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Chemistry/Physics/Materials Sciences
Key: Meeting Journal Funder Dissertation
Public Release: 2-Nov-2009
Physical Review Letters
Flipping a photonic shock wave
Physicists at Zhejiang University in China and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a new metamaterial structure that successfully demonstrates reverse Cerenkov radiation.

Contact: James Riordon
riordon@aps.org
301-209-3238
American Physical Society

Public Release: 2-Nov-2009
51st Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics
Upping the power triggers an ordered helical plasma
If you keep twisting a straight elastic string, at some moment it starts kinking in a wild way.

Contact: Saralyn Stewart
stewart@physics.utexas.edu
512-694-2320
American Physical Society

Public Release: 2-Nov-2009
51st Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics
Researchers use trident laser to accelerate protons to record energies
An international team of physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory has succeeded in using intense laser light to accelerate protons to energies never before achieved. Using this technique, scientists can now accelerate particles to extremely high velocities that would otherwise only be possible using large accelerator facilities. Physicists around the world are examining laser particle acceleration and laser produced radiation for potential future uses in cancer treatment.

Contact: Saralyn Stewart
stewart@physics.utexas.edu
512-694-2320
American Physical Society

Public Release: 27-Oct-2009
Nature Nanotechnology
University of Cincinnati researchers create all-electric spintronics
Scientists have always attempted to develop spin transistors by incorporating local ferromagnets into device architectures. A far better and practical way to manipulate the orientation of an electron's spin would be by using purely electrical means. A team of researchers led by the University of Cincinnati's Philippe Debray and Marc Cahay is the first to find an innovative and novel way to control an electron's spin orientation using purely electrical means.
National Science Foundation

Contact: Wendy Beckman
wendy.beckman@uc.edu
513-556-1826
University of Cincinnati

Public Release: 20-Oct-2009
JOM
New material could boost data storage, save energy
North Carolina State University engineers have created a new material that would allow a fingernail-size computer chip to store the equivalent of 20 high-definition DVDs or 250 million pages of text, far exceeding the storage capacities of today's computer memory systems.
National Science Foundation

Contact: Matt Shipman
matt_shipman@ncsu.edu
919-515-6386
North Carolina State University

Public Release: 12-Oct-2009
Physical Review Letters
Growing geodesic carbon nanodomes
Studying the formation of nanoscopic carbon geodesic domes offers insight into the growth of graphene sheets, and may lead to compact, efficient circuitry.

Contact: James Riordon
riordon@aps.org
301-209-3238
American Physical Society

Public Release: 5-Oct-2009
Physical Review Journals
Building a better qubit
The qubits that carry quantum information are typically fragile, but a new method of combing six photons leads to robust qubits that are immune to many of the affects that threaten to scramble quantum data.

Contact: James Riordon
riordon@aps.org
301-209-3238
American Physical Society

Public Release: 5-Oct-2009
Physical Review Special Topics - Accelerators and Beams
Physicists seek to keep next-gen colliders in 1 piece
Controlling huge electromagnetic forces that have the potential to destroy the next generation of particle accelerators is the subject of a new paper by a University of Manchester physicist.

Contact: Alex Waddington
alex.waddington@manchester.ac.uk
01-612-758-387
University of Manchester

Public Release: 2-Oct-2009
Science Express
Heart of a galaxy emits gamma rays
The H.E.S.S. telescope system detects high-energy rays from the starburst region of a galactic system outside the Milky Way.

Contact: Dr. Gertrud Hönes
info@mpi-hd.mpg.de
49-622-151-6572
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

Public Release: 29-Sep-2009
Spallation Neutron Source first of its kind to reach megawatt power
The US Department of Energy's Spallation Neutron Source, already the world's most powerful facility for pulsed neutron scattering science, is now the first pulsed spallation neutron source to break the one-megawatt barrier.

Contact: Bill Cabage
cabagewh@ornl.gov
865-574-4399
DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Public Release: 21-Sep-2009
Physical Review Letters
A tiny, tunable well of light, and a string theorist's toolbox
This week in Physics: Photonic devices promise advances in applications ranging from computing to high-speed communication; and a new toolkit of equations will help theorists determine whether a potential agreement between particle physics and string theory is fact or fancy.

Contact: James Riordon
riordon@aps.org
301-209-3238
American Physical Society

Public Release: 17-Sep-2009
Smaller isn't always better: Catalyst simulations could lower fuel cell cost
Imagine a car that runs on hydrogen from solar power and produces water instead of carbon emissions. While vehicles like this won't be on the market anytime soon, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are making incremental but important strides in the fuel cell technology that could make clean cars a reality.
3M, US Department of Energy

Contact: Dane Morgan
ddmorgan@wisc.edu
608-265-5879
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Public Release: 17-Sep-2009
American-made SRF cavity makes the grade
The US Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility marked a step forward in the field of advanced particle accelerator technology with the successful test of the first US-built superconducting radiofrequency niobium cavity to meet the exacting specifications of the proposed International Linear Collider.
US Department of Energy

Contact: Kandice Carter
kcarter@jlab.org
757-269-7263
DOE/Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility

Public Release: 2-Sep-2009
University of Nevada, Reno researcher uses 100,000 degree heat to study plasma
University of Nevada, Reno researcher and faculty member Roberto Mancini is studying ultra-high temperature and non-equilibrium plasmas to mimic what happens to matter in accretion disks around black holes. The research will enable astrophysicists to better understand what happens around black holes and in active galactic nuclei. Scientists will also better understand the application of high-energy density plasmas to energy production, such as controlled nuclear fusion (produced in the laboratory), and production of X-ray sources for a variety of applications.
US Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration

Contact: Mike Wolterbeek
mwolterbeek@sbcglobal.net
University of Nevada, Reno

Public Release: 2-Sep-2009
Astrophysical Journal
University of Georgia researchers show component of mothballs is present in deep-space clouds
Researchers from the University of Georgia have just shown for the first time that one component of clouds emitting unusual infrared light know as the Unidentified Infrared Bands is a gaseous version of naphthalene, the chief component of mothballs back on Earth. The UIRs have been seen by astronomers for more than 30 years, but no one has ever identified what specific molecules cause these patterns.
National Science Foundation

Contact: Philiip Lee Williams
phil@franklin.uga.edu
706-542-8501
University of Georgia

Public Release: 26-Aug-2009
Atmospheric Environment
Tunnels concentrate air pollution by up to 1,000 times
A toxic cocktail of ultrafine particles is lurking inside road tunnels in concentration levels so high they have the potential to harm drivers and passengers, a new study has found.

Contact: Rachael Wilson
rachael.wilson@qut.edu.au
Queensland University of Technology

Public Release: 21-Aug-2009
Physical Review Letters
Dartmouth researchers propose new way to reproduce a black hole
Despite their popularity in the science fiction genre, there is much to be learned about black holes. In a paper published in the Aug. 20 issue of Physical Review Letters, the flagship journal of the American Physical Society, Dartmouth researchers propose a new way of creating a reproduction black hole in the laboratory on a much-tinier scale than their celestial counterparts.

Contact: Sue Knapp
sue.knapp@dartmouth.edu
603-646-3661
Dartmouth College

Public Release: 17-Aug-2009
Physical Review Journals
Vanquishing infinity
Quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of general relativity are both extremely accurate theories of how the universe works, but all attempts to combine the two into a unified theory have ended in failure. Now physicists have found a way to carry out a new set of gravity calculations with the help of an older theory that has been around since the 1980s.

Contact: James Riordon
riordon@aps.org
301-209-3238
American Physical Society

Public Release: 6-Aug-2009
LHC to run at 3.5 TeV for early part of 2009-2010 run rising later
CERN 's Large Hadron Collider will initially run at an energy of 3.5 TeV per beam when it starts up in November this year. This news comes after all tests on the machine's high-current electrical connections were completed last week, indicating that no further repairs are necessary for safe running.

Contact: James Gillies
press.office@cern.ch
41-764-874-555
CERN

Public Release: 3-Aug-2009
Story tips from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory -- Aug. 2009
One of ORNL's international partners, Switzerland's Paul Scherrer Institute, is delivering a massive 16-Tesla magnet at the DOE's SNS. A first-ever systematic study of the effectiveness of reverse 911 calls shows it worked like a charm. People producing child pornography and using the Internet to share their material could be living dangerously because of a technology developed at ORNL and Y-12 National Security Complex. Researchers at DOE's SNS at ORNL set a new world record.

Contact: Ron Walli
wallira@ornl.gov
865-576-0226
DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Public Release: 27-Jul-2009
Spallation Neutron Source sees first target replacement
Having outlasted all expectations of its service life, the original mercury target of the Spallation Neutron Source, the US Department of Energy Office of Science's record-setting neutron science facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is being replaced for the first time.

Contact: Bill Cabage
cabagewh@ornl.gov
865-574-4399
DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Public Release: 16-Jul-2009
New Journal of Physics
Quantum goes massive
An astrophysics experiment in America has demonstrated how fundamental research in one subject area can have a profound effect on work in another as the instruments used for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory pave the way for quantum experiments on a macroscopic scale.

Contact: Joe Winters
joseph.winters@iop.org
44-207-470-4815
Institute of Physics

Public Release: 15-Jul-2009
Laser technology creates new forms of metal and enhances aircraft performance
AFOSR-funded researchers at the University of Rochester are using laser light technology that will help the military create new forms of metal that may guide, attract and repel liquids and cool small electronic devices.
US Air Force Office of Scientific Research

Contact: Maria Callier
maria.callier@afosr.af.mil
703-696-7308
Air Force Office of Scientific Research

Public Release: 15-Jul-2009
Physical Review A
Researcher investigates the basis of Einstein's first approximation in the theory of relativity
In his discussion of accelerated motion on page 60 of "The Meaning of Relativity," Albert Einstein made an approximation that allowed him to develop the theory of relativity further. Einstein apparently never had the opportunity to check his original approximation. Now, a University of Missouri physicist has uncovered some clues about the basis of Einstein's theories and presented a more general approximation, which may better link quantum physics with classical physics.

Contact: Kelsey Jackson
JacksonKN@missouri.edu
573-882-8353
University of Missouri-Columbia

Public Release: 2-Jul-2009
Science
Pinpointing origin of gamma rays from a supermassive black hole
An international collaboration of 390 scientists reports the discovery of an outburst of very-high-energy gamma radiation from the giant radio galaxy Messier 87, accompanied by a strong rise of the radio flux measured from the direct vicinity of its super-massive black hole. The combined results give first experimental evidence that particles are accelerated to extremely high energies of tera electron Volt in the immediate vicinity of a supermassive black hole and then emit the observed gamma rays.
US Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, Smithsonian Institution, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Enterprise Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland, STFC

Contact: Henric Krawczynski
krawcz@wuphys.wustl.edu
314-803-8732
Washington University in St. Louis