Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

(PhysOrg.com) -- UK's National Physical Laboratory time scientists have made an accurate measurement of the highly forbidden octupole transition frequency in an ytterbium ion, which could be used as the basis for the next generation of optical atomic clocks.

Knowing how to control the combined magnetic properties of interacting electrons will provide the basis to develop an important tool for advancing spintronics: a technology that aims to harness these properties for computation and communication. As a crucial first step, Naoto Nagaosa from the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute, Wako, and his colleagues have derived the equations that govern the motion of these magnetic quasi-particles.

Knowing how to control the combined magnetic properties of interacting electrons will provide the basis to develop an important tool for advancing spintronics: a technology that aims to harness these properties for computation and communication.

Sonar and ultrasound, which use sound as a navigational device and to paint accurate pictures of an environment, are the basis of countless technologies, including medical ultrasound machines and submarine navigation systems. But when it comes to more accurate sonar and ultrasound, animals' "biosonar" capabilities still have the human race beat.

(PhysOrg.com) -- The ability to control light forms the basis of many technologies, from microscopy to optical computing. Now, a team of scientists from ETH in Zurich, Switzerland, has demonstrated that a single organic molecule can shift the phase of a laser beam by three degrees. That amount of phase shift is enough to allow the researchers to perform applications such as recording the first phase-contrast images of single molecules and fabricating a single-molecule electro-optical phase switch.

Physicists at Forschungszentrum J

For carbon, the basis of life, to be able to form in the stars, a certain state of the carbon nucleus plays an essential role. In cooperation with US colleagues, physicists from the University of Bonn and Ruhr-Universitat Bochum have been able to calculate this legendary carbon nucleus, solving a problem that has kept science guessing for more than 50 years.