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School of Physics
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Research News

Shaken Up: Atomic Force Microscopy Shows Liquids Adjust Viscosity when Confined, Shanken
Getting ketchup out of the bottle isn’t always easy. However, shaking the bottle before trying to pour allows the thick, gooey ketchup to flow more freely because it becomes more fluid when agitated. The opposite is not typically true – a liquid such as water does not become a gel when shaken.
Click on link below to view article:
http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/newsrelease/confined-fluids.htm
(Press Release April 29, 2008)

And the lizard is the winner
Online publisher, Naturenews reported that Professor Dan Goldman and his group has discovered a way to predict, from the size and mass of an animal’s foot, how much speed it will lose as the material over which the animal is moving changes, e.g., from hard packed to loose sand. These findings may help design better robots for planetary exploration and other purposes. To read the article, go to Finding_the_best_foot_forward___Nature_News
To see short videos, www.nature.com/nature/newsvideo/sandbot.wmv.
gecko-movie
(Nature, March 12, 2008)

Technology Review
Technology Review, a MIT publication, presented the ten most exciting, world-changing technology of the year and Walt de Heer's idea of using graphene for electronics was recognized as one of these technologies.

They reported "This year, as every year, we present our list of the 10 technologies we find most exciting and most likely to alter industries, fields of research,and even the way we live.

The list comprises projects in a broad range."
The selected 10 emerging technologies are picked from very different areas – biology, medicine, psychology, material science, physics, and so forth. It is quite an achievement to be selected as one of the ten technologies that the Review thinks "…are most likely to change the way we live."
See – Link taken from 2008, Technology Review Inc. http://www.technologyreview.com/specialreports/
specialreport.aspx?id=25

Physicists Discover Gold Can Be Magnetic on the Nanoscale
Physicists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have made two important findings regarding gold on the nanoscale. They found that applying an electrical field on a surface-supported gold nanocluster changes its structure from a three-dimensional one to a planar flat structure. In another paper, they relate their discovery that gold in this size regime can be made magnetic through oxygenation of gold nanowires.
(Press Release February 28, 2008)

DRAWING NANOSCALE FEATURES THE FAST AND EASY WAY
Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new technique for nanolithography that is extremely fast and capable of being used in a range of environments including air (outside a vacuum) and liquids. Researchers have demonstrated the technique, known as thermochemical nanolithography, as a proof of concept.
(Press Release September 10, 2007)

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER NEW WAY TO STUDY NANOSTRUCTURES
Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered a phenomenon which allows measurement of the mechanical motion of nanostructures by using the AC Josephson effect. The findings, which may be used to identify and characterize structural and mechanical properties of nanoparticles, including materials of biological interest, appear online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
(Press Release July 24, 2007)

WATER FLOWS LIKE MOLASSES ON THE NANOSCALE
A Georgia Tech research team has discovered that water exhibits very different properties when it is confined to channels less than two nanometers wide – behaving much like a viscous fluid with a viscosity approaching that of molasses.
(Press Release April 25, 2007 )

FLUID DYNAMICS WORKS ON NANOSCALE IN REAL WORLD
In 2000, Georgia Tech researchers showed that fluid dynamics theory could be modified to work on the nanoscale, albeit in a vacuum. Now, seven years later they've shown that it can be modified to work in the real world, too – that is, outside of a vacuum.
(Press Release February 23, 2007 )

SCIENTISTS FIND WHY CONDUCTANCE OF NANOWIRES VARY
A Georgia Tech physics group has discovered how and why the electrical conductance of metal nanowires changes as their length varies. In a collaborative investigation performed by an experimental team and a theoretical physics team, the group discovered that measured fluctuations in
(Press Release February 5, 2007 )

GT PHYSICIST USESES FLUIDIZED BED OF SAND TO STUDY ANIMAL LOCOMOTION
Daniel Goldman, a recently hired Assistant Professor in the School of Physics, has discovered that fluidized beds provide a way to control the strength of the ground to study how crabs and lizards scamper rapidly on sand.
(Press Release January 19, 2007 )

GT SCIENTISTS CREATE A RING-SHAPED ATOM LASER
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the groups of Chandra Raman and Brian Kennedy have realized a technique to circumvent the velocity broadening using a conical matter wave lens. The repulsive force exerted by a focused laser beam was used to launch a Bose-Einstein...
(Press Release October 25, 2006 )

Graphite Provides New Foundation for Circuitry

Graphite, the material that gives pencils their marking ability, could be the basis for a new class of nanometer-scale electronic devices that have the attractive properties of carbon nanotubes, but could be produced using established microelectronics manufacturing techniques.
(Press Release March 14, 2006 )

Researchers Take Key Step Toward Quantum Memory

Storage and retrieval of single photon demonstrates rudimentary quantum network
(Press Release December 7, 2005 )

SPINS MIXED UP
An atomic Bose–Einstein condensate represents a highly correlated, coherent state of matter. Experiments now reveal that the collective matter-wave properties extend to include coherent dynamics of the spin degrees of freedom.
(November 2005 )

Math Unites The Celestial And The Atomic

There is an almost perfect parallel between the mathematics describing celestial mechanics and the mathematics governing some aspects of atomic physics. (more)

Energized Mathematics

Tech physics professor Mike Schatz and Mischaikow will collaborate with researchers from George Mason and Florida Atlantic universities in the three-year project.
(Press Release October 1, 2005 )

Converting Quantum Bits

Physicists Transfer Information Between Matter and Light; First Step for Quantum Networking
(Press Release October 24, 2004)

THE INVENTION OF THE GENOUILLE TECHNIQUE
Dr. Trebino's group (in collaboration with his start-up company, Swamp Optics) has won a Circle of Excellence award given by Photonics Spectra magazine for the 25 most innovative optics inventions of the year. This award is for the invention of the GRENOUILLE technique for measuring the intensity and phase of ultrashort laser pulses and their spatio-temporal distortions.
(Press Release July 11, 2003 )

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