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(PhysOrg.com) -- A dramatic and surprising magnetic effect of light discovered by University of Michigan researchers could lead to solar power without traditional semiconductor-based solar cells.

A step change in research relating to plasma nanoscience is needed for the world to overcome the challenge of sufficient energy creation and storage, says a leading scientist from CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering and the University of Sydney, Australia.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Harvard physicists have expanded the possibilities for quantum engineering of novel materials such as high-temperature superconductors by coaxing ultracold atoms trapped in an optical lattice -- a light crystal -- to self-organize into a magnet, using only the minute disturbances resulting from quantum mechanics. The research, published in the journal Nature, is the first demonstration of such a “quantum magnet” in an optical lattice.

Researchers here have created the first electronic circuit to merge traditional inorganic semiconductors with organic "spintronics" – devices that utilize the spin of electrons to read, write and manipulate data.

A newly discovered magnetic phenomenon could accelerate data storage by several orders of magnitude.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Quantum computing holds great promise, but will require informed specialists who can explore its full potential. Through a book, an interdisciplinary class and now a brand new online tool, University of Cincinnati Professor Marc Cahay is preparing students for this emerging field.

(PhysOrg.com) -- In 1998, scientists discovered that the Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. Currently, the most widely accepted explanation for this observation is the presence of an unidentified dark energy, although several other possibilities have been proposed. One of these alternatives is that some kind of repulsive gravity – or antigravity – is pushing the Universe apart

(PhysOrg.com) -- Magnetic vortex cores, which can be used as particularly stable storage points for data bits, can now be switched much faster.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Sandwiched superconductors engineered to function at higher temperatures could be used in new ultra-fast superconducting electronics.

(PhysOrg.com) -- By observing the way that light moves inside a metamaterial, researchers have reconstructed how spacetime has expanded since the Big Bang.

An electrical engineer at the University at Buffalo, who previously demonstrated experimentally the "rainbow trapping effect" -- a phenomenon that could boost optical data storage and communications -- is now working to capture all the colors of the rainbow.

A new discovery about the dynamic impact of individual energetic particles into a solid surface improves our ability to predict surface stability or instability of materials under irradiation over time.

By creating space-like conditions in a slim 4m vessel, Italian researchers have helped confirm the behaviour of astrophysical jets – streams of charged particles shot out by supermassive black holes and young stars, which stretch several hundred thousand light years across space.

RIKEN and the Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute (JASRI) have cut the ribbon on a new cutting-edge X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) facility in Harima, the first such facility in Japan and only the second in the whole world. Nicknamed "SACLA" (SPring-8 Angstrom Compact Free Electron Laser), the new XFEL's intense beams will open a unique window onto the minuscule structure of molecules and rapid reaction of chemical species.

(PhysOrg.com) -- When black holes slam into each other, the surrounding space and time surge and undulate like a heaving sea during a storm. This warping of space and time is so complicated that physicists haven't been able to understand the details of what goes on -- until now.