Fast photon control brings quantum photonic technologies closer
(PhysOrg.com) -- Using photons instead of electrons to transmit information could lead to faster and more secure ways to communicate, among other advantages. Now a team of physicists has taken another step toward realizing ...
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
(PhysOrg.com) -- Engineers have built the first carbon nanotube (CNT) transistor with a channel length below 10 nm, a size that is considered a requirement for computing technology in the next decade. Not ...
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
(PhysOrg.com) -- Gene duplications are arguably the driving force of organismal evolution and if they survive, such duplicate genes will diverge in both regulatory and coding genomic regions. Coding ...
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
(PhysOrg.com) -- A wide range of phenomena depend on ice specifically, phase transitions during ice crystal surface melting. In this transition, which occurs near the melting point, the ice surface ...
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
(PhysOrg.com) -- The stock price of a company continuously changes, going up or down depending on the collective activity of a large number of investors. Although this process seems fairly straightforward, ...
Of microchemistry and molecules: Electronic microfluidic device synthesizes biocompatible probes
(PhysOrg.com) -- Microfluidic chemistry is fast gaining popularity – and for good reason: In addition to allowing highly-precise reaction control, micro-reactions often exhibit higher yield and proceed ...
Study supports role of quantum effects in photosynthesis
(PhysOrg.com) -- Until a few years ago, photosynthesis seemed to be a straightforward and well-understood process in which plants and other organisms use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugars, ...
Blunt nanostructures could make high-efficiency solar cells easier to fabricate
(PhysOrg.com) -- One of the most promising methods for increasing the efficiency of solar cells consists of coating the cells surfaces with a thin layer of metal nanoparticles. The nanoparticles scatter ...
DNA as invisible ink can reversibly hide patterns
(PhysOrg.com) -- While most people know of DNA as the building blocks of life, these large molecules also have potential applications in areas such as biosensing, nanoparticle assembly, and building supramolecular ...
Scientists design solar cells that exceed the conventional light-trapping limit
(PhysOrg.com) -- The best performing solar cells are those that are thick enough to absorb light from the entire solar spectrum, while the cheapest solar cells are thin ones, since they require less, and potentially ...
Not by asteroid alone: Rethinking the Cretaceous mass extinction
(PhysOrg.com) -- At the end of the Cretaceous period some 65 million years ago, an asteroid slammed into Mexicos Yucatan Peninsula, causing severe but selective extinction. While that is widely accepted, ...
Bubble-propelled microrockets could operate in the human stomach
(PhysOrg.com) -- Recently, researchers have been designing a wide variety of self-propelled micromotors, many of which operate using an oxygen-bubble propulsion mechanism that requires a high concentration ...
Decoding cosmological data could shed light on neutrinos, modified gravity
(PhysOrg.com) -- Todays most powerful telescopes collect huge amounts of data from the most distant locations of the universe yet much of the information is simply discarded because it involves ...
Light control technique could lead to tunable lighting and displays
(PhysOrg.com) -- Over the past several years, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) have become a popular light source due to their advantages including bright displays, wide viewing angles, and the ability ...
Leonardo da Vinci's tree rule may be explained by wind
(PhysOrg.com) -- More than 500 years ago, Leonardo da Vinci observed a particular relationship between the size of a tree’s trunk and the size of its branches. Specifically, the combined cross-sectional ...