Viewpoints

A Closer Connection Between Entanglement and Nonlocality

A Closer Connection Between Entanglement and Nonlocality

May 14, 2012

Serge Massar and Stefano Pironio

A generalization of one of the most famous experiments in quantum foundations provides a powerful new unifying concept.

The Smallest Thermal Machines

The Smallest Thermal Machines

May 14, 2012

Guenter Mahler

New functionalities might arise from rethinking the essential ingredients needed to build a heat-driven machine.

Pushing Bits Through a Spin Wire

Pushing Bits Through a Spin Wire

May 7, 2012

Shigeki Onoda

Short chains of iron atoms deposited on a metal surface could be used to transmit bits of magnetic information.

Wiring Up Displacement Currents

Wiring Up Displacement Currents

May 7, 2012

Jon Schuller

Specially designed waveguides act like conduits for high-frequency displacement currents.

Synopses

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Layering to Warm Up

May 21, 2012

Alternating layers of insulating materials form a rudimentary device that controls thermal currents.

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Wave of Correlation

May 17, 2012

Theorists can now calculate the speed with which correlations travel in a chain of interacting atoms.

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Two Donors Are Better Than One

May 17, 2012

Pairs of donor atoms read out the energy levels in a silicon nanowire.

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U-shaped Grains Get Clingy

May 17, 2012

Piles of staples stand up to shaking better if the staple prongs have an intermediate length.

Focus

Electron Spin Influences Nanotube Motion

Electron Spin Influences Nanotube Motion

May 18, 2012

The oscillations of a carbon nanotube can strongly affect the spin of an electron trapped on the tube, and the tube can also be affected by the spin, according to theory.

Trends

How Solid is Supersolid?

How Solid is Supersolid?

December 19, 2011

Anatoly B. Kuklov, Nikolay V. Prokof’ev and Boris V. Svistunov

Macroscopic quantum properties of helium-4, one of the simplest and oldest elements in the universe, continue to puzzle and amaze scientists. Supertransport in solid helium-4 is the most elusive and controversial conundrum of all.