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Research on Majorana Fermion Receives $3 Million Grant

University of Pittsburgh physicist Sergey Frolov has received a $3 million Office of Naval Research Basic Research Challenge grant to explore ways of transforming quantum computing through the use of an unusual particle. Frolov will be the primary investigator for the study on the Majorana fermion, a long-posited but elusive elementary particle that Frolov and colleagues discovered in 2012.

29 May 2014

Research Advances Quantum-Dot Films for Low-Temperature Quantum-Dot PV Cells

Solar-cell technology has advanced rapidly, as hundreds of groups around the world pursue more than two dozen approaches using different materials, technologies, and approaches to improve efficiency and reduce costs. Now a team at MIT has set a new record for the most efficient quantum-dot cells — a type of solar cell that is seen as especially promising because of its inherently low cost, versatility, and light weight.

28 May 2014

CERN Selects Silicon Creations’ SerDes Interface IP for Next-Generation Detector in Large Hadron Collider

Silicon Creations, supplier of high-performance semi-custom analog and mixed-signal intellectual property (IP), today announced that CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, selected its SerDes interface IP for use in the next-generation detector in the Large Hadron Collider.

28 May 2014

Laser-Plasma Accelerators Offer New Options to Unravel How the Universe is Put Together

It took every inch of the Large Hadron Collider's 17-mile length to accelerate particles to energies high enough to discover the Higgs boson. Now, imagine an accelerator that could do the same thing in, say, the length of a football field. Or less.

28 May 2014

Photons ‘Glue’ Together Quantum Mechanical States Forming Polaritons

Scientists from the University of Southampton, in collaboration with the Universities of Sheffield and Crete, have developed a new hybrid energy transfer system, which mimics the processes responsible for photosynthesis.

28 May 2014

Saturn's Titan Moon Helps Understand Atmospheres of Exoplanets

Scientists working with data from NASA's Cassini mission have developed a new way to understand the atmospheres of exoplanets by using Saturn's smog-enshrouded moon Titan as a stand-in. The new technique shows the dramatic influence that hazy skies could have on our ability to learn about these alien worlds orbiting distant stars.

28 May 2014

Dark Matter Rich Gas Cloud Survives Collision with Milky Way

The Smith Cloud, a large gas cloud with enough gas to form two million suns, is on the verge of colliding with the Milky Way.

27 May 2014

Research Team Confirms Link Between Gamma Bursts and their Counterparts in Several Radio Frequencies

Blazars are among the largest and most energetic objects in the universe. Jets of matter ("jets") shoot from the cores of these active galaxies shoot, which are accompanied by huge bursts of gamma rays.

26 May 2014

Scientists Discover Previously Unknown Phase in Iron Arsenide Superconductors

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have discovered a previously unknown phase in a class of superconductors called iron arsenides. This sheds light on a debate over the interactions between atoms and electrons that are responsible for their unusual superconductivity.

26 May 2014

Supernova SN2013cu Picked on a Routine Sky Scan by the iPTF

Supernovae—stellar explosions—are incredibly energetic, dynamic events. It is easy to imagine that they are uncommon, but the universe is a big place and supernovae are actually fairly routine.

26 May 2014