Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Physics
Hot little levers write beaucoup bits
Arrays of microscopic tips may offer a way to pack digital data more tightly and transfer it more quickly than is possible with magnetic hard disks.
- Physics
Light step toward quantum networks
During the transfer of a quantum data bit from matter to light, a cloud of extremely cold atoms emitted a photon carrying a version of the cloud's quantum state.
- Physics
When all is a spin, calm is dragged in
When laboratory vortices are mixed to create the equivalent of a tornado in a hurricane, the "hurricane" may gobble up spots of calm from the outside world.
- Materials Science
Making Stuff Last
Chemistry and materials science step up to preserve history, old and new.
- Materials Science
Electronics Detox: Leadfree material for ecofriendly gadgetry
Responding to growing concern over the disposal of electronic devices, scientists in Japan have created a lead-free piezoceramic that could replace the toxic components in many of these gadgets.
- Materials Science
Metal Makeover
Metallic glasses with extraordinary strength and corrosion resistance have been known for decades, but only recently have researchers been able to make such alloys on a large scale from inexpensive iron.
- Materials Science
Anyone want to knit a microscopic sweater?
Microscopic polymer tubes can tangle themselves into a new and possibly useful structure—tiny "yarn balls" that flatten out and partly unravel in an electric field.
- Physics
Graphite in Flatland: Carbon sheets may rival nanotubes
Researchers have created freestanding carbon films as thin as one atom.
- Physics
Dancing the heat away
By laser-zapping nanocapsules of water, scientists find that the specific molecular motions caused by the excitation, not just simple heat diffusion, determine how energy and heat flow through such minuscule structures.
- Physics
Tiny tubes tune in colors
At the right length and conductivity, ultrathin filaments of carbon known as carbon nanotubes can receive visible light waves in the same the way as larger antennas receive radio signals.
- Materials Science
Reversible gel restores artwork
To help conservationists restore paintings to their original glory without damaging the original paint, chemists have developed a cleaning product that switches from a liquid to a gel.
- Materials Science
One-Upping Nature’s Materials
Striving for designer substances that build themselves from individual molecules.
