Could this revolutionary plane turn air travel green?

27 Jul 2022 James McKenzie

Taken from the July 2022 issue of Physics World, where it appeared under the headline "Green-sky thinking". Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app.

The airline industry is emerging from COVID-19 with progress on de-carbonizing air travel, as James McKenzie discovers

Looks unconventional The Otto Celera 500L plane has an ultra-low drag coefficient and great fuel efficiency thanks to laminar shapes for the wings, fuselage and tail. (Courtesy: Otto Aviation)

I recently booked my first flight since the COVID-19 pandemic devastated the aviation industry. Who can forget the airports full of grounded planes, with staff and pilots laid off? According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the number of air passengers worldwide fell by 60% between 2019 and 2020. And although numbers climbed back to 2.3bn in 2021, they were still 49% below pre-pandemic levels.

 

Graphene tattoo provides cuffless
blood-pressure monitoring

08 Jul 2022 Samuel Vennin

Graphene tattoo: the electronic tattoo enables continuous blood-pressure monitoring using electric currents and bioimpedance measurements. (Courtesy: The University of Texas at Austin/Texas A&M University)

Wrapping a cuff around a patient’s arm and inflating it to measure blood pressure is one of the most routinely performed medical tests. It provides a quick and reliable assessment of cardiovascular health, as blood pressure is an independent predictor of all-cause mortality. But such arm cuffs are bulky and uncomfortable, making them impractical for continuous monitoring outside of clinics.

 

‘Optical plucking’ manoeuvres single gold atoms into chemical reactions

25 Jul 2022

Plucky atoms: illustration of how light can be used to remove individual gold atoms from a surface. (Courtesy: Baumberg and collegues/Cavendish Laboratory/Department of Physics/University of Cambridge)

A new phenomenon whereby the energy from light confined to a nanocavity can “pluck” atoms from a gold surface, allowing them to form complexes with functional groups, has been discovered by researchers in the UK. Their experimental work is not readily transferable to industrial chemistry, but it could provide invaluable insights for research and development in multiple areas of science.

 

Meta-atoms act like road signs for light waves

25 Jul 2022 Isabelle Dumé

An illustration of the ANU metasurfaces. Credit: Ella Maru Studio

Usually, when light travels through a material, it produces an image. But when it passes through a new material developed by researchers at the Australian National University (ANU), it produces two completely independent and different images – as different, in fact, as the iconic outline of the Sydney Opera House and the continent of Australia.

4D-printed material responds to environmental stimuli

27 Jul 2022

Beetling along: Under the influence of moisture, the colour of the 3D-printed beetle changes from green to red, and back again to red. (Courtesy: Bart van Overbeeke)

Researchers in the Netherlands have produced models of a beetle that changes colour and a scallop shell that opens and closes in response to changing humidity in the surrounding air.

 

Undulations could replace twists in 2D materials

15 Jul 2022 Isabelle Dumé

1D bands take on electronic or magnetic properties. Courtesy: Yakobson Research Group/Rice University

Researchers at Rice University in the US have proposed a new way of controlling the magnetic and electronic properties of single-layer two-dimensional materials that involves growing or stamping them on a carefully designed undulating surface.

 

Tracks of my tears: the true meaning of Peter Higgs’ emotion at CERN in 2012

04 Jul 2022 Robert P Crease

Taken from the July 2022 issue of Physics World, where it appeared under the headline "Tracks of my tears". Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app.

Physics is often viewed as a dispassionate and purely objective activity. So how, wonders Robert P Crease, do we explain the reaction of Peter Higgs when the boson that bears his name was discovered?

Crying eyes Peter Higgs on 4 July 2012. (Courtesy: CERN)

Nobody who has seen the images will forget Peter Higgs’ watery eyes. Captured at CERN’s main auditorium on 4 July 2012, the video shows the British theoretical physicist holding a tissue as lab bosses announce that the Higgs boson has been discovered. Higgs, who was then 83, has welled up and removes his glasses to daub his face. But do those tears reveal the emotion of a particularly sensitive man? Or do they indicate emotional currents intrinsic to life as a physicist?

 

Exploiting the synergy between organic synthesis and electrochemistry

11 Apr 2022 Sponsored by The Electrochemical Society, Hiden Analytical

Available to watch now, The Electrochemical Society in partnership with Hiden Analytical, explores the fundamentals of organic electrochemistry

Want to learn more on this subject?

Watch nowSource: Shutterstock/souvikonline200521

Electrochemistry has long held potential as a tool for constructing a wide variety of organic molecules, and the organic chemistry community is both recognizing and impressively exploiting that potential with increasing regularity. Those efforts have taught us a great deal about how to think about electrochemical reactions and how to use the technique to accomplish new transformations that enrich the synthetic enterprise.

 

EEG detects hidden consciousness in brain-injured patients

27 Jul 2022

Covert consciousness: EEG reading showing a patient’s response to verbal commands to keep opening and closing their hand (green) and to stop opening and closing it (red). (Courtesy: Columbia University Irving Medical Center)

Researchers in the US have shown how brainwaves detected in unresponsive patients can help predict if and when they will make a full recovery from traumatic brain injury.

 

Quantum effects help make DNA unstable

14 Jun 2022 Isabelle Dumé

It is only now that the DNA bond modification process has been accurately quantified, and its quantum element understood. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/ymgerman)

Quantum effects play a hitherto unexpected role in creating instabilities in DNA – the so-called “molecule of life” that provides instructions for cellular processes in all living organisms. This conclusion, based on work by researchers at the University of Surrey in the UK, goes against long-held beliefs that quantum behaviour is not relevant in the wet, warm environment of cells, and could have far-reaching consequences for models of genetic mutation.

 

Deep learning enables fast and accurate proton dose calculations

20 Jun 2022 Tami Freeman

Steve Jiang describes how deep learning can help meet the key requirements of dose calculations for proton therapy

Dose conversion: A deep learning model predicts the Monte Carlo (MC) dose distribution from the pencil beam (PB) dose, for a prostate cancer case. (a) PB dose distribution; (b) converted dose distribution; (c) absolute difference between the PB and the MC dose distribution; and (d) absolute dose difference between the converted and the MC dose distribution. (Courtesy: CC BY 4.0/Mach. Learn.: Sci. Technol. 10.1088/2632-2153/abb6d5)

 

FLASH proton therapy: uncovering the optimal delivery technique

28 Jul 2022 Tami Freeman

In a Best-in-Physics presentation at the AAPM Annual Meeting, Eric Diffenderfer compared four FLASH proton delivery techniques from a radiophysical, radiochemical and radiobiological perspective

Distinct dose-rate structures: The researchers simulated four different modes of proton FLASH delivery. (Courtesy: Eric Diffenderfer)

FLASH radiotherapy – the delivery of therapeutic radiation at ultrahigh dose rates – offers the potential to vastly reduce normal tissue toxicity while maintaining anti-tumour activity. While almost all studies to date have been pre-clinical, the first patient treatment with FLASH was performed at Lausanne University Hospital in 2019, and the first clinical trial in humans completed accrual last year.

 

3D quantum spin liquid discovery gains theoretical support

06 Jul 2022 Isabelle Dumé

Andriy Nevidomskyy. (Courtesy: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

For decades, quantum spin liquids were seen as largely hypothetical, with real-world examples thought to exist only in unusual systems such as quasi-one-dimensional chain-like magnets and a handful of two-dimensional materials. Then, in 2019, researchers at Rice University in the US and McMaster University in Canada found experimental evidence that a pyrochlore magnet, Ce2Zr2O7, could be a long-sought-after example of a three-dimensional quantum spin liquid (3D QSL).

 

Spins freeze in monocrystalline magnet

26 Jul 2022 Isabelle Dumé

A member of the Hefei team in the lab. Courtesy: Zhe Qu

A newly fabricated two-dimensional material with the chemical formula Mn2Ga2S5 could find use in spintronics applications thanks to a phenomenon known as spin frustration. The material could also be used to study the fundamental physics of 2D magnetism and spin-disordered states, say the researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Hefei who fabricated it.

 

Galactic remnant of the universe’s ‘dark ages’ is rotating, say astronomers

28 Jul 2022

Spin me round: Conceptual image of the distant galaxy MACS1149-JD1 forming and spinning up to speed in the early universe. (Courtesy: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO))

One of the most distant galaxies ever observed is very likely to be rotating, say astronomers. An international team led by Tsuyoshi Tokuoka of Waseda University, Japan, discovered the motion using observations from the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) in Chile.

 

High-energy physics: are the days of international collaboration coming to an end?

12 Jul 2022

Taken from the July 2022 issue of Physics World, where it appeared under the headline "Where next for high-energy physics?". Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app.

A decade after the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN, Michael Riordan worries that the glory days of international co-operation in particle physics could be endangered following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

(Courtesy: iStock/-Dant-)

Ten years ago this month, on 4 July 2012, two of the largest scientific collaborations in history – ATLAS and CMS – announced the discovery of the long-sought Higgs boson at CERN. Researchers from more than 60 nations spanning six continents could all rejoice together in what will surely stand as one of this century’s greatest scientific breakthroughs. It was a remarkable achievement of international co-operation too, happening at a singular moment of relative world peace.

 

Friction plays crucial role in how dominoes topple in waves

15 Jul 2022

Travelling wave: new computational research has revealed the role of friction in how dominoes topple. (Courtesy: iStock/Soulmemoria)

Inspired by a video on YouTube, two researchers have uncovered new insights into the physics of toppling dominoes. Through an extensive set of simulations, David Cantor at Canada’s Polytechnique Montréal, together with Kajetan Wojtacki at the Polish Academy of Sciences, showed that the speed of a wave of falling dominoes is affected by two types of friction, as well as the spacing between the dominoes.

 

Whispering gallery mode device offers rapid Ebola diagnosis

21 Jul 2022

Early detection: A colourized scanning electron microscopic image depicting Ebola virus particles budding from the surface of a cell. (Courtesy: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)

A new tool can rapidly and reliably detect the presence of Ebola virus in blood samples at lower concentrations than existing tests, researchers from the US report. The device has the potential to help control future outbreaks of the deadly infection.

 

Photonic fractals open a new area of topological physics

14 Jul 2022 Charly Leblanc

Topological breakthrough: illustration of the 3D Sierpinski lattice. (Courtesy: Charly Leblanc)

Topological insulators for light have been created using fractal patterns instead of conventional lattice structures. The fractal photonic topological insulators (PTIs) were made by an international team of researchers, who have shown that light moves faster along the edges of these structures than it does on conventional PTIs. The discovery also defies conventional wisdom because the fractal PTIs lack bulk optical bands, which are normally seen as being essential for PTIs.

 

New semiconductor laser delivers high power at a single frequency

20 Jul 2022

High power: schematic of the Berkeley Surface Emitting Laser (BerkSEL) showing the pump beam (blue) and the lasing beam (red). The hexagonal photonic crystal is also illustrated. (Courtesy: Kanté group/UC Berkeley)

Lasers that should be scalable to arbitrarily high powers while retaining their frequency purity have been produced by researchers in the US. Their invention, which relies on an analogue to the physics of electrons in a Dirac semiconductor such as graphene, solves a problem dating back to the invention of the laser. The researchers believe their work could also inspire fundamental theoretical discoveries in quantum mechanics at macroscopic scales.

 

Polarization switch makes ultrafast photonic computer

22 Jul 2022 Isabelle Dumé

Hybrid nanowires that can selectively switch the devices depending on polarization. Courtesy: June Sang Lee, Department of Materials, University of Oxford

Materials that switch from one phase to another when illuminated by light with different polarizations could form a platform for ultrafast photonic computing and information storage, say researchers at the University of Oxford, UK. The materials take the form of structures known as hybridized-active-dielectric nanowires, and the researchers say they could become part of a multiwire system for parallelized data storage, communications and computing.

 

Hot and cold mattress for a better sleep, video referees struggle with offside decisions

22 Jul 2022 Hamish Johnston

A good night’s sleep awaits: a look at the heating and cooling sections of the mattress and pillow using a thermal camera. (Courtesy: The University of Texas at Austin)

Today it is cool and raining here in Bristol, but earlier this week the temperature reached 36.9 °C in the city – which is extremely hot for this part of the world. Like many Bristolians, I found it difficult to sleep and I tossed and turned all night.

 

Physicists detect a new type of molecular bond

05 Jul 2022 Stefan Popa

Making a connection: An artist's impression of a Rydberg atom bonded to an ion. (Courtesy: Danyel Cavazos)

A novel type of molecule that is longer than some kinds of bacteria has been detected by physicists at the University of Stuttgart in Germany. Using a specially designed microscope, the team observed a binding mechanism between a charged ion and a neutral Rydberg atom – that is, an atom with a single, highly excited valence electron. The extent of the bond length in the new molecule is as wide as a few micrometres, which is at least 1000 times larger than in usual molecules.

 

New technique opens more of the periodic table to ultracold-atom experiments

12 Jul 2022

New frontiers: the new cooling technique could lead to ultracold experiments across the periodic table. (Courtesy: iStock/Eyematrix)

Researchers in Singapore have used a magneto-optical trap (MOT) to cool atoms in “main group III” of the periodic table to millikelvin temperatures. This group comprises boron and the elements below it in the table. The experiment is a first because these atoms do not have the right atomic properties for conventional MOT cooling. Travis Nicholson and colleagues at the National University of Singapore got around this problem by doing laser cooling on a metastable state of indium-115 atoms.

 

Quantum theory of consciousness put in doubt by underground experiment

13 Jul 2022

Deep underground: the Gran Sasso low radioactivity lab where the experiment was done. (Courtesy: Massimiliano De Deo, LNGS-INFN)

A controversial theory put forward by physicist Roger Penrose and anaesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff that posits consciousness to be a fundamentally quantum-mechanical phenomenon has been challenged by research looking at the role of gravity in the collapse of quantum wavefunctions.

 

NIST selects four ‘post-quantum’ encryption standards

20 Jul 2022

The US institute has selected four algorithms that will be developed to protect data from a future quantum computer attack (Courtesy: iStock/ktsimage)

The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has selected four algorithms that will be developed as post-quantum encryption standards to protect data from a future quantum computer attack. The announcement follows a six-year competition, with NIST now calling on institutions to investigate how to best apply the standards.

 

A single MRI scan can manage respiratory motion

19 Jul 2022 Tami Freeman

In a Best-in-Physics presentation at the AAPM Annual Meeting, Sihao Chen described how a single MRI scan can be used for motion management during MR-guided radiotherapy

In-human study: CAPTURE-detected in vivo respiratory curve (a). Data from the first 200 spokes (marked in red) were used for short-scan MRI reconstructions: using MCNUFFT without motion correction (b) and using MOTIF with P2P (c). The reconstruction using MOTIF with MCNUFFT from regular-scan MRI (2000 spokes) serves as the gold-standard (d). (Courtesy: Sihao Chen)

Respiratory motion can impact the efficacy and safety of radiation therapy in the thorax and abdomen. For treatments using an MRI-guided linac, free-breathing 4D-MRI is a promising alternative to 4D-CT for motion management, providing excellent soft-tissue contrast with no ionizing radiation.

 

CT imaging improves 90Y radioembolization dosimetry

20 Jul 2022 Tami Freeman

In a Best-in-Physics presentation at the AAPM Annual Meeting, E Courtney Henry introduced a CT-based technique for precision dosimetry in radioembolizationAccurate dose visualization: Axial and coronal views of the CT-based dose distribution (a, b) and the PET-based dose distribution (c, d). The CT-based image accurately displays the true dose heterogeneities. (Courtesy: E Courtney Henry)

 

Bountiful exotic hadrons at the LHC inspire new naming convention

22 Jul 2022 Hamish Johnston

Earlier this month the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) began its third experimental run after being shut for upgrades to both the collider and its experiments. The LHC is now running at a higher energy than before, but perhaps more importantly, it is running at a much higher rate of particle collisions.

 

Axial Higgs mode spotted in materials at room temperature

04 Jul 2022

Raman probe Artist’s impression of laser light (blue wave) scattering from an axial Higgs mode (gold sphere). The wavelength and polarization of the scattered light (orange wave) was measured by the team. (Courtesy: Nature)

An axial Higgs mode has been spotted within the collective quantum excitations of a solid material. Kenneth Burch at Boston College and colleagues in the US and China, discovered the quasiparticle cousin of the Higgs boson in a relatively simple tabletop experiment carried out at room temperature.

 

Asteroid sample offers clues to the origins of our solar system

13 Jul 2022

Close encounter: The first touchdown of Hayabusa2 on Ryugu's surface during 22 February 2019. (Courtesy: JAXA/Tokyo University of Science, Kimura Laboratory)

The chemical composition of samples collected from the asteroid 162173 Ryugu are strikingly similar to that of the Sun, say members of a team tasked with analysing samples of Ryugu collected by the Hayabusa2 mission. The result suggests that previously observed discrepancies between Ryugu’s composition and that of meteorites known as CI chondrites may be due to the different conditions that they experienced after their formation, rather than a different origin.

 

Astronomers watch ‘lingering death’ of comet as it passes near the Sun

19 Jul 2022

Heating up: 323P/SOHO as observed by the Subaru Telescope in December 2020 (left) and the Canada France Hawaii Telescope in February 2021. (Courtesy: Subaru Telescope/CFHT/Man-To Hui/David Tholen)

For the first time, astronomers have clearly observed the partial disintegration of a comet at its closest point to the Sun. Led by Man-to Hui at Macau University of Science and Technology, the international team made the observation using a combination of ground- and space-based telescopes.

Here is the first full-colour science image from the James Webb Space Telescope

11 Jul 2022 Michael Banks

First look The James Webb Space Telescope’s first “deep field” image was released today at a special event at the White House (Courtesy: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI)

US president Joe Biden has unveiled the first spectacular full-colour science image from the $10bn James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Martian meteorite analysis overturns planet formation theory

20 Jul 2022 Isabelle Dumé

New study overturns previous ideas about how rocky planets form. (NASA image)

The atmosphere on Mars may have formed in a way that contradicts current theories, say researchers at the University of California, Davis, US. The team formed this conclusion thanks to a new analysis of the Chassigny meteorite, which fell to Earth in north-eastern France in 1815 and is believed to represent the Martian interior.

 

James Webb Space Telescope reveals its first spectacular images of the cosmos

12 Jul 2022 Michael Banks

First light An image of the “southern ring” nebula was released today as part of first images from the James Webb Space Telescope. Left is from the NIRCam instrument while right is using the MIRI instrument. (Courtesy: NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI)

The first tranche of images and data from the $10bn James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been released today by NASA and partners. The four spectacular pictures – showing nebulae, a galaxy constellation as well as the atmospheric spectra of an exoplanet – follows the unveiling of the JWST’s first “deep field” image yesterday.

 

Manganese joins a new family of superconductors

18 Jul 2022 Isabelle Dumé

The T-P phase of RbMn6Bi5 and the high-pressure approach. Courtesy: J-G Cheng

Researchers from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, have spotted the tell-tale signs of superconductivity in a quasi-one-dimensional manganese-based material, RbMn6Bi5. The material, which has a superconducting transition temperature (Tc) of 9.5 K at a pressure of around 15 GPa, is the latest in a relatively new family of superconductors, the first of which was discovered in 2015 by the same group.

 

Free-floating black hole could be distorting light from distant star

11 Jul 2022

Distorted star: Hubble Space Telescope image of a distant star that was brightened and distorted by an invisible but very compact and heavy object between it and Earth. (Courtesy: STScI/NASA/ESA)

 

Noise-resistant quantum computing comes a step closer

05 Jul 2022 Ieva Čepaitė

Physical and logical qubits: The ion trap used in the experiment, seen through the window of an ultrahigh vacuum chamber. (Courtesy: Robbie Shone)

Quantum computers are a study of extremes. On the one hand, they promise to be far more powerful than classical machines in solving certain problems. On the other, their quantum nature is remarkably fragile and sensitive to environmental noise. To perform scalable, useful quantum computations, therefore, scientists need to correct these errors in an efficient way.