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Device news 031013
- 1. Device and Computation News 03. 10. 13
- 6. Ion trap quantum computers
- 7. Store one petabye / square inch
- 10. Table top Neutral Atom Accelerator
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- http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23982813#.UTvtSdHievIMore smartphones are forecast to be shipped globally than feature phones in 2013, the first such occurrence in the mobile phone market on an annual basis. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors will ship 918.6 million smartphones this year, or 50.1% of the total mobile phone shipments worldwide.By the end of 2017, IDC forecasts 1.5 billion smartphones will be shipped worldwide, which equates to just over two-thirds of the total mobile phone forecast for the year due to these primary factors.
- Researchers have engineered a unique multilayer material that could lead to breakthroughs in both superconductivity research and in real-world applications. The researchers can tailor the material, which seamlessly alternates between metal and oxide layers, to achieve extraordinary superconducting properties — in particular, the ability to transport much more electrical current than non-engineered materials.The new material also has improved current-carrying capabilities. As they grew the superlattice, the researchers also added a tiny bit of oxygen to intentionally insert defects every few nanometers in the material. These defects act as pinning centers to immobilize tiny magnetic vortices that, as they grow in strength in large magnetic fields, can limit current flow through the superconductor. "If the vortices move around freely, the energy dissipates, and the superconductor is no longer lossless," says Eom. "We have engineered both vertical and planar pinning centers, because vortices created by magnetic fields can be in many different orientations.”http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/03/multilayer-superconductors-with.html
- Illustration: Bryan Christie Designhttp://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/materials/make-way-for-flexible-silicon-chips/?utm_source=techalert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=022813Imagine rising from bed to catch an early flight. As you head for the shower, still groggy, a tiny, flexible sensor chip in yesterday’s clothes reminds you that they need to be washed. At breakfast, you check on your flight status and then stream the latest news to a tablet-size flexible display, flipping through pages of text and video. A message from your doctor pops up, reminding you to wear your medical diagnostic patch and pack your medication. As you leave your house, tiny sensors in the carpet and wallpaper put some appliances into standby mode. At the airport, a flexible electronic ticket guides you to the right gate, and a wireless interface between your ticket, your passport, and a retinal scanner gives you immediate clearance.Such seamless integration of computing into everyday objects isn’t quite here yet, in large part because we still don’t have cheap, thin, flexible electronics. But the technology is already on a path toward ubiquity: radio frequency identification (RFID) tags are used to track goods (and, increasingly, pets and people), flexible sensors in car seats warn parents not to leave their babies behind when they go shopping, and bendable displays are on the way for e-readers. These inherently flexible products can be mass-produced, and some can even be printed, inkjet style, to create large displays.Made primarily from nonsilicon organic and inorganic semiconductors, including polymers and metal oxide semiconductors, flexible chips are an exciting alternative to rigid silicon circuits in simple products like photovoltaic cells and television screens, because they can be made for a fraction of the cost. But today’s flexible electronics jus t don’t perform as well as silicon chips made the old-fashioned way. For example, in February 2011 the first microprocessor made with organic semiconductors was introduced, but the 4000-transistor, 8-bit logic circuit operated at a clock frequency below 10 Hz. Compare that with the Intel 4004, introduced in 1971, which worked at 100 kilohertz and above—four orders of magnitude as fast.A new technique for creating ultrathin silicon chips, though, could lead to many high-performance flexible applications, including displays, sensors, wireless interfaces, energy harvesting, and wearable biomedical devices. Silicon is an ideal semiconductor for such chips because its ordered structure allows for well-behaved switches that are far faster than organic alternatives.
- http://www.nist.gov/pml/div686/refrigerator-030513.cfmResearchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a solid-state refrigerator that uses quantum physics in micro- and nanostructures to cool a much larger object to extremely low temperatures.What's more, the prototype NIST refrigerator, which measures a few inches in outer dimensions, enables researchers to place any suitable object in the cooling zone and later remove and replace it, similar to an all-purpose kitchen refrigerator. The cooling power is the equivalent of a window-mounted air conditioner cooling a building the size of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C."It's one of the most flabbergasting results I've seen," project leader Joel Ullom says. "We used quantum mechanics in a nanostructure to cool a block of copper. The copper is about a million times heavier than the refrigerating elements. This is a rare example of a nano- or microelectromechanical machine that can manipulate the macroscopic world."The technology may offer a compact, convenient means of chilling advanced sensors below standard cryogenic temperatures—300 milliKelvin (mK), typically achieved by use of liquid helium—to enhance their performance in quantum information systems, telescope cameras, and searches for mysterious dark matter and dark energy.As described in Applied Physics Letters,* the NIST refrigerator's cooling elements, consisting of 48 tiny sandwiches of specific materials, chilled a plate of copper, 2.5 centimeters on a side and 3 millimeters thick, from 290 mK to 256 mK. The cooling process took about 18 hours. NIST researchers expect that minor improvements will enable faster and further cooling to about 100 mK.
- Surface trap fabricated by Sandia National Labs, supported by IARPA. This type of trap has been used to capture ions at JQI and Duke University, as well as other institutions. The image shown here appears on the cover of this week's issue of Science Magazine.http://jqi.umd.edu/news/future-ion-trapsTrapped atomic ions are a promising architecture that satisfies many of the critical requirements for constructing a quantum computer. At the heart of quantum computers are qubits, systems maintained in two or more quantum states simultaneously. Here, the qubits are manifested in the internal energy levels of the ions, and are manipulated through laser and microwave radiation. These technologies are a key factor in the success of atomic ions: scientists can set the frequency of the radiation to match that of the ion’s energy level spacings with extreme precision.The qubits have long coherence time -- meaning they can be placed in quantum states and remain that way long enough to perform calculations. The qubit’s states are not sensitive to ambient disturbances like magnetic fields, giving them inherent protection from the destructive environment.Additionally, the ions are in a vacuum of lower than 10-11 torr. This is about 100 trillion times lower than atmospheric pressure. To visualize this daunting number, imagine light particles like hydrogen or nitrogen in a vacuum chamber. After special pumps remove most of the air, there are so few molecules left that before one molecule will collide with another, it will typically travel a distance comparable to the circumference of the earth. At atmospheric pressure, even though we can’t see them with our eyes, there are so many molecules floating about that they only travel about a hundredth the width of a human hair before they bump into a neighboring particle.
- An international team of researchers affiliated with Göttingen University has found a way to store vast amounts of data - up to one petabyte - per square inch. Using information stored in the spin of an electron, the scientists succeeded in storing the information in an organic molecule and reading it at a temperature close to room temperature.Elementary particles, many atomic nuclei and atoms with certain electron configurations have what is called spin, defined as the rotation of a body around its own axis. This enables an alternative form of electronic data processing – called “spin electronics or spintronics.” The scientists developed a unique molecule that serves as the memory for their electronic device: They fused non-magnetic carbon atoms linked to one another in three benzene rings into one unit. Using spin injection, they chemically added an unpaired electron that carries a net spin. This can be exploited to store information as “0” and “1” by having the electron’s spin orientated up or down. Another accomplishment of the researchers was to use a magnetic reference electrode to read out the stored information at room temperature.“Spin storage on an organic material and the successful reading at room temperature represent a breakthrough in organic spin electronics,” emphasised Prof. Markus Münzenberg, one of the physicists from Göttingen. “Spintronics integrated into flexible plastic components are already a familiar part of the organic LEDs employed in today's displays, TV screens and smartphones. Our recently developed molecular units have a similar potential.”
- Fujitsu Laboratories Limited announced the development of a new data transfer protocol that, by taking a software-only approach, can significantly improve the performance of file transfers, virtual desktops and other various communications applications.Through a simple software installation, the new technology will make it possible to speed up TCP applications that previously required costly specialized hardware, and it can also be easily incorporated into mobile devices and other kinds of equipment. Moreover, compared with TCP, the technology enables a greater than 30 times improvement in file transfer speeds between Japan and the US, in addition to reducing virtual desktop operating latency to less than 1/6 of previous levels. During fiscal 2013, Fujitsu Laboratories aims to commercialize the new technology as a communications middleware solution for improving communications speeds without having to modify existing TCP applications.Conventionally, when using transmission control protocol (TCP)(1)—the standard protocol employed in communications applications—in a low-quality communications environment, such as when connected to a wireless network or during times of line congestion, data loss (packet loss) can occur, leading to significant drops in transmission performance due to increased latency from having to retransmit data.To address this problem, Fujitsu Laboratories has succeeded at a software-only approach, developing: 1) A new protocol that incorporates an efficient proprietarily developed retransmission method based on user datagram protocol (UDP)(2), an optimized way to deliver streaming media able to reduce latency resulting from data retransmission when packet loss occurs; 2) Control technology that addresses the problem of UDP transmissions consuming excess bandwidth by performing a real-time measurement of available network bandwidth and securing an optimal amount of communications bandwidth without overwhelming TCP's share of the bandwidth; and 3) Technology that, by employing the new protocol, makes it possible to easily speed up existing TCP applications without having to modify them.Reduces latency to 1/6 current rates. Improves throughput by as much as 2 orders of magnitude.5x improvement in browsing speeds for even mobile devices. 30 x improvement in high volume data transfer. http://www.fujitsu.com/global/news/pr/archives/month/2013/20130129-02.html
- A route for fabricating printable photonic devices with sub-10 nm resolutionhttp://iopscience.iop.org/0957-4484/24/6/065301/A novel and robustroute for high-throughput, high-performance nanophotonics-baseddirectimprint of high refractiveindex and lowvisiblewavelengthabsorption materials ispresented. Sub-10 nm TiO2 nanostructuresarefabricated by low-pressure UV-imprinting of anorganic–inorganicresistmaterial. Post-imprintthermalannealingallowsopticalpropertytuningover a widerange of values. For instance, a refractiveindexhigherthan 2.0 and anextinctioncoefficientclose to zero can be achieved in the visiblewavelengthrange. Furthermore, the imprintresistmaterialpermitsfabrication of crack-freenanopatternedfilmsoverlargeareas and iscompatible for fabricatingprintablephotonicstructures.A novel strategy to pattern optical functional films with high refractive index over large areas is reported. The approach is used to demonstrate for the first time the patterning of sub-10 nm features into inorganic films by nanoimprint lithography. The optical properties of the nanostructured films are easily tuned by post-annealing and their optical transparency is suitable with photonic applications. These results open a promising route for fabricating printable photonic nanodevices with high resolution and high throughput.
- Accelerating neutral atoms, contrary to laser-based as well as conventional particle accelerators, is a formidable feat, given the inert, ‘neutral’ response of these atoms to accelerating fields. Our recent studies provide a crucial breakthrough in the generation of accelerated neutral atoms, with energies as large as an MeV, as a result of the interaction of intense lasers with nanoclusters.http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/tiof-ana012413.phpLaser-based plasma accelerators, on the contrary, follow radically different acceleration schemes and can produce GeV electron bunches in a ‘wakefield-accelerator’ as well as proton energies of 60 mega-electron-volts (MeV) in a so-called ‘target-normal sheath acceleration’ (TNSA).How do we accelerate neutral particles- i.e. particles that cannot be energized by electrical voltages? And do it over millimeters rather than hundreds of meters and moreover using lasers? Research at Ultra Short Pulse High Intensity Lab in TIFR has now found a novel scheme that can do precisely this. The concept uses the ability of powerful lasers to strip nearly 8 electrons per atom in a nano sized, cooled aggregate of argon atoms- a nano piece of ice. A 40,000 atom cluster of argon is charged to 320,000 by a laser that lasts only a 100 billionth of a millionth of a second. Such a super highly charged ice piece explodes soon after, accelerating the charged atoms (Ions) to a million electron volts of energy. The TIFR research now found that all the expelled electrons can be put back into the charged ion that has been accelerated so that it now reverts to being a neutral atom but at high energies. To top it all, this process is nearly 100% efficient at neutralizing the speeding ions and converting them to fast atoms!
- Enzyme Molecules as Nanomotorshttp://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=223&content_id=CNBP_032062&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=d4f40009-1e0e-4022-bae5-5d3d3df1f419http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja3091615Enzymes, workhorse molecules of life that underpin almost every biological process, may have a new role as “intelligent” micro- and nanomotors with applications in medicine, engineering and other fields. That’s the topic of a report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, showing that single molecules of common enzymes can generate enough force to cause movement in specific directions.Peter J. Butler, AyusmanSen and colleagues point out that enzymes — proteins that jump-start chemical reactions — are the basis of natural biological motors essential to life. Scientists long have wondered whether a single enzyme molecule, the smallest machine that could possibly exist, might be able to generate enough force to cause its own movement in a specific direction. “Positive answers to these questions,” they explain, “have important implications in areas ranging from biological transport to the design of ‘intelligent,’ enzyme-powered, autonomous nano- and micromotors, which are expected to find applications in bottom-up assembly of structures, pattern formation, cargo (drug) delivery at specific locations, roving sensors and related functions.”They provide the positive answers in experiments with two common enzymes called catalase and urease. Catalase protects the body from harmful effects of hydrogen peroxide formed naturally in the course of life. Urease, found in many plants, converts urea to ammonia and carbon dioxide. The researchers show that these two enzymes, in the presence of their respective substrate (hydrogen peroxide or urea, which acts as fuel), show movement. More significantly, the movement becomes directional through the imposition of a substrate gradient, a form of chemotaxis. Chemotaxis is what attracts living things toward sources of food. The researchers also show that movement causes chemically interconnected enzymes to be drawn together; a form of predator-prey behavior at the nanoscale.Using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, researcher show that the diffusive movements of catalase enzyme molecules increase in the presence of the substrate, hydrogen peroxide, in a concentration-dependent manner. Employing a microfluidic device to generate a substrate concentration gradient, they show that both catalase and urease enzyme molecules spread toward areas of higher substrate concentration, a form of chemotaxis at the molecular scale. Using glucose oxidase and glucose to generate a hydrogen peroxide gradient, they induce the migration of catalase toward glucose oxidase, thereby showing that chemically interconnected enzymes can be drawn together.Supporting material: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/ja3091615/suppl_file/ja3091615_si_001.pdf
- Movie like CGI brought to console games.http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RiNGZMx2vhYhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=U_nTMbENo74Sony Playstation 4 will bring movie like CGI and combine with superior motion control interaction.Simple User Experience Enabled by technologyThe PS4 will offer a low-power sleep state, so it will have instant-on capabilities. There will also be background downloading when the console is asleep or even powered off. For DLC, gamers will be able to start playing once the download starts.Sony will have second chip for uploads and downloads. Games will be playable even while they are downloading.SharingThey want to make sharing of video clips of games as easy as screenshots today.Friends can help take over your controller to get through levels that you are having trouble with.GamesBlizzard is bringing Diablo 3 to the Playstation 3 and Playstation 4.There is a new game Knack.Bungie (the makers of Halo) are bringing the First person Shooter, Destiny to PS4. They also call it the first "Shared World Shooter".When is the PS4 coming out? The Question Everyone Wants the Answer To...As a result, the question on everyone's mind is, when will the PlayStation 4 see the light of day?!?!? Sony has officially said "Holiday 2013" which means we will have a chance to play that Playstation 4 this year! This follows the trend of Sony's previous console generations. The PlayStation 1 was first released in late 1994 in Japan and 1995 throughout the rest of the world. The PlayStation 2 hit stores in 2000, giving the PS1 a retail shelf life of 6 years from its Japanese launch. Likewise, the PlayStation 3 came out in 2006, 6 years after the release of the PS2. Following this trend that Sony has established it was not a surprise that Sony officially announced the Playstation 4 on February 20th 2013 in NYC. Watch the full PlayStation 4 announcement.
- Ex nihilo: Dynamical Casimir effect in metamaterial converts vacuum fluctuations into real photonshttp://phys.org/news/2013-03-nihilo-dynamical-casimir-effect-metamaterial.htmlIn the strange world of quantum mechanics, the vacuum state (sometimes referred to as the quantum vacuum, simply as the vacuum) is a quantum system's lowest possible energy state. While not containing physical particles, neither is it an empty void: Rather, the quantum vacuum contains fluctuating electromagnetic waves and so-called virtual particles, the latter being known to transition into and out of existence. In addition, the vacuum state has zero-point energy – the lowest quantized energy level of a quantum mechanical system – that manifests itself as the static Casimir effect, an attractive interaction between the opposite walls of an electromagnetic cavity. Recently, scientists at Aalto University in Finland and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland demonstrated the dynamical Casimir effect using a Josephson metamaterial embedded in a microwave cavity. They showed that under certain conditions, real photons are generated in pairs, and concluded that their creation was consistent with quantum field theory predictions.
- Credit and more details: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1211.1230v1.pdfLHC team observes first instance of D-mesons oscillating between matter and antimatterResearchers working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have observed for the first time evidence of D-mesons oscillating between matter and antimatter. They describe their work, observations and the degree of certainty they've given their findings in their paper they've uploaded to the preprint sever arXiv, which has subsequently been accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters.Put simply, antimatter is identical to matter except that it exists with an opposite electrical charge. In this new research, the team was studying mesons—a group that along with other particles are made up of quarks. Mesons are made up of just two quarks, one matter, the other antimatter. Research over the years has led to theories that the quarks that exist as part of mesons, can oscillate between matter and antimatter. More recently, three (K-mesons and two types of B-mesons) out of the four known types of mesons had been shown to do just that, leaving just the D-meson. Now, with this new effort, researches at the LHC say their experiments have shown such oscillations exist for them as well. And so strong are the results that the team has given them a five sigma level of certainty.Ongoing research at the LHC and other facilities has shown that subatomic particles routinely decay into other particles and that some move between existing as matter and antimatter. It's all part of a concerted effort to put together theories that hopefully in the end, explain how it all fits together and works via the Standard Model. The researchers are also hoping this new research will help explain at some point why it is that the universe appears to be made of far more matter than antimatter—common sense would suggest the two should exist in equal quantities.
- Is it Higgs Yet??http://phys.org/news/2013-03-particle-higgs-lhc-scientists.htmlThis graphic distributed by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva shows a representation of traces of traces of a proton-proton collision measured in the Compact Muon Solenoid experience. The subatomic particle whose discovery was announced amid much fanfare last year, is looking "more and more" like it could indeed be the elusive Higgs boson, scientists said. The subatomic particle whose discovery was announced amid much fanfare last year, is looking "more and more" like it could indeed be the elusive Higgs boson believed to explain why matter has mass, scientists said Wednesday.But in the latest update, physicists told a conference in La Thuile, Italy, that more analysis is needed before a definitive statement can be made. Key to a positive identification of the particle is a detailed analysis of its properties and how it interacts with other particles, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) explained in a statement. Since scientists' announcement last July that they had found a particle likely to be the Higgs, much data has been analysed, and its properties are becoming clearer. One property that will allow several teams researching the particle to declare whether or not it is a Higgs, is called spin. A Higgs must have spin-zero. "All the analysis conducted so far strongly indicates spin-zero, but it is not yet able to rule out entirely the possibility that the particle has spin-two," said CERN. "Until we can confidently tie down the particle's spin, the particle will remain Higgs-like. Only when we know that it has spin-zero will we be able to call it a Higgs."Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-03-particle-higgs-lhc-scientists.html#jCp