http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (PhysOrg.com) -- A group in The Netherlands has achieved a first: injection of spin-polarized electrons in silicon at room temperature. This has previously been observed only at extremely low temperatures, and the achievement brings spintronic devices using silicon as a semiconductor a step closer. http://www.physorg.com/news178526124.html Physics Fri, 27 Nov 2009 06:36:59 EST news178526124 The dusty boxes that line the walls of Jeff Barrett's UC Irvine office mark a high point in his academic career. Their contents: pages and pages of notes, most more than 50 years old, penned by late quantum theorist Hugh Everett III. http://www.physorg.com/news178207143.html Physics Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:59:29 EST news178207143 At the 2009 Supercomputing Conference in Portland, Oregon, the high-performance computer QPACE (QCD Parallel Computing on the Cell) was recognized today as the most energy-efficient supercomputer in the world. http://www.physorg.com/news177944567.html Electronics Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:20:02 EST news177944567 Physicists at UC Santa Barbara have made an important advance in electrically controlling quantum states of electrons, a step that could help in the development of quantum computing. The work is published online today on the Science Express Web site. http://www.physorg.com/news177938057.html Physics Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:18:55 EST news177938057 (PhysOrg.com) -- "Carbon nanotubes are exciting for fundamental physics, and for potential technological applications," Nadya Mason tells PhysOrg.com. "However, we are generally limited in the way that we can study them. Many of these limitations have to do with controlling tunneling, or the way electrons move on and off the nanotube." In order to overcome this limitation, Mason, a scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, participated in an experiment using a superconducting tunnel probe in a carbon nanotube to observe spectroscopic features. http://www.physorg.com/news177934374.html Nanotechnology Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:13:55 EST news177934374 (PhysOrg.com) -- In everything from computer processor chips to car engines to electric powerplants, the need to get rid of excess heat creates a major source of inefficiency. But new research points the way to a technology that might make it possible to harvest much of that wasted heat and turn it into usable electricity. http://www.physorg.com/news177761180.html Physics Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:07:11 EST news177761180 Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have demonstrated the first "universal" programmable quantum informationprocessor able to run any program allowed by quantum mechanics -- the rules governing the submicroscopic world -- using two quantum bits (qubits) of information. The processor could be a module in a future quantum computer, which theoretically could solve some important problems that are intractable today. http://www.physorg.com/news177515046.html Physics Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:45:25 EST news177515046 (PhysOrg.com) -- In a recently published paper, Aram Harrow at the University of Bristol and colleagues from MIT in the United States have discovered a quantum algorithm that solves large problems much faster than conventional computers can. http://www.physorg.com/news177011105.html Physics Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:20:02 EST news177011105 In the 1995 Halloween episode of The Simpsons, Homer Simpson finds a portal to the mysterious Third Dimension behind a bookcase, and desperate to escape his in-laws, he plunges through. He finds himself wandering across a dark surface etched with green gridlines and strewn with geometric shapes, above which hover strange equations. One of these is the deceptively simple assertion that P = NP. http://www.physorg.com/news176037013.html Technology Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:10:40 EST news176037013 (PhysOrg.com) -- For more than 50 years, physicists have been intrigued by the concept of closed time-like curves (CTCs). Because a CTC returns to its starting point, it raises the possibility of traveling backward in time. More recently, physicists have theorized that CTC-assisted computers could enable ideal quantum state discrimination, and even make classical computers (with CTCs) equally as powerful as quantum computers. However, a new study argues that CTCs, if they exist, might actually provide much less computational benefit than previously thought. http://www.physorg.com/news175421039.html Physics Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:40:01 EST news175421039 (PhysOrg.com) -- Recently, at Arizona State University`s Biodesign Institute, N.J. Tao and collaborators have found a way to make a key electrical component on a phenomenally tiny scale. Their single-molecule diode is described in this week`s online edition of Nature Chemistry. http://www.physorg.com/news175415776.html Nanotechnology Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:37:08 EST news175415776 (PhysOrg.com) -- For decades, the transistors inside radios, televisions and other everyday items have transmitted data by controlling the movement of the electron`s charge. Scientists now have discovered that transistors could use less energy, generate less heat and operate at higher speeds if they exploited another property of the electron: its spin. http://www.physorg.com/news175283352.html Nanotechnology Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:40:01 EST news175283352 With the speed of computers so regularly seeing dramatic increases in their processing speed, it seems that it shouldn't be too long before the machines become infinitely fast -- except they can't. http://www.physorg.com/news174750105.html Physics Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:42:19 EST news174750105 Recently, at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, N.J. Tao and collaborators have found a way to make a key electrical component on a phenomenally tiny scale. Their single-molecule diode is described in this week's online edition of Nature Chemistry. http://www.physorg.com/news174643920.html Nanotechnology Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:13:07 EST news174643920 (PhysOrg.com) -- What if atoms could be used to perform the functions currently the province of electronic devices? The goal of atomtronics is to do just that by creating analogues to the common items found in electronic devices. Ron Pepino, a graduate student at JILA and the University of Colorado, believes that he and his colleagues have found a way to create the atomtronic versions of diode and transistor circuits. The work of Pepino, Cooper, Anderson and Holland is described in Physical Review Letters: "Atomtronic Circuits of Diodes and Transistors." http://www.physorg.com/news174303837.html Physics Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:44:44 EST news174303837