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. Scientists have experimentally verified a theory suggesting that hot electrons could double the output of solar cells. The researchers, from Boston College, have built solar cells that successfully use hot electrons to increase the cells' power ouput. Although the power increase is small, the concept could lead to solar cells that break conventional efficiency limits. http://www.physorg.com/news180365359.html Nanotechnology Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:44:26 EST news180365359 University of Toronto quantum optics researchers Sajeev John and Xun Ma have discovered new behaviours of light within photonic crystals that could lead to faster optical information processing and compact computers that don't overheat. http://www.physorg.com/news180039909.html Physics Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:05:46 EST news180039909 (PhysOrg.com) -- While quantum dots have existed since the 1980s, only in the past decade have physicists successfully created lateral few-electron single quantum dots. These quantum dots enable physicists to manipulate quantum spins, which could be used as qubits for quantum information applications. Along these lines, a team of physicists from the National Research Council in Canada who were responsible for the original lateral few-electron single quantum dot have recently designed a new few-electron triple quantum dot circuit, and demonstrated that all three quantum dots can be tuned in resonance. http://www.physorg.com/news178789034.html Nanotechnology Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:10:01 EST news178789034 (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 If you're watching the complex processes in a living cell, it is easy to miss something important -especially if you are watching changes that take a long time to unfold and require high-spatial-resolution imaging. But new research makes it possible to scrutinize activities that occur over hours or even days inside cells, potentially solving many of the mysteries associated with molecular-scale events occurring in these tiny living things. http://www.physorg.com/news177763702.html Nanotechnology Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:00:03 EST news177763702 To exploit the quantum world to the fullest, a key commodity is entanglement -the spooky, distance-defying link that can form between objects such as atoms even when they are completely shielded from one another. Now, physicists at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), a collaborative organization of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland, have developed a promising new source of entangled photons using quantum dots tweaked with a laser. The JQI technique may someday enable more compact and convenient sources of entangled photon pairs than presently available for quantum information applications such as the distribution of "quantum keys" for encrypting sensitive messages. http://www.physorg.com/news177763808.html Physics Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:50:39 EST news177763808 (PhysOrg.com) -- For the first time, physicists have demonstrated the quantum entanglement of three light beams, all of different wavelengths. Entanglement of two light beams of different wavelengths has already been demonstrated, but the researchers explain that going beyond two beams is important since three beams can serve as connections at the nodes of a quantum network. http://www.physorg.com/news174133022.html Physics Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:17:35 EST news174133022 (PhysOrg.com) -- University of Michigan physicists have created the first atomic-scale maps of quantum dots, a major step toward the goal of producing "designer dots" that can be tailored for specific applications. http://www.physorg.com/news173444221.html Nanotechnology Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:58:44 EST news173444221 Advances by the Rice University lab of James Tour have brought graphite's potential as a mass data storage medium a step closer to reality and created the potential for reprogrammable gate arrays that could bring about a revolution in integrated circuit logic design. http://www.physorg.com/news171742062.html Nanotechnology Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:08:29 EST news171742062 Air Force Office of Scientific Research(AFOSR)-supported physicists at the University of Michigan are developing innovative components for quantum, or super-fast, computers that will improve security for data storage and transmission. http://www.physorg.com/news171731312.html Physics Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:20:02 EST news171731312 Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have developed thin films that exhibit carrier multiplication (CM). This development is of great interest for future solar cells. http://www.physorg.com/news171655252.html Nanotechnology Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:01:14 EST news171655252 (PhysOrg.com) -- Hanns-Christoph Naegerl's research group at the Institute for Experimental Physics, Austria, has investigated how ultracold quantum gases behave in lower spatial dimensions. They successfully realized an exotic state, where, due to the laws of quantum mechanics, atoms align along a one-dimensional structure. A stable many-body phase with new quantum mechanical states is thereby produced even though the atoms are usually strongly attracted which would cause the system to collapse. The scientists report on their findings in the leading scientific journal Science. http://www.physorg.com/news171188983.html Physics Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:00:02 EST news171188983 (PhysOrg.com) -- That palm tree magnet commemorating your last vacation is programmed for a simple function - to stick to your refrigerator. Similarly, semiconductors are programmed to convey bits of information small and large, processing information on your computer or cell phone. http://www.physorg.com/news169996778.html Nanotechnology Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:20:23 EST news169996778 Electrons that are trapped in very small structures of only a few nanometer, demonstrate fascinating features. These could be useful for novel computers or semiconductor lasers. Researchers from the University of Sheffield, the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, and the Forschungszentrum Dresden-Rossendorf research center measured for the first time the exact lifetime of excited electrons and published their findings in the journal Nature Materials. http://www.physorg.com/news169817885.html Nanotechnology Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:50:02 EST news169817885 Using tiny crystals called quantum dots, Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a highly sensitive test to look for DNA attachments that often are early warning signs of cancer. http://www.physorg.com/news169727891.html Nanotechnology Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:38:41 EST news169727891 Nanoparticles are being developed to perform a wide range of medical uses - imaging tumors, carrying drugs, delivering pulses of heat. Rather than settling for just one of these, researchers at the University of Washington have combined two nanoparticles in one tiny package. http://www.physorg.com/news167933174.html Nanotechnology Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:17:04 EST news167933174 (PhysOrg.com) -- Working with atomic-scale particles known as quantum dots, a Missouri University of Science and Technology biologist hopes to develop a new and better way to deliver and monitor proteins, medicine, DNA and other molecules at the cellular level. http://www.physorg.com/news167660342.html Nanotechnology Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:10:03 EST news167660342 One of the earliest events that changes a normal cell into a malignant one is known as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) hypermethylation, a biochemical alteration that inactivates critical tumor-suppressor genes. A team of investigators at Johns Hopkins University has developed a quantum dot-based method that can quantify DNA methylation in premalignant cells harvested from human patients. http://www.physorg.com/news167412363.html Nanotechnology Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:30:02 EST news167412363 Cells rely on tiny molecular motors to deliver cargo, such as mRNA and organelles, within the cell. The critical nature of this transport system is evidenced by the fact that disruption of motors by genetic defects leads to fatal diseases in humans. Although investigators have isolated these motor to study their function in a controlled environment outside the cell, it has been difficult for researchers to follow these fascinating molecular transporters in their natural environment, the living cell. http://www.physorg.com/news167400145.html Biology Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:03:09 EST news167400145 Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory's CNM Nanophotonics Group have measured how light emission from individual colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals, or quantum dots, is modified when in proximity to smooth metal films. http://www.physorg.com/news167323390.html Nanotechnology Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:43:54 EST news167323390 A recent breakthrough by researchers at the Swiss Nanoscience Institute sees for the first time the creation of thin films with controllable electronic properties. This discovery could have a large impact on future applications in sensors and computing. The international collaboration of researchers from the Universities of Basel and Heidelberg and the Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland) have published the work in the prestigious scientific journal Science. http://www.physorg.com/news167060684.html Nanotechnology Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:45:11 EST news167060684 Physicists have found a way to drastically prolong the shelf life of quantum bits, the 0s and 1s of quantum computers. http://www.physorg.com/news165068877.html Physics Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:00:01 EST news165068877 Researchers from the Kavli Institute of NanoScience in Delft are the first to have successfully captured a single electron in a highly tunable carbon nanotube double quantum dot. This was made possible by a new approach for producing ultraclean nanotubes. Moreover, the team of researchers, under the leadership of Spinoza winner Leo Kouwenhoven, discovered a new sort of tunneling as a result of which electrons can fly straight through obstacles. The results of the research were published by Nature Nanotechnology on April 5, 2009. http://www.physorg.com/news161521344.html Nanotechnology Thu, 14 May 2009 12:03:58 EST news161521344 (PhysOrg.com) -- Detecting the coherent motion of a single electron is a challenge, for the simple reason of scale: the timescale of the coherent motion of a single-electron wave function is in the picosecond regime (one trillionth of a second), which presents significant technical difficulties. However, understanding single-electron dynamics is very important for a wide range of future quantum technologies. http://www.physorg.com/news160824176.html Physics Wed, 06 May 2009 10:23:36 EST news160824176 (AP) -- Light-emitting diodes are prime candidates for replacing inefficient incandescent bulbs, but have a few things working against them. They can provide a pleasing warm light or they can be energy-efficient, but they haven't been able to be both at the same time. http://www.physorg.com/news160766041.html Nanotechnology Tue, 05 May 2009 18:14:31 EST news160766041 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a membrane-penetrating nanoneedle for the targeted delivery of one or more molecules into the cytoplasm or the nucleus of living cells. In addition to ferrying tiny amounts of cargo, the nanoneedle can also be used as an electrochemical probe and as an optical biosensor. http://www.physorg.com/news160142450.html Nanotechnology Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:02:03 EST news160142450 Highly fluorescent gold nanoclusters for sub-cellular imaging have been synthesized by researchers at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN), one of the research institutes of Singapore's A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research). http://www.physorg.com/news159098428.html Nanotechnology Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:00:56 EST news159098428 (PhysOrg.com) -- `Quantum wells have been instrumental in telecommunications, enabling light amplification,` Patanjali Kambhampati tells PhysOrg.com, `but theory has suggested that a very small - colloidal - quantum dot could amplify light even better than a quantum well. There have been problems, however, in getting lasers to work properly with colloidal quantum dots, so focus has shifted to other types of structures.` http://www.physorg.com/news157805833.html Physics Wed, 01 Apr 2009 11:57:37 EST news157805833 Imagine flexible lighting devices manufactured by using printing techniques. Imagine solar power sources equally as reliable and as portable as any conventional power source. http://www.physorg.com/news156175781.html Nanotechnology Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:10:11 EST news156175781 (PhysOrg.com) -- The transition to environmentally benign energy sources is one of the most significant challenges of the 21st century. Solar power, which uses sunlight to generate electricity, is one promising source. It has many benefits: sunlight is free; operating solar cells emits no greenhouse gasses; and solar power can be generated almost anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, today's solar energy technologies are inefficient, and thus significantly more expensive than traditional power sources. But hope is on the horizon. Recent results from the joint SLAC-Stanford PULSE Institute for Ultrafast Energy Science may help increase efficiency more than previously thought possible. http://www.physorg.com/news156016623.html Nanotechnology Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:58:06 EST news156016623