Disentangling the wave-particle duality in the double-slit experiment
Photons act like they go through two paths, even when we know which they took.
Timing quantum tunneling to attosecond precision
Wavefunction uses an imaginary number, but produces real results.
Researchers spot planet-eating white dwarfs
Planets as small as Earth are hard to spot orbiting other stars; obtaining good data about their chemical composition is well beyond the abilities of our current instruments. However, a new...
Expanding an optical lattice to accelerate particles
Accelerating neutral particles is a challenge. Unlike electrons or ions, researchers can't easily manipulate the velocities of particles like un-ionized atoms or molecules with electric or magnetic fields—the too...
Saturn may have snagged Pluto’s cousin, turned it into a moon
Saturn's moon Phoebe might be a planetesimal—a remnant of the rocky building blocks of the planets in our Solar System. A new study by Julie C. Castillo-Rogez et al. from Cassini...
Researchers build an RGB laser using quantum dots
Lasers produce nearly monochromatic light. However, not all applications demand pure, single-color light—digital displays and other devices require a wide range of colors. While it is possible to combine red...
Diamond-based LED sends single photons flying
Why might you want to produce a single photon? Individual photons would be very useful for the development of quantum control, computing, and communication. Unfortunately, making one photon at a time...
A quantum network built with two atoms and fiber optic cable
In an ordinary computer network, data in the form of binary numbers are transferred from one machine (node) to another via some sort of electronic signal, either electrical or optical. The...
New quantum controls use vibrations to control other vibrations
A major triumph in physics involved using photons to produce a quantum state in a mechanical oscillator that was visible to the naked eye. Mechanical oscillations are vibrations of atoms within...
Scale made with a carbon nanotube sensitive enough to register a proton’s mass
On macroscopic scales, we can use the force of gravity to help us determine mass. But on microscopic scales, other forces typically dominate. Nanoscopic mechanical resonators, which change their vibrational frequency...
Future telescope array drives development of exabyte processing
Innovations in modern science and computer technology are strongly linked together, and astronomy has unquestionably benefited from the advances in high-powered computing systems. However, the proposed Square...
Electrons may be the glue in cuprate superconductors
Copper oxide-based superconductors were discovered in 1986. Known as cuprate or high-Tc (for "high critical temperature") superconductors, these materials have a much higher temperature for the transition to zero ...
