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Researchers have developed two new components that could help Europe meet some of its most pressing communication challenges in optical amplifier research.

If solar cells could generate higher voltages when sunlight falls on them, they'd produce more electrical power more efficiently. For over half a century scientists have known that ferroelectrics, materials whose atomic structure allows them to have an overall electrical polarization, can develop very high photovoltages under illumination

(PhysOrg.com) -- Stony Brook University researchers,

Sometimes solving the biggest challenges begins with understanding something very small -- like the tiny grains that form a piece of metal. For a team of scientists who wanted to improve automotive fuel efficiency, understanding and controlling the size of the grains in aluminum allowed the design of an easy and inexpensive method for producing lightweight automotive parts, replacing heavier steel, leading to improved fuel efficiency

The last missing piece of scientists’ fundamental model of particle physics is running out of places to hide.

Today's wireless-sensor networks can do everything from supervising factory machinery to tracking environmental pollution to measuring the movement of buildings and bridges. Working together, distributed sensors can monitor activity along an oil pipeline or throughout a forest, keeping track of multiple variables at a time.

By destabilizing superconductivity with a strong magnetic field, the electrons of a "high temperature" superconductor align into linear filaments. This phenomenon has been demonstrated by a team of researchers at the CNRS Laboratoire National des Champs Magnetiques Intenses. Published in Nature on the 8 September 2011, these results add a new piece to the puzzle that condensed-matter physicists have been trying to put together for nearly twenty-five years.

Intense magnetic fields were probably generated in the universe shortly after the Big Bang, according to an international team led by Christoph Federrath and Gilles Chabrier of the CRAL (Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon, France). The project offers the first explanation for the presence of intergalactic and interstellar magnetized gas

(PhysOrg.com) -- The ability to manipulate light and fluids on a single chip, broadly called "optofluidics," has led to such technologies as liquid-crystal displays and liquid-filled optical fibers for fast data transfer. Optofluidics is now also on the cusp of improving such green technologies as solar-powered bioreactors, say Cornell researchers.

(PhysOrg.com) -- By finding a clever way to use the Earth itself as a scientific instrument, members of a SLAC-led research team turned the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope into a positron detector – and confirmed a startling discovery from 2009 that found an excess of these antimatter particles in cosmic rays, a possible sign of dark matter.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Deep within a silver and lean mine in Naica, Mexico, scientists discovered what is now known as Cueva de los Cristales, or Cave of Crystals, close to a decade ago. The gypsum crystals found in this cave measure as long as 11 meters (36 feet) and as thick as 1 meter (3 feet). While these crystals are beautiful and reminiscent of a Superman film, they have had scientists stumped since their discovery

Northwestern University scientists have developed new materials that can detect hard radiation, a very difficult thing to do. The method could lead to a handheld device for detecting nuclear weapons and materials, such as a "nuclear bomb in a suitcase" scenario.

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of researchers working at Stanford University have devised a means for building the smallest self-contained fluorescence microscope ever. Weighing just under 2 grams and slightly larger than the end of a pencil, the new microscope is small enough to attach to a mouse head, which means researchers can watch the mouse brain in a natural setting.

Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have shown that it is possible to reduce the minimum voltage necessary to store charge in a capacitor, an achievement that could reduce the power draw and heat generation of today's electronics.

A team of EU-funded researchers has, for the first time, successfully carried out a constant stabilisation experiment of a quantum state - something Albert Einstein himself once dreamt of.