Tag Archives: quantum

Electromagnetism, Engineering, Materials, Physics, Quiz, Science, Technology

Superconductors? When frogs fly

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levitating frogOne of the unwritten rules of physics says you can’t get something for nothing; at best, you can swing a fair exchange rate between energy in and energy out. The problem is heat:  Like an energy embezzler, it skims off the top of chemical reactions, physical systems and electrical circuits (which is why we can’t have perpetual motion machines).

Superconductors don’t break the laws of thermodynamics, but they do manage to find some fairly large loopholes. Send current through a superconducting wire, and it loses no energy to resistance. Bend the wire into a loop, and it will hold charge indefinitely. Levitate it above a magnet, and the sun will devour the Earth before it will fall.

Plus, it can levitate a frog.

What is Superconductivity?
Quiz: How Super are Superconductors?

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Putting the green in nanomachines

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Carbon nanotubes
Carbon nanotubes. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

We tend to think of nanotechnology as the stuff of the future, but it’s already here, in hundreds of consumer products and industrial applications. As progress in this minuscule world has accelerated, concern for the environment and for public health has led to a call for green nanotechnology—approaches that accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. In this article, we’ll take a tour of how these many approaches are playing out.

How is green nanotechnology being used?

Computing, Consumer, Electromagnetism, Gadgets, Materials, Physics, Science, Technology

Spin control: reading the quantum bit

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Quantum computing artwork
Image courtesy Arizona State University

Some days, I feel like I’m living in the future. Then I remember that I don’t have a flying car, a hyperintelligent monkey sidekick or a quantum computer. Granted, I’ve always suspected a flying car would be a terrible idea (and the less said about the monkey, the better), but I still want my iQuantum. So, what’s the hold up?

Quantum computing is one of those ideas that has enormous potential but is so cutting-edge that even its most basic aspects, like storing and reading data, require a large assortment of people with advanced degrees. Recently, two researchers worked out a way to read quantum states using entanglement, the “spooky action at a distance” that links two quantum particles under certain conditions. The method, which they hit upon while exploring electron-electron interactions, could solve the problem of reading quantum bits (aka “qubits”) once and for all.

ASU researchers untangle quantum quirk

Computing, Consumer, Electromagnetism, Engineering, Materials, Physics, Science, Technology

Nanoionic memory: Vive la resistance

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DDRAM computer memoryFor some time now, conventional computer memory has been heading toward a crunch—a physical limit of how much storage can be crammed into a space before it is overwhelmed by heat and power problems. Generally, researchers have tried to avert this heat death in two ways: leapfrogging to the next generation of memory or refining current memory.

Researchers at Arizona State University’s Center for Applied Nanoionics (CANi) have combined the two approaches to create new memory that amps up performance while remaining compatible with today’s devices. CANi also used nanoionics (a technique for moving tiny bits of matter around on a chip) to overcome the limitations of conventional electronics: Instead of moving electrons among ions, nanoionics moves the ions themselves.

Nanoionics may boost memory in consumer electronics