How to act less stupid

Zero-index metamaterials

Back to the future, revised

Concrete printer

No proper time

Thought for the month

“Doubt is the father of invention.” Ambrose Bierce, US Journalist (1842 – 1914).

Ultrafast system to be implanted in Leeds

University of Leeds agrees $1.4M contract with PVD Products, Inc. to supply an Ultrafast Laser Plasma Implantation System to scale up the technique developed in their existing PLD system, delivered by PVD Products in 2008. ULPI uses high-powered, short-pulsed lasers to generate highly energetic plasma from a target material that is then implanted into another material. The university has spun-out the company Ultramatis to capitalize on the commercial developments of this powerful technique.

As black as a beetle

Silicon quantum logic gate

Thermo Scientific XPS system selected by Cardiff University

To fulfill their requirements for a multi-user high performance X-ray photoelectron spectrometer, Cardiff University have selected a Thermo Scientific XPS system fitted with the MAGCIS combined monatomic and gas cluster ion source.

Miles per wee dram?

In Brief

Nominations are sought for the Young Scientist Prizes in Semiconductor Physics awarded by IUPAP Commission on Semiconductors. The deadline is December 31, 2015. An analysis predicts the availability of self-driving cars by 2022 but at a price premium of $10,000. A group headed by the University of California have fabricated Ge/molybdenum disulphide FETs.

Lots of bits

Approximately 100 billion optical components would be required to make a practical, fault tolerant, quantum computer that uses light to process information. This is the conclusion of a recent publication which calculated that the number of components for a photon-based computer would be five orders of magnitude larger than for a matter-based processor.

Crowdsourced analysis

A paper in Nature illustrates the benefits of the pre-publication sharing of data and analysis methodologies with others. 29 teams of researchers were asked to answer the same research question with the same data set. Teams approached the data with a wide array of analytical techniques, and obtained varied results. This was then followed by rounds of peer feedback, technique refinement and discussion to see whether the initial variety could be channelled into a joint conclusion. The overall group consensus was much more tentative than would be expected from a single-team analysis.