One of the key hurdles to building a large quantum computer is maintaining the coherence of the many individual two-level quantum mechanical systems, or qubits. Atoms and ions in a vacuum or nuclear spins in solids and liquids can have long coherence, but it is not yet known how well those systems can be scaled to make a large computer. Ideally one could use the spin of an electron in a semiconductor as a qubit, since modern semiconductor technology is based upon moving and controlling electrons in silicon.

The energy E of a bowling ball increases as the square of its velocity (or momentum p). This is also generally true for electrons in solids, which are accurately described by the Schràƒ’¶dinger equation (Fig. 1a). However, in a small set of materials - e.g. bismuth, antimony and graphene - E increases linearly with p (Fig. 1b). To describe this unusual behavior, we resort to the Dirac equation, which has been very successful in describing neutrinos and high-energy electrons.

In a normal material, electrons repel each other due to their charge. In the copper-oxide superconductors, however, an attractive force develops between electrons that pairs them up at temperatures up to 140 degrees above absolute zero. Understanding the reason for this pairing has remained an elusive goal in condensed matter physics research over the past two decades.

In a recent publication in Nature, we reported bulk metallic glass (BMG) matrix composites exhibiting >10% tensile ductility and Fracture Toughness comparable to or exceeding the toughest metals known [1]. These high performance composites demonstrate the potential of metallic glass as revolutionary structural metals. The BMG matrix composites contain elastically soft dendrites comprised of Ti-Zr-Nb embedded in a glassy matrix. Toughening and ductility are achieved by a mechanism similar to the

Producing high quality thin films of controlled thickness is a critical step for the development of ferroelectric nanophotonic devices. Developed recently, the process referred to as layer transfer has been shown to be very promising: ions are implanted in a plan parallel to the interface of a bilayer system that is then heated. The high temperature induces nucleation and propagation of cracks in the weakened plan of the specimen, resulting after coalescence in a full splitting of the upper part of the original sample (Fig. (a)).

Single-crystal organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) are ideal device structures for studying fundamental science associated with charge transport in organic materials and have demonstrated outstanding electrical characteristics. However, it remains a technical challenge to integrate single-crystal devices into practical electronic applications. A key difficulty is that organic single-crystal devices are usually fabricated one device at a time through manual selection and placing individual crystals. To overcome this difficulty, Bao et al.

Objective: To develop novel microfluidic flow cells that allow trapping of single DNA molecules and studies of the binding of sequence-specific probes to the trapped DNA.

The quest for economical devices with faster speeds, lighter weights, and higher feature density drives demand for new fabrication tools that create ever more complex patt

Infection by adenovirus is initiated when Knobs (globular protein domains) on the virus periphery bind to a CAR (Coxsackie-Adenovirus Receptor) membrane protein of the host cell.