org/news183653973.html Physics Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:01:25 EST news183653973 (PhysOrg.com) -- Two scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a method to control the buildup of hydrogen fluoride gas during the growth of precision crystals needed for applications such as superconductors, optical devices, and microelectronics. The invention -- by Vyacheslav Solovyov and Harold Wiesmann and recently awarded U.S. Patent number 7,622,426 -- could lead to more efficient production and improved performance of these materials. http://phys.org/news179664593.html Physics Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:50:30 EST news179664593 (PhysOrg.com) -- "Carbon nanotubes are exciting for fundamental physics, and for potential technological applications," Nadya Mason tells PhysOrg.com. "However, we are generally limited in the way that we can study them. Many of these limitations have to do with controlling tunneling, or the way electrons move on and off the nanotube." In order to overcome this limitation, Mason, a scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, participated in an experiment using a superconducting tunnel probe in a carbon nanotube to observe spectroscopic features. http://phys.org/news177934374.html Nanotechnology Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:13:55 EST news177934374 Danish nanophysicists have developed a new method for manufacturing the cornerstone of nanotechnology research - nanowires. The discovery has great potential for the development of nanoelectronics and highly efficient solar cells. http://phys.org/news176377185.html Nanotechnology Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:50:01 EST news176377185