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Archive for the ‘computing’ category: Page 260

Jan 21, 2023

Nearly 50-meter laser experiment sets record in university hallway

Posted by in categories: computing, space

It’s not at every university that laser pulses powerful enough to burn paper and skin are sent blazing down a hallway. But that’s what happened in UMD’s Energy Research Facility, an unremarkable looking building on the northeast corner of campus. If you visit the utilitarian white and gray hall now, it seems like any other university hall—as long as you don’t peak behind a cork board and spot the metal plate covering a hole in the wall.

But for a handful of nights in 2021, UMD Physics Professor Howard Milchberg and his colleagues transformed the hallway into a laboratory: The shiny surfaces of the doors and a water fountain were covered to avoid potentially blinding reflections; connecting hallways were blocked off with signs, caution tape and special -absorbing black curtains; and scientific equipment and cables inhabited normally open walking space.

As members of the team went about their work, a snapping sound warned of the dangerously powerful path the laser blazed down the hall. Sometimes the beam’s journey ended at a white ceramic block, filling the air with louder pops and a metallic tang. Each night, a researcher sat alone at a computer in the adjacent lab with a walkie-talkie and performed requested adjustments to the laser.

Jan 20, 2023

Scientists demonstrate quantum recoil for the first time, paving the way for precise X-ray imaging

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, business, computing, quantum physics

For the first time since it was proposed more than 80 years ago, scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have demonstrated the phenomenon of “quantum recoil,” which describes how the particle nature of light has a major impact on electrons moving through materials. The research is published online today (January 19) in the journal Nature Photonics.

Making quantum recoil a practical reality should eventually allow businesses to more accurately produce X-rays of specific levels, leading to superior accuracy in healthcare and manufacturing applications such as and flaw detection in semiconductor chips.

Quantum recoil was theorized by Russian physicist and Nobel laureate Vitaly Ginzburg in 1940 to accurately account for radiation emitted when charged particles like electrons move through a medium, such as water, or materials with repeated patterns on the surface, including those on butterfly wings and graphite.

Jan 20, 2023

Quantum Tech Needed To Secure Critical Data From Quantum Decryption

Posted by in categories: business, computing, quantum physics

By Chuck Brooks


The quantum computing decryption threat will be here soon enough, and it is time for businesses, organizations and governments to protect their data for that inevitability.

Jan 19, 2023

Chips using integrated photonic circuits could help close the ‘terahertz gap’

Posted by in categories: computing, electronics

Researchers have developed an extremely thin chip with an integrated photonic circuit that could be used to exploit the so-called terahertz gap – lying between 0.3-30THz in the electromagnetic spectrum – for spectroscopy and imaging.

This gap is currently something of a technological dead zone, describing frequencies that are too fast for today’s electronics and telecommunications devices, but too slow for optics and imaging applications.

However, the scientists’ new chip now enables them to produce terahertz waves with tailored frequency, wavelength, amplitude and phase. Such precise control could enable terahertz radiation to be harnessed for next-generation applications in both the electronic and optical realms.

Jan 19, 2023

A system to enable multi-kilometer and sub-terahertz communications at extremely high frequency bands

Posted by in categories: computing, internet

After the introduction of the fifth-generation technology standard for broadband cellular networks (5G), engineers worldwide are now working on systems that could further speed up communications. The next-generation wireless communication networks, from 6G onward, will require technologies that enable communications at sub-terahertz and terahertz frequency bands (i.e., from 100GHz to 10THz).

While several systems have been proposed for enabling at these frequency bands specifically for personal use and local area networks, some applications would benefit from longer communication distances. So far, generating high-power ultrabroadband signals that contain information and can travel long distances has been challenging.

Researchers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Northeastern University and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) have recently developed a system that could enable multi-gigabit-per-second (Gbps) communications in the sub-terahertz frequency band over several kilometers. This system, presented in a paper in Nature Electronics, utilizes on-chip power-combining frequency multiplier designs based on Schottky diodes, semiconducting diodes formed by the junction of a semiconductor and a metal, developed at NASA JPL.

Jan 19, 2023

Quantum Computing with Neutral Atoms

Posted by in categories: computing, information science, particle physics, quantum physics

Why the recent surge in jaw-dropping announcements? Why are neutral atoms seeming to leapfrog other qubit modalities? Keep reading to find out.

The table below highlights the companies working to make Quantum Computers using neutral atoms as qubits:

And as an added feature I am writing this post to be “entangled” with the posts of Brian Siegelwax, a respected colleague and quantum algorithm designer. My focus will be on the hardware and corporate details about the companies involved, while Brian’s focus will be on actual implementation of the platforms and what it is like to program on their devices. Unfortunately, most of the systems created by the companies noted in this post are not yet available (other than QuEra’s), so I will update this post along with the applicable hot links to Brian’s companion articles, as they become available.

Jan 19, 2023

Scientists grow ‘perfect’ atom-thin materials on industrial silicon wafers

Posted by in categories: computing, particle physics

True to Moore’s Law, the number of transistors on a microchip has doubled every year since the 1960s. But this trajectory is predicted to soon plateau because silicon—the backbone of modern transistors—loses its electrical properties once devices made from this material dip below a certain size.

Enter 2D materials—delicate, two-dimensional sheets of perfect crystals that are as thin as a . At the scale of nanometers, 2D materials can conduct electrons far more efficiently than silicon. The search for next-generation transistor materials therefore has focused on 2D materials as potential successors to silicon.

But before the can transition to 2D materials, scientists have to first find a way to engineer the materials on industry-standard while preserving their perfect crystalline form. And MIT engineers may now have a solution.

Jan 19, 2023

First observation of the Cherenkov radiation phenomenon in 2D space

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, engineering, quantum physics

Researchers from the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology have presented the first experimental observation of Cherenkov radiation confined in two dimensions. The results represent a new record in electron-radiation coupling strength, revealing the quantum properties of the radiation.

Cherenkov is a unique physical phenomenon, which for many years has been used in medical imaging and in particle detection applications, as well as in laser-driven electron accelerators. The breakthrough achieved by the Technion researchers links this phenomenon to future photonic quantum computing applications and free-electron quantum light sources.

The study, which was published in Physical Review X, was headed by Ph.D. students Yuval Adiv and Shai Tsesses from the Technion, together with Hao Hu from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (today professor at Nanjing university in China). It was supervised by Prof. Ido Kaminer and Prof. Guy Bartal of the Technion, in collaboration with colleagues from China: Prof. Hongsheng Chen, and Prof. Xiao Lin from Zhejiang University.

Jan 19, 2023

New MIT method uses 2D materials to “catch up” with Moore’s Law

Posted by in categories: computing, particle physics

“This will change the paradigm of Moore’s Law.”

Moore’s Law predicted that the number of transistors on a microchip would double every year after 1960, though that rate would eventually hit a wall due to the fact silicone loses electrical properties past a certain size.

One possible solution comes in the form of 2D materials, also known as single-layer materials. These incredibly delicate two-dimensional sheets of perfect crystals are only a single atom thin. Crucially, at the nanometer scale, they can conduct electrons far more efficiently than silicon.

Jan 19, 2023

A 10-terabyte image reveals over 3 billion uncharted Milky Way objects

Posted by in categories: computing, space

NOIRLab.

The image, taken by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the NSF’s NOIRLab’s Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile, is viewable online. Anyone can zoom in on the ten terabytes of data made up of 21,400 individual exposures.