Astronomy and physics dominate Science top ten
Confirmation that the universe is flat – expanding at just the right rate not to collapse – came from measurements of ripples in the cosmic background radiation left over from the big bang...
The decay route to teleportation
In quantum teleportation the quantum state of an object held by “Alice” is instantaneously sent to “Bob”. The new technique works by having two optical cavities that both conta...
Helium beam moves into sharper focus
Physicists have tried for years to develop a beam of atoms that could be focused as easily as electrons and photons. The helium atoms are fired at 1 km/s through a micron diameter nozzle past a set of...
Electron transfer made easy
Electron transfer in protein results from quantum tunnelling between reduction- oxidation (redox) centres. “There’s a widely accepted idea that electrons get from one redox centre to anoth...
Condensates in a whirl
Physicists have been attempting to create a vortex in a dilute Bose condensate since these systems were first created in 1995. In principle, atomic condensates are ideal systems in which to study vort...
Wave-particle duality seen in carbon-60 molecules
The Vienna team sent a collimated beam of carbon-60 molecules through a slit made of silicon nitride and detected the interference pattern by ionizing the molecules with a laser and then counting the ...
Nobel prize goes to ‘t Hooft and Veltman
‘t Hooft and Veltman were both born in the Netherlands. In 1966 Veltman was appointed as professor of physics at the University of Utrecht, and ‘t Hooft became his PhD student in 1969. By ...
Fermions go degenerate
Brian DeMarco and Deborah Jin used a pair of magneto-optical traps to confine about 700000 atoms of potassium-40 at temperatures below 300 nanokelvin. This is about half of the degeneracy temperature ...
Quantum dots breakthrough
Only two other methods have previously been used to manufacture quantum dots: electron beam lithography and epitaxy. Lithography is a top down approach in which the beam defines the dot pattern, where...
Read article: A double-slit experiment in a single molecule
A double-slit experiment in a single molecule
Photons from the laser can excite electrons in the water molecules into a so-called anti-bonding state. Molecules in this state can adopt one of two distorted shapes, both of which can dissociate into...
