Nano News: 05/08/15

Squeezing light for stronger vibrations

An efficient optomechanical system utilizing ‘squeezed’ states of light has been designed by a RIKEN-led research team ("Squeezed Optomechanics with Phase-Matched Amplification and Dissipation"). The scheme makes it possible to implement quantum processes based on single light particles, or photons, using currently available optomechanical technology,...

Researchers match physical and virtual atomic friction experiments

Technological limitations have made studying friction on the atomic scale difficult, but researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Merced, have now made advances in that quest on two fronts. By speeding up a real atomic force microscope and slowing down a simulation of one, the team has conducted the first atomic-scale...

Superlubricity gets quantified for the first time

Leonardo da Vinci first discovered the sliding rules of friction hundreds of years ago, and since that time our scientific understanding of the force is well known — that is until you reach the nanoscale. For example, it was only recently that scientists were able to verify the lack of friction, known as superlubricity, in graphite at the atomic scale...