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Category: physics

Brighter red micro-LEDs could help solve full-color display stability challenge

Researchers at The University of Osaka, in collaboration with Ritsumeikan University, have demonstrated that growing europium-doped gallium nitride (Eu-doped GaN) on a semipolar crystal plane dramatically improves red light emission. The team found that this approach selectively promotes the formation of highly efficient Eu luminescent centers, resulting in red emission intensity more than 3.6 times higher than that of conventionally grown polar-plane material.

The study is published in the journal Applied Physics Letters.

Red emitters based on Eu-doped GaN are attracting attention as promising light sources for next-generation micro-LED displays because they can provide narrow-linewidth, wavelength-stable red emission based on intra-4f-shell transitions of Eu ions. This is particularly important for full-color monolithic integration with blue and green InGaN LEDs, where wavelength stability under device operation is essential.

Gravitational waves from colliding black holes may allow detection of dark matter

Dark matter is thought to make up most of the matter in the universe, but the only way it interacts with its surroundings is through gravity. If two colliding black holes spiral through a dense region of dark matter and merge, gravitational waves rippling across space and time could carry an imprint of that dark matter.

Now, physicists may be able to spot such imprints of dark matter in gravitational waves that are detected on Earth.

Researchers at MIT and in Europe have developed a method that makes predictions for what a gravitational wave should look like if it were produced by black holes that moved through dark matter, rather than empty space. They applied the technique to publicly available gravitational-wave data previously recorded by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK), the global network of observatories that detect gravitational waves from black hole mergers and other far-off astrophysical sources.

Gravitational wave detectors can now ‘autotune’ signals to harmonize the heavens

Gravitational wave researchers working on the world’s most sensitive scientific instruments have found a way to tune their detectors using a process akin to the pitch-correction used in music production.

Scientists at the international LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA (LVK) gravitational wave observatory collaboration have employed the technique, which they call astrophysical calibration, to use gravitational-wave signals to measure the response of their incredibly sensitive instruments.

It enables them to ensure that they can clearly “hear” the sounds of colossal cosmic events like the collision of black holes, even when one gravitational wave detector is slightly out of tune. This is crucial to accurately interpret the signals and find their source location.

Physicists find evidence that the universe isn’t perfectly uniform — potentially unraveling a 100-year-old model of cosmology

The universe may not be perfectly uniform after all, a new series of papers hints. If confirmed, this could upend a nearly 100-year-old model of cosmology.

The universe evolves like a life form

What if the laws of physics are not fixed, but constantly evolving?

Biochemist Timothy Jackson argues that contrary to our assumptions that reality is governed by fixed laws, fundamental reality is a lawless flux, a chaos of unpredictable change. What needs explaining is not chaos but the stability and order that emerge from it.

Darwin’s central insight, Jackson suggests, was to show how such order might emerge, via natural selection: a principle which can explain, but never predict, the patterns that make up the world.

Tap to read his full article.

We tend to think of reality as made up of things, governed by fixed laws that determine how they change over time. But biochemist Timothy Jackson argues that this is back to front: fundamental reality is a lawless flux, a chaos of unpredictable change, and what needs explaining is not chaos but the stability and order that emerge from it. The “laws” of physics are not eternal truths but descriptions of patterns that have persisted long enough to look permanent. Darwin’s central insight, Jackson suggests, was to show how such order might emerge, via natural selection—a principle which can explain, but never predict, the patterns that make up the world.

From physicalism to “biologism”

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The Multiverse is real. Just not in the way you think it is. | Sean Carroll

Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_… What do physicists actually mean when they talk about the Multiverse? Sean Carroll explains.

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The Multiverse is having a moment. From “Rick and Morty” to Marvel movies, the idea that our Universe is just one of many has inspired countless storylines in recent popular culture.

Why is the Multiverse so compelling? To theoretical physicist and philosopher Sean Carroll, one reason is that we’re drawn to wondering how things might have turned out differently. What if you had chosen a different career path? Married someone else? Moved to a different city?

Of course, there’s obviously no guarantee that you’re living out those alternate timelines in a different universe. But there are real scientific reasons to think that the Multiverse exists. And as Carroll explains, that possibility comes with some fascinating philosophical implications.

Why The Multiverse Could Be Real

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The multiverse pops out of quite a few theories in physics, and has been proposed as a solution to certain vexing problems. But it’s also been argued that the very idea of a multiverse is just bad science. That it’s unfalsifiable and a dead-end to inquiry and as bad a violation of Occam’s razor as you could imagine. But the multiverse might also exist. Can something that exists be bad science?

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First Images From the Pandora Exoplanet Mission

A new mission promises to ‘open the box’ on exoplanet science. Scientists and engineers recently released the first engineering images from the Pandora exoplanet survey mission. The pictures represent the first ever images from a NASA Astrophysics Pioneers Program mission. Established in 2020, the program looks to test the feasibility of small low cost missions designed to address key questions in astronomy and astrophysics.

Something Disturbing Happens When You Solve Einstein’s Equations This Way

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Kurt Gödel discovered a solution to General Relativity that allows time travel without any exotic physics, revealing that the theory doesn’t actually guarantee a consistent chain of cause and effect. His “Gödel universe” shows that under certain conditions, the structure of spacetime itself can loop back on itself—blurring the line between past and future and exposing a deep limitation in our understanding of reality.

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