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Category: energy

Good vibrations for quantum communications: Engineers couple single phonon to single atomic spin

Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have demonstrated, for the first time, a single quantum of vibrational energy interacting with a single atomic spin, seeding a pathway to quantum technologies that use sound as an information carrier, instead of light or electricity. The results are published in Nature.

Led by Marko Lončar, the Tiantsai Lin Professor of Electrical Engineering, the researchers engineered a nanometer-scale mechanical resonator around a single color-center spin qubit in diamond. These color centers, atomic defects in the diamond’s crystal structure, act as quantum memory capable of storing quantum information. The researchers’ new system can host sufficiently strong spin-phonon interactions for quantum information storage—a key challenge thus far in the field.

“At the heart of the experiment is a phonon—the smallest possible unit of sound,” Lončar said. “When we listen to music, it takes countless phonons working together to move our eardrums and maybe even get us spinning on the dance floor. But qubits are far more sensitive: a single phonon can be enough to change their quantum state—to excite them, or, as in our experiment, to help them relax.”

Quantum battery charges in a quadrillionth of a second with a laser — larger prototypes could last for years after charging for just a minute

This allows all molecules within the battery to charge at a constant speed, no matter its size. The more molecules involved, the more efficiently energy is absorbed throughout the system, meaning charging times actually decrease in real terms as the battery size increases.

“Similar to conventional batteries, quantum batteries charge, store and discharge energy,”, explained Hutchinson in the statement. “But while everyday batteries rely on chemical reactions, quantum batteries leverage properties of quantum mechanics. The advantage of quantum is that the system absorbs light in a single, giant ‘super absorption’ event and this charges the battery faster.”

Team steers electron spin ballistically in graphene

Researchers at The University of Manchester’s National Graphene Institute have shown that electrons in ultra-clean graphene can be steered with high precision while keeping their spin information intact, a key requirement for future low-power electronics and quantum devices.

In a new study published in Physical Review X, the team demonstrates how electrons can travel ballistically, i.e. without experiencing any scattering or resistance, over micrometer distances in graphene at low temperature and maintain spin coherence all the way up to room temperature.

By using a technique known as transverse magnetic focusing (TMF), they were able to bend electron trajectories like light rays traversing a lens and show that these curved paths carry a clear spin signature.

Water-splitting catalyst unlocks cheaper hydrogen at significantly lower temperatures

University of Birmingham research published today has shown a new low-temperature method for producing hydrogen that is suitable for both centralized hydrogen production, and also local generation using waste heat from large-scale industrial plants.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and is a clean and environmentally friendly energy carrier. Unlike fossil fuels, which produce harmful emissions and carbon dioxide, it produces only heat and water on combustion and can also power fuel cells that produce electricity. But while hydrogen is carbon-free at the point of use, 95% of current production relies on fossil fuels.

Thermochemical splitting, where a catalyst splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, is emerging as a promising method for hydrogen production. However, current catalysts split water at 700‑1000oC and need temperatures between 1,300 and 1500oC to regenerate between cycles of water-splitting.

Inexpensive material compresses light, paving the way for photonic microcircuits in the terahertz range

A two-dimensional lamellar crystal composed of atomically thin layers of lead iodide (PbI2) could be used to manufacture a new generation of circuits that use light and mechanical vibrations (rather than electrons) to transmit information in the terahertz frequency range.

Researchers at the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM), in partnership with colleagues from the University of Lille (France) and other international institutions, have studied this technology and published their findings in Nature Communications.

The terahertz band corresponds to a low-energy region of the electromagnetic spectrum situated between infrared and microwaves. Despite this, it is considered crucial for developing high-speed communication technologies.

Relamination: A mechanism that has been shaping continents for billions of years

An international team led by researchers from the National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN-CSIC) has identified a key mechanism that has shaped Earth’s continents over billions of years. This mechanism is the deep re-lamination of subducted continental crust, a process that explains the origin of certain magmas and offers a new perspective on continental evolution from the Archean (between 3.8 and 2.5 billion years ago) to recent times.

The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, combines numerical geodynamic modeling and high-pressure experiments to unravel how fragments of continental crust can give rise to hybrid magmas that fuel major magmatic events following continental collisions, generating new crust.

During continental collisions, one plate sinks beneath another—a process known as subduction. This study demonstrates that the less dense crust breaks away from the subducted plate and rises again, becoming integrated into the lithospheric mantle of the overlying plate in a process called relamination.

Microsoft tests modern Windows Run, says it’s faster than legacy dialog

Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 11 is getting a new modern Run dialog with dark mode support and faster performance in a new preview build 26300.8346.

The Run dialog has been around since the Windows 95 era, and it is one of those small Windows features that many power users still rely on every day.

You just need to press Win + R, type a command, open a file path, launch a tool, or quickly jump to a location without opening File Explorer first.

A new way to understand the evolution of spacetime dynamics

The concept of spacetime, first described in Einstein’s theory of general relativity, has since been widely studied by many physicists worldwide. Spacetime is described mathematically as a four-dimensional (4D) continuum in which physical events occur, which merges three-dimensional (3D) space, with one-dimensional (1D) time.

This 4D continuum is known to continuously evolve following complex and intricate patterns that are governed by Einstein’s field equations; mathematical equations that describe how matter and energy shape spacetime. While various past theoretical studies explored the evolution of spacetime, identifying patterns that persist during its evolution has proved challenging so far.

Researchers at Adolfo Ibáñez University in Chile and Columbia University set out to explore the evolution of spacetime using ideas rooted in nonlinear electrodynamics, an area of physics that studies the behavior of electric and magnetic fields in complex materials.

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