Superconductivity happens when the charge carriers overcome their mutual repulsion and bind together into Cooper pairs. In low-temperature superconductors phonons – quantized vibrations of the crystal lattice – are responsible for this pairing. Jules Carbotte from McMaster University in Canada, Ewald Schachinger from the Technical University of Graz in Austria, and Dimitri Basov from the […]
The first evidence for the accelerating universe came from observations of distant supernovae. However, the data were also consistent with an open universe – a universe that would expand forever because the total energy density was less than the so-called critical density – with a low mass density and no cosmological constant. The energy density […]
Most semiconductor lasers emit light from the edge of the active laser region. However, in the VSCEL geometry light is emitted from the top of the device. This can reduce the threshold current needed to achieve laser action and can improve the optical quality of the output beam. The new device consists of an indium […]
Brian DeMarco and Deborah Jin used a pair of magneto-optical traps to confine about 700000 atoms of potassium-40 at temperatures below 300 nanokelvin. This is about half of the degeneracy temperature for a gas of fermions. At these temperatures the occupation of the lowest quantum states increases from around zero to about 60%. The quantum […]
Many key advances in the biological sciences have been made possible by physics-based techniques. The future of biomedicine depends on collaboration between the two fields
Most particle physicists agree on the scientific case for a next-generation linear collider. It is just a question of persuading the politicians to foot the bill
There is a long tradition of physicists and physics-based techniques making important contributions to biology and medicine. Harold Varmus argues that this tradition must go on
Read article: The impact of physics on biology and medicine
Biophysicists are now able to study a whole host of living processes with unprecedented accuracy thanks to a microscope normally associated with surface science
Read article: Single molecules feel the force
Only two other methods have previously been used to manufacture quantum dots: electron beam lithography and epitaxy. Lithography is a top down approach in which the beam defines the dot pattern, whereas epitaxy is a bottom-up approach in which the dots self-organize. Ion bombardment or sputtering is more cost effective and easily controllable than the […]
Results presented at the International Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics in mid-July provide strong hints that the Higgs boson, one of the holy grails of particle physics, is lurking just around the corner. Over 500 physicists gathered in Tampere, Finland, armed with the latest data and hot on the trail of this elusive particle, […]
