Researchers at the University of Warwick and Oxford University have developed a form of crystal that can deliver highly accurate temperature readings, down to individual milli-kelvins, over a very broad range of temperatures: -120 to +680 degrees centigrade.

The researchers used a “birefringent” crystal which splits light passing through it into two separate rays. Research has already shown that the size of the effect will increase or decrease in proportion to the temperature of the crystal. Therefore, in theory, you could calibrate such crystals to be highly accurate temperature gauges.

However, the use of birefringence in this way has significant problems in practice. This temperature measuring ability of highly birefringent crystals is badly compromised by changes in the thickness and orientation of the crystal. This adds expense to the manufacture and calibration of such crystals and makes them almost unusable in situations where, for example, vibration could alter the orientation of the crystal.

However the Warwick and Oxford researchers have developed a reproducible and low-cost method of modifying the properties of crystalline lithium tantalate so that its birefringence is virtually independent of the crystal’s thickness and position making it resistant to vibration and cheaper to manufacture. In fact, they have made the birefringence almost zero in magnitude in all directions (the material is close to being optically isotropic just like ordinary glass). However, the slightest temperature change induces a rapid increase in birefringence in these materials, making this a reliable, robust and very sensitive method for measuring temperature. The inventors have named their device a Zero-Birefringence Optical Temperature Sensor (Z-BotS) and are currently seeking follow-on funding to develop the device from the bench-top proof-of-concept to a miniaturized commercially-viable package.

(via Research gives crystal clear temperature readings from toughest environments)

Scientists show how to erase information without using energy

Until now, scientists have thought that the process of erasing information requires energy. But a new study shows that, theoretically, information can be erased without using any energy at all. Instead, the cost of erasure can be paid in terms of another conserved quantity, such as spin angular momentum.

In the study, physicists Joan Vaccaro from Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, and Stephen Barnett from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK, have quantitatively described how information can be erased without any energy, and they also explain why the result is not as contentious as it first appears. Their paper is published in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society A.

Traditionally, the process of erasing information requires a cost that is calculated in terms of energy – more specifically, heat dissipation. In 1961, Rolf Landauer argued that there was a minimum amount of energy required to erase one bit of information, i.e. to put a bit in the logical zero state. The energy required is positively related to the temperature of the system’s thermal reservoir, and can be thought of as the system’s thermodynamic entropy. As such, this entropy is considered to be a fundamental cost of erasing a bit of information.

However, Vaccaro and Barnett have shown that an energy cost can be fully avoided by using a reservoir based on something other than energy, such as spin angular momentum. Subatomic particles have spin angular momentum, a quantity that, like energy, must be conserved. Basically, instead of heat being exchanged between a qubit and thermal reservoir, discrete quanta of angular momentum are exchanged between a qubit and spin reservoir. The scientists described how repeated logic operations between the qubit’s spin and a secondary spin in the zero state eventually result in both spins reaching the logical zero state. Most importantly, the scientists showed that the cost of erasing the qubit’s memory is given in terms of the quantity defining the logic states, which in this case is spin angular momentum and not energy.

Longstanding Mystery of Sun’s Hot Outer Atmosphere Solved - US National Science Foundation (NSF)

One of the most enduring mysteries in solar physics is why the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, is millions of degrees hotter than its surface.

Now scientists believe they have discovered a major source of hot gas that replenishes the corona: jets of plasma shooting up from just above the Sun’s surface.

The finding addresses a fundamental question in astrophysics: how energy is moved from the Sun’s interior to create its hot outer atmosphere.

“It’s always been quite a puzzle to figure out why the Sun’s atmosphere is hotter than its surface,” says Scott McIntosh, a solar physicist at the High Altitude Observatory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., who was involved in the study.

“By identifying that these jets insert heated plasma into the Sun’s outer atmosphere, we can gain a much greater understanding of that region and possibly improve our knowledge of the Sun’s subtle influence on the Earth’s upper atmosphere.”

The research, results of which are published this week in the journal Science, was conducted by scientists from Lockheed Martin’s Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory (LMSAL), NCAR, and the University of Oslo. It was supported by NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCAR’s sponsor.

Maxwell’s demon: Applied demonology | The Economist

“Szilard’s observation had an interesting implication, which was that information is, itself, a type of energy—an observation somewhat analogous to Einstein’s, 24 years earlier, that mass is a type of energy. Only now, however, has a team of physicists, led by Shoichi Toyabe of Chuo University in Tokyo, been able to prove Szilard’s principle of information/energy equivalence by building a working example of Maxwell’s demon. ”

The Flow of Energy in the United States

(Click on the infographic for science-y flash-rendered fun.)

unknownskywalker:

A Puzzling Collapse of Earth’s Upper Atmosphere

The thermosphere, an upper layer of Earth’s atmosphere recently collapsed in an unexpectedly large contraction and is now rebounding again, the sheer size of which has scientists scratching their heads. This type of collapse is not rare, but its magnitude shocked scientists. It’s the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years.

The collapse occurred during a period of relative solar inactivity – called a solar minimum from 2008 to 2009. These minimums are known to cool and contract the thermosphere, however, the recent collapse was two to three times greater than low solar activity could explain.

The thermosphere lies high above the Earth’s surface, it ranges in altitude from 90 km to 600 km above the ground. At this height, satellites and meteors fly and auroras shine. This layer intercepts extreme ultraviolet light (EUV) from the sun before it can reach the ground and it’s very affected by periods of high or low solar activity. When solar activity is high, solar EUV warms the thermosphere, causing it to puff up like a marshmallow held over a camp fire. When solar activity is low, the opposite occurs.

To calculate the collapse, scientists analyzed the decay rates of more than 5,000 satellites orbiting above Earth between 1967 and 2010. This provided a space-time sampling of thermospheric density, temperature, and pressure covering almost the entire Space Age.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) in the thermosphere might play a role in explaining the atmospheric collapse. This gas acts as a coolant, shedding heat via infrared radiation. It is widely-known that CO2 levels have been increasing in Earth’s atmosphere. Extra CO2 in the thermosphere could have magnified the cooling action of solar minimum.

But the numbers don’t quite add up. Even when we take CO2 into account using our best understanding of how it operates as a coolant, the thermosphere’s collapse cannot be fully explained. The researchers hope further monitoring of the upper atmosphere will help them get to the bottom of the situation.

Source: Science@NASA