Latest Spin Stories

Using the world's fastest light source -- specialized X-ray lasers -- scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology have revealed the secret inner life of magnets, a finding that could lead to faster and "smarter" computers. Using a light source that creates X-ray pulses only one quadrillionth of a second in duration, the Boulder team was able to observe how magnetism in nickel and iron atoms works, and they found that each metal...

Squeezing what hasn't been squeezed before Most people attempt to reduce the little uncertainties of life by carrying umbrellas on cloudy days, purchasing automobile insurance or hiring inspectors to evaluate homes they might consider purchasing. For scientists, reducing uncertainty is a no less important goal, though in the weird realm of quantum physics, the term has a more specific meaning. For scientists working in quantum physics, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says that...

Bombardier Selects Aviation Performance Solutions (APS) to Provide In-flight Upset Recovery Training Services as Part of its Leading Edge Program to Crews of Newly Purchased Learjet, Challenger and Global Express Aircraft – Through Pilot Education and Skill Development, Effectively Delivered Upset Recovery Training Mitigates Loss of Control in-Flight (LOC-I), the Leading Cause of the Most Crash-Related Fatalities in Commercial Aviation Worldwide over the Past 10 Years Mesa, AZ (PRWEB)...

Breakthrough in coordinating electrons advances goal of quantum computing An international team of researchers including scientists at Princeton University have achieved a 100-fold increase in the ability to maintain control the spins of electrons in a solid material, a key step in the development of ultrafast quantum computers. Until recently, the best attempts at such control lasted for only a fraction of a second. But researchers Stephen Lyon and Alexei Tyryshkin have found a way to...

Measurements at the Vienna University of Technology deepen our understanding of quantum uncertainty Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle is arguably one of the most famous foundations of quantum physics. It says that not all properties of a quantum particle can be measured with unlimited accuracy. Until now, this has often been justified by the notion that every measurement necessarily has to disturb the quantum particle, which distorts the results of any further measurements. This, however,...

As electrons move past atoms in a solid, their charge distorts the nearby lattice and can create a wave. Reciprocally, a wave in the lattice affects the electrons motion, in analogy to a wave in the sea that pushes a surfer riding it. This interaction results in a thermoelectric effect that was first observed during the 1950´s and has come to be known as phonon-drag, because it can be quantified from the flow of lattice-wave quanta (phonons) that occurs over the temperature gradient. Soon...

VANCOUVER, Nov. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ - Radius Gold Inc. (TSX-V: RDU) is pleased to announce that it has received conditional approval from the TSX Venture Exchange for the planned spin out of its Yukon assets into a new company, which will be called Rackla Metals Inc. The implementation of the spin out is subject to Radius shareholder approval, court approval and Rackla Metals Inc. completing the listing requirements of the TSX-V. The shareholders' meeting of Radius to approve...

Rotating magnetic moments: Applied Physics Letters reports Bochum's physicists led by Prof. Dr. Hartmut Zabel have demonstrated the spin pumping effect in magnetic layers for the first time experimentally. The behavior of the spin pumping had previously only been predicted theoretically. The research team at the RUB has now succeeded in measuring the effect using ultrafast X-ray scattering with picosecond resolution. Through their rotation of the magnetic moments, the so-called magnetic...

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 30, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- popchips inc., the all-natural popped snack company, reverbnation and SPIN, the premier resource for music discovery, are giving emerging local bands the opportunity to win a pop up live gig for their fans, and the chance to perform at one of SPIN's hotly anticipated events during austin's spring music festival. popchips has already hand selected 250 bands from new york, los angeles, san francisco, chicago and seattle from the thousands of...

By combining two frontier technologies, spintronics and straintronics, a team of researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University has devised perhaps the world's most miserly integrated circuit. Their proposed design runs on so little energy that batteries are not even necessary; it could run merely by tapping the ambient energy from the environment. Rather than the traditional charge-based electronic switches that encode the basic 0s and 1s of computer lingo, spintronics harnesses the...