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A new form of light has been discovered by physicists from Trinity College Dublin’s School of Physics and the CRANN Institute, Trinity College, which will impact our understanding of the fundamental nature of light.

One of the measurable characteristics of a beam of light is known as angular momentum, The Spectrum reports. Until now, it was thought that in all forms of light the angular momentum would be a multiple of Planck’s constant (the physical constant that sets the scale of quantum effects).

Now, recent PhD graduate Kyle Ballantine and Professor Paul Eastham, both from Trinity College Dublin’s School of Physics, along with Professor John Donegan from CRANN, have demonstrated a new form of light where the angular momentum of each photon (a particle of visible light) takes only half of this value. This difference, though small, is profound. These results were recently published in the online journal Science Advances.

Nice.

Imec will implement qubits and supporting nanoelectronic functionality for quantum computing, leveraging its advanced silicon (Si) platform that was established within the framework of its industrial affiliation program with additional support from the EU through e.g. ECSEL projects SENATE and TAKE-5.

EU betting big on Quantum Technology.

The European Union (EU) aims to embark on an ambitious common strategy on quantum technologies, European Commissioner for digital economy and society Gunther Oettinger said here Tuesday.

At a conference which brought together some of the world’s leading experts in the field of quantum technology, European scientists and entrepreneurs launched a “Quantum Manifesto” laying out future priorities and activities to create a new “knowledge-based industrial ecosystem” in Europe.

“We aim to launch an ambitious large-scale flagship initiative to unlock the full potential of quantum technologies, accelerate their development, and bring commercial products to public and private users,” Oettinger told the conference.

DUBLIN, Ireland, May 17 (UPI) — Researchers in Ireland have discovered a new form of light. Their discovery is expected to reshape scientists’ understanding of light’s basic nature.

Angular momentum describes the rotation of a light beam around its axis. Until now, researchers believed the angular momentum was always a multiple of Planck’s constant — a constant ratio that describes the relationship between photon energy and frequency, and also sets the scale for quantum mechanics.

The newly discovered form of light, however, features photons with an angular momentum of just half the value of Planck’s constant. The difference sounds small, but researchers say the significance of the discovery is great.

Continue reading “Scientists discover new form of light” »

Physicists have just discovered a new form of light that doesn’t follow our existing rules of angular momentum, and it could shake up our understanding of the electromagnetic radiation and lead to faster, more secure optical communication.

Because of how well-studied and, well, everywhere, light is, you might assume that we’ve pretty much learnt all there is to know about it. But just last year, researchers identified a fundamental new property of light, and now a team of Irish scientists has shown that light can take on unexpected new forms.

Continue reading “Physicists just discovered a totally new form of light” »

In the late 1990s, astronomers discovered something mysterious pushing galaxies apart faster than gravity pulls them together. It seemed like every little bit of space had some amount of energy that spread it away from every other little bit of space, and that strange pushing came to be known as ‘dark energy’ — dark, because no one knows what it is.

And now a group of physicists have shown that dark energy could probably be explained — as long as we’re willing to give up a fundamental piece of our understanding of light…

Most scientists think that dark energy exists because of what’s known as a cosmological constant — something acting throughout the Universe that tells different bits of space to repel each other. It’s sort of like an anti-gravity force, but it acts everywhere instead of just being between two things with mass and it always acts with the same strength.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Mj6wbbrH03I

Why biocomputing is proving that bio and technology integrated can do amazing things and will eventually get us to real Singularity. Now imaging, take what you have seen so far in technology today and add Quantum to that picture then add bio to that; then you will truly see amazing SINGULARITY.

Continue reading “Innovative Bio-glass Could Re-grow Cartilage” »

Quantum future discussed at London’s Royal Society Conference.

By Tushna Commissariat

Not a week goes by here at Physics World that we don’t cover some advance in quantum mechanics – be it another step towards quantum computing or error correction, or a new type of quantum sensor, or another basic principle being verified and tested at new scales. While each advance may not always be a breakthrough, it is fair to say that the field has grown by leaps and bound in the last 20 years or so. Indeed, it has seen at least two “revolutions” since it first began and is now poised on the brink of a third, as scientific groups and companies around the world race to build the first quantum computer.

Continue reading “Looking toward the quantum-technology landscape of the future” »

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The precise measurement of position has a distinguished place in physics; about a 100 years ago, debate surrounding the atomic hypothesis was settled by the careful observation of Brownian motion. Today, researchers in the field of cavity quantum optomechanics hope to settle similar fundamental questions.