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Treating cancer with beams of high-energy protons is just one of the exciting possibilities presented by the advent of laser-based particle accelerators. But how soon will these devices reach the performance levels needed for such applications, and how will these improvements be made?
Depending on the temperature, the flow of current between two reservoirs of superfluid 4He exhibits phase slippage — a mechanism that creates vortices and leads to energy dissipation — or Josephson oscillations when the apertures connecting the reservoirs behave as a weak link.
The role of phonons in conventional superconductivity — first determined by isotope substitution — has been known for over half a century. But identifying the mechanism in unconventional superconductivity is a much more challenging affair.
The observation of macroscopic quantum coherent behaviour by a single polymer chain provides an important model system for studying the physics of reduced dimensionality, unperturbed by the disorder that can complicate the study of conventional inorganic systems.
