(PhysOrg.com) -- Anyone who has ever flown knows the feeling: an otherwise smooth flight gets a little choppy. If you are lucky, the plane skips a few times like a rock across a pond and then settles. For the not-so-lucky, ...
Engineering
Mar 25, 2011
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Phonons are collective atomic vibrations, or quasiparticles, that act as the main heat carriers in a crystal lattice. Under certain circumstances, their properties can be modified by electric fields or light. But until now, ...
Quantum Physics
Feb 15, 2022
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920
The ability to transmit information coherently in the band of the electromagnetic spectrum from microwave to infrared is vitally important to the development of the advanced quantum networks used in computing and communications.
Optics & Photonics
Dec 12, 2023
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142
Fiber optics has made communication faster than ever, but the next step involves a quantum leap –– literally. In order to improve the security of the transfer of information, scientists are working on how to translate ...
Quantum Physics
Sep 23, 2013
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(Phys.org)—A new study by a team of chemists in Greece has added credence to a theory that suggests that humans differentiate smells by sensing molecular vibrations, rather than through simple binding to receptors. In their ...
For more than 50 years, scientists have debated what turns particular oxide insulators, in which electrons barely move, into metals, in which electrons flow freely. Some scientists sided with Nobel Prize-winning physicist ...
Condensed Matter
Nov 10, 2014
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Materials scientists at Duke University have uncovered an atomic mechanism that makes certain thermoelectric materials incredibly efficient near high-temperature phase transitions. The information will help fill critical ...
General Physics
Sep 4, 2020
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177
By focusing light down to the size of an atom, scientists at the University of California, Irvine have produced the first images of a molecule's normal modes of vibration—the internal motions that drive the chemistry of ...
Biochemistry
Apr 3, 2019
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1358
Inside every cellphone lies a tiny mechanical heart, beating several billion times a second. These micromechanical resonators play an essential role in cellphone communication. Buffeted by the cacophony of radio frequencies ...
Optics & Photonics
Feb 5, 2022
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105
(Phys.org) —The mammalian auditory system is one of the most sensitive detectors found in nature. Two kinds of cells, the inner and outer hair cells, work together to transduce mechanical vibrations into action potentials. ...
