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EPJ E Highlight - Biomimetic dew harvesters
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- Published on 02 December 2014
Understanding how a desert beetle harvests water from dew could help to improve drinking water collection in dew condensers mimicking the nanostructure of the beetle’s back
Insects are full of marvels—and this is certainly the case with a beetle from the Tenebrionind family, found in the extreme conditions of the Namib desert. Now, a team of scientists has demonstrated that such insects can collect dew on their backs—and not just fog as previously thought. This is made possible by the wax nanostructure on the surface of the beetle’s elytra. These findings by José Guadarrama-Cetina, then working at ESPCI ParisTech, France—on leave from the University of Navarra, in Spain—and colleagues were recently published in EPJ E. They bring us a step closer to harvesting dew to make drinking water from the humidity in the air. This, the team hopes, can be done by improving the water yield of man-made dew condensers that mimick the nanostructure on the beetle’s back.
EPJ B Highlight - When noise gets electrons moving
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- Published on 02 December 2014
A new study demonstrates the existence of a counter-intuitive current, induced by the sound-based equivalent of a laser, with applications in novel microscopic semiconductor devices
Studying the motion of electrons in a disordered environment is no simple task, mainly because given the effect occurring at the scale of interest—referred to as quantum scale—these electrons are otherwise impossible to examine, due to the presence of incidental phenomena. Often, understanding such effects requires a quantum simulator designed to expose them in a different physical setup. This is precisely the approach adopted by Denis Makarov and Leonid Kon’kov from the Victor I. Il’ichev Pacific Oceanological Institute in Vladivostok in a new study published in EPJ B. They relied on a simulator of electronic motion subjected to noise stemming from a flux of sound waves. These findings could lead to semi-conductor devices of a new kind, operated through acoustic radiations.
EPJ B Colloquium - Tensor network theory
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- Published on 01 December 2014
Tensor Network (TN) states are a new language, based on entanglement, for quantum many-body states. Román Orús, in a new EPJ B Colloquium, reviews four theoretical developments in TN states for strongly correlated systems.
EPJ D Highlight - Atoms crystallised by light for precision measurement
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- Published on 26 November 2014
A new study focuses on the collective dynamics of illuminated atoms coupled to photons travelling in a nanofiber
Theoretical physicists have uncovered the existence of self-organised dynamics of atoms, bound by light into a crystal, with long range atom-atom interactions. These findings were recently published in EPJ D by Daniela Holzmann from the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and colleagues. This approach could, among others, help to better understand the process of crystallisation in new materials, and help implement efficient photon storage and precision measurements. Applied to ultra-cold atoms, it could aid in the study of long-distance interactions in the quantum dynamics of one-dimensional non- conventional materials, referred to as exotic matter.
EPJ B Highlight - Taming neural excitations
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- Published on 25 November 2014
A theoretical study of short- and long-range effects on neural excitation pulses might one day lead to controlling harmful signals such as those in strokes
What do lasers, neural networks, and spreading epidemics have in common? They share a most basic feature whereby an initial pulse can propagate through a medium—be it physical, biological or socio-economic, respectively. The challenge is to gain a better understanding—and eventually control—of such systems, allowing them to be applied, for instance to real neural systems. This is the objective of a new theoretical study published in EPJ B by Clemens Bachmair and Eckehard Schöll from the Berlin University of Technology in Germany. Ultimately, with a better theoretical understanding, scientists aim to control such excitations in networks of neurons to prevent their detrimental effects like in stroke.
EPJ D Colloquium - Multiscale approach to the physics of radiation damage with ions
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- Published on 24 November 2014
In this EPJ D Colloquium, the authors review the multiscale approach to the assessment of biodamage that results from the irradiation of biological media with ions. This approach is explained in depth and compared to other approaches. The ion propagation processes that take place in the medium concurrent with ionisation and excitation of molecules, transport of secondary products, dynamics of the medium, and biological damage, take place on a number of different temporal, spatial and energy scales. The multiscale approach, a physical phenomenon-based analysis of the scenario that leads to radiation damage, has been designed to consider all relevant effects on a variety of scales and to enable quantitative assessment of biological damage as a result of irradiation with ions.
EPJ D Colloquium - Laser selective spectromicroscopy of myriad single molecules: tool for far-field multicolour materials nanodiagnostics
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- Published on 14 November 2014
In this EPJ D Colloquium, the authors discuss the main principles, achievements and perspectives in the fields of highly-parallel luminescence spectroscopy and the imaging of single molecules (SMs) in transparent solids. Special attention is given to SM detection at low temperatures, where ultranarrow and bright zero-phonon lines (ZPLs) can be generated by emitting centres for observation.
EPJ H Highlight - Penrose’s and Hawking’s early math award
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- Published on 11 November 2014
Find out how Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking won recognition for their work on space time singularities back in the sixties, suggesting an initial start to the universe
In 1966, it was Roger Penrose who won the prestigious Adams prize for his essay: An Analysis of the Structure of Space Time. The Adams prize—named after the British mathematician John Couch Adams—is awarded each year by the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge to a young, UK-based mathematician. At the same time, Stephen Hawking won an auxiliary to the Adams prize for an essay entitled Singularities and the Geometry of Spacetime, shortly after completing his PhD. A copy of the original submission has now been reproduced in EPJ H.
EPJ B Video - Competent Editorial Staff and Quick Handling System
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- Published on 10 November 2014
Here's why you should publish your article on condensed matter or complex systems in EPJ B.
EPJ B Colloquium - Femto-nano-optics: ultrafast nonlinearity of metal nanoparticles
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- Published on 05 November 2014
A deep understanding of the internal dynamics of metal nanoparticles, through the measurement of their time resolved optical response, requires detailed modeling of the physical processes involved. This EPJ B Colloquium explores the nonlinear ultrafast optical response of metal nanoparticles which can be obtained experimentally in ensembles and single nanoparticles, through femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy.
