https://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. Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have demonstrated, for the first time, a single quantum of vibrational energy interacting with a single atomic spin, seeding a pathway to quantum technologies that use sound as an information carrier, instead of light or electricity. The results are published in Nature. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-good-vibrations-quantum-communications-couple.html Quantum Physics Sun, 10 May 2026 17:00:03 EDT news697300032 For the first time, researchers in China have demonstrated how quantum dots can be engineered to consistently generate pairs of entangled photons. By carefully tailoring the photonic environment surrounding a single quantum dot, the team showed that it is possible to produce highly correlated photon pairs with remarkable efficiency, potentially opening new opportunities for emerging quantum technologies. The work, led by Zhiliang Yuan at the Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences, is reported in Nature Materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-quantum-dots-generate-entangled-photon.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 13 Mar 2026 11:40:01 EDT news692612663 Blue phosphorescent OLEDs can now last as long as the green phosphorescent OLEDs already in devices, University of Michigan researchers have demonstrated, paving the way for further improving the energy efficiency of OLED screens. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-enables-blue-oleds-green-efficiency.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 23 May 2025 13:15:03 EDT news667224901 Integrated photonic circuits operating at room temperature combined with optical nonlinear effects could revolutionize both classical and quantum signal processing. Scientists from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw, in collaboration with other institutions from Poland as well as Italy, Iceland, and Australia, have demonstrated the creation of perovskite crystals with predefined shapes that can serve in nonlinear photonics as waveguides, couplers, splitters, and modulators. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-scientists-perovskite-waveguides-edge-lasing.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 22 Aug 2024 11:54:35 EDT news643546472 A new study in Nature Physics demonstrates a novel method for generating quantum entanglement using a quantum dot, which violates the Bell inequality. This method uses ultra-low power levels and could pave the way for scalable and efficient quantum technologies. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-quantum-dot-photon-emitters-violate.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 09 Jul 2024 08:00:01 EDT news639672763 Scientists have made a breakthrough in significantly improving the sharpness of X-ray imaging and potentially boosting the speeds at which X-ray scans can be processed. This lays the groundwork for both better medical imaging and faster security clearance. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-golden-layer-sharper-imaging-faster.html Nanophysics Thu, 16 May 2024 04:00:01 EDT news634980361 Rice University engineers have demonstrated a way to control the optical properties of atomic imperfections in silicon material known as T centers, paving the way toward leveraging these point defects for building quantum nodes for large-scale quantum networks. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-advancing-quantum-networks-largest-photon.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 28 Mar 2024 11:20:48 EDT news630843645 As we transition to a new era in computing, there is a need for new devices that integrate electronic and photonic functionalities at the nanoscale while enhancing the interaction between photons and electrons. In an important step toward fulfilling this need, researchers have developed a new III-V semiconductor nanocavity that confines light at levels below the so-called diffraction limit. https://phys.org/news/2024-01-wavelength-confinement-indium-phosphide-nanocavity.html Nanophysics Wed, 24 Jan 2024 12:11:15 EST news625320671 Researchers at MPQ in Garching, together with a team from TU Munich, have excited erbium atoms embedded in crystalline silicon such that they emit single photons. Their special properties can form the basis for the development of extended networks that link quantum systems with each other, all the way to a future quantum internet. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-path-quantum-network-erbium-dopants.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 21 Jun 2023 10:33:45 EDT news606562421 As buzz grows ever louder over the future of quantum, researchers everywhere are working overtime to discover how best to unlock the promise of super-positioned, entangled, tunneling or otherwise ready-for-primetime quantum particles, the ability of which to occur in two states at once could vastly expand power and efficiency in many applications. https://phys.org/news/2023-01-lab-method-on-chip-generation-photon.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 17 Jan 2023 18:12:05 EST news593201522 The way electrons interact with photons of light is a vital part of many modern technologies, from lasers to solar panels to LEDs. But the interaction is inherently weak because of a major mismatch in scale: the wavelength of visible light is about 1,000 times larger than an electron, so the way the two things affect each other is limited by that disparity. https://phys.org/news/2023-01-electron-triggered-emissions-quantum-based-communications.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 04 Jan 2023 11:09:18 EST news592052954 Researchers have discovered the genetic basis for a quirk of the animal kingdom—how ant queens produce broods that are entirely male or female. https://phys.org/news/2021-12-queen-genes-sex-entire-ant.html Plants & Animals Tue, 14 Dec 2021 05:56:51 EST news558683804 Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and collaborators have devised and tested a new, highly sensitive method of detecting and counting defects in transistors—a matter of urgent concern to the semiconductor industry as it develops new materials for next-generation devices. These defects limit transistor and circuit performance and can affect product reliability. https://phys.org/news/2021-10-team-sensitive-transistor-defects.html Quantum Physics Thu, 07 Oct 2021 16:04:06 EDT news552841433 The first quantum revolution brought about semiconductor electronics, the laser and finally the internet. The coming, second quantum revolution promises spy-proof communication, extremely precise quantum sensors and quantum computers for previously unsolvable computing tasks. But this revolution is still in its infancy. A central research object is the interface between local quantum devices and light quanta that enable the remote transmission of highly sensitive quantum information. The Otto-Hahn group "Quantum Networks" at the Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching is researching such a "quantum modem". The team has now achieved a first breakthrough in a relatively simple but highly efficient technology that can be integrated into existing fiber optic networks. The work is published this week in Physical Review X. https://phys.org/news/2020-11-physicists-efficient-modem-future-quantum.html Quantum Physics Thu, 05 Nov 2020 10:19:56 EST news523793993 Researchers at CEA/CNRS/Université Paris Saclay, University College London and ETH Zurich have recently devised a new method to control the temperature of a spin ensemble by increasing electron spin polarization above its thermal equilibrium value. Their research, featured in Nature Physics, builds on a study they conducted back in 2016. https://phys.org/news/2020-05-technique-radiative-cooling-ensembles.html General Physics Wed, 13 May 2020 10:11:29 EDT news508583484 Quantum emitters can be integrated in monolithic nanoscale plasmonic circuitry via low-loss plasmonic configurations to confine light well below the diffraction limit. In integrated quantum plasmonics, waveguides based on surface plasmon polariton (SPP) modes that propagate electromagnetic waves along metal-dielectric or metal-air interfaces are superior to dielectric-based (and therefore diffraction-limited) photonic waveguides. The observation is in respect to the available Purcell enhancement from embedded quantum emitters and the ongoing trend toward on-chip integration and miniaturization to realize optical signal processing and integrated circuits. Different metal-dielectric configurations have been developed for strong light-matter interactions at the scale of the single photon to support the propagation of plasmonic modes confined beyond the diffraction limit. The property can enable unique prospects to design highly integrated photonic-signal processing systems, sensors and optical imaging techniques with nanoscale resolution. https://phys.org/news/2018-10-on-chip-nanodiamonds-embedded-plasmonic-waveguides.html Nanophysics Fri, 05 Oct 2018 09:30:03 EDT news457944629 Researchers have developed a new type of light-enhancing optical cavity that is only 200 nanometers tall and 100 nanometers across. Their new nanoscale system represents a step toward brighter single-photon sources, which could help propel quantum-based encryption and a truly secure and future-proofed network. https://phys.org/news/2016-12-ultra-small-nanocavity-advances-technology-quantum-based.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 21 Dec 2016 11:47:41 EST news401543252 A spider looking to immigrate to a different environment is three to four times more likely to survive if it goes by itself, as opposed to as part of a group. https://phys.org/news/2016-10-loner-spiders-prevail.html Plants & Animals Tue, 04 Oct 2016 07:42:59 EDT news394785770 Carbon nanotubes can be produced with a variety of shapes and properties and are therefore of much interest for widespread applications in fields as diverse as electronics, photonics, nanomechanics, and quantum optics. Hence it is important to have a tool at hand that allows to determine these properties in a quick and precise way. Raman spectroscopy is particularly sensitive for the chemical structure that gives rise to these properties. However, the signals are intrinsically weak and call for enhancement techniques. Now, a team of researchers of the Laser Spectroscopy Division of Prof. Theodor W. Hänsch (Director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and Chair of Experimental Physics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich) has developed a technique, where an optical microcavity is used to enhance Raman scattering signals, and utilized it for molecular diagnostics by combined Raman and absorption imaging. In contrast to other techniques, the new approach only relies on increased vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field inside a cavity, which enables significant enhancement without undesired background, and thereby renders the technique a promising tool for molecular imaging. https://phys.org/news/2016-07-boost-molecular-microscopy.html Nanomaterials Tue, 12 Jul 2016 09:02:53 EDT news387532828 Tiny units of matter and chemistry that they are, atoms constitute the entire universe. Some rare atoms can store quantum information, an important phenomenon for scientists in their ongoing quest for a quantum Internet. https://phys.org/news/2016-04-rare-earth-atoms-route-combined.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 25 Apr 2016 11:00:20 EDT news380795905 A team of scientists has found that a species of ant that clusters together to form rafts to survive floods exhibits memory and repeatedly occupies the same position during raft formation, according to a just published paper. https://phys.org/news/2016-04-raft-building-ants-memory-repeatedly-occupy.html Plants & Animals Mon, 18 Apr 2016 15:44:43 EDT news380213074 In what may provide a potential path to processing information in a quantum computer, researchers have switched an intrinsic property of electrons from an excited state to a relaxed state on demand using a device that served as a microwave "tuning fork." https://phys.org/news/2016-02-quantum-scientists-electrons-microwaves.html Quantum Physics Mon, 15 Feb 2016 11:00:16 EST news374751924 Duke University researchers have made fluorescent molecules emit photons of light 1,000 times faster than normal—setting a speed record and making an important step toward realizing superfast light emitting diodes (LEDs) and quantum cryptography. https://phys.org/news/2014-10-revving-fluorescence-superfast-molecular.html Optics & Photonics Sun, 12 Oct 2014 13:00:03 EDT news332308600 When imaging at the single-molecule level, small irregularities known as heterogeneities become apparent – features that are lost in higher-scale, so-called ensemble imaging. At the same time, it has until recently been challenging to develop luminescent probes with the photostability, brightness and continuous emission necessary for single-molecule microscopy. Now, however, scientists in the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA have developed upconverting nanoparticles (UCNPs) under 10 nm in diameter whose brightness under single-particle imaging exceeds that of existing materials by over an order of magnitude. The researchers state that their findings make a range of applications possible, including cellular and in vivo imaging, as well as reporting on local electromagnetic near-field properties of complex nanostructures. https://phys.org/news/2014-04-bright-small-crystals-scientists-nanoparticles.html Nanophysics Tue, 22 Apr 2014 09:00:01 EDT news317359677 Transparent jellyfish-like creatures known as a salps, considered by many a low member in the ocean food web, may be more important to the fate of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the ocean than previously thought. https://phys.org/news/2006-07-jellyfish-like-creatures-major-role-fate.html Mon, 03 Jul 2006 12:22:55 EDT news71148175