If you heat a solid material enough, the thermal energy (latent heat) causes the material's molecules begin to break apart, forming a liquid. One of the most familiar examples of this phase transition from a well-ordered ...
Condensed Matter
Mar 2, 2020
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41
Chemical reactions are determined at their most fundamental level by their respective electronic structure and dynamics. Steered by a stimulus such as light irradiation, electrons rearrange themselves in liquids or solids. ...
Optics & Photonics
Feb 13, 2020
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92
Of the many divergent approaches to building a practical quantum computer, one of the most promising paths leads toward ion traps. In these traps, single ions are held still and serve as the basic units of data, or qubits, ...
Quantum Physics
Jan 29, 2020
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1057
Until now, complex experimental equipment was required to measure the shape of a light pulse. A team from TU Wien (Vienna), MPI Garching and LMU Munich has now made this much easier.
Optics & Photonics
Jan 27, 2020
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194
A team of researchers from Denmark, Norway, Spain and Italy has found that both terrestrial gamma-ray flashes and ionospheric ultraviolet emissions are spurred by lightning. In their paper published in the journal Science, ...
To study the swiftness of biology—the protein chemistry behind every life function—scientists need to see molecules changing and interacting in unimaginably rapid time increments—trillionths of a second or shorter.
General Physics
Nov 18, 2019
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382
Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories of natural science, and although its predictions are often counterintuitive, not a single experiment has been conducted to date of which the theory has not been able ...
Optics & Photonics
Oct 17, 2019
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134
Optical microresonators convert laser light into ultrashort pulses travelling around the resonator's circumference. These pulses, called "dissipative Kerr solitons," can propagate in the microresonator maintaining their shape.
Optics & Photonics
Sep 9, 2019
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91
A new NASA out-of-this-world animation allows humanity to experience their closest galactic neighbor as never before through an online "CGI moon kit."
Space Exploration
Sep 9, 2019
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137
This animated flyover of each of the four candidate sample collection sites on asteroid Bennu, selected by NASA's OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission, was produced using close-range data from the OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter ...
Space Exploration
Aug 29, 2019
0
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