A Two-Dimensional Electron Liquid Solidifies in a Magnetic Field
01.01.70
(Media-Newswire.com) - Physicists from the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a theory that describes, in a unified manner, the coexistence of liquid and pinned solid phases of electrons in two dimensions under the influence of a magnetic field. The theory also describes the transition between these phases as the field is varied. The theoretical predictions by Constantine Yannouleas and Uzi Landman, from Georgia Tech’s School of Physics, aim to explain and provide insights into the origins of experimental findings published last year by a team of researchers from Princeton, Florida State and Purdue universities. The research appears in the October 27 edition of the journal Physical Review B.
The experimental discovery in 1982 of a new Hall conductance step at a fraction ν=1/m with m=3, that is at ( 1/3 )e2/h ( with more conductance steps, at other m, found later ) – where h is the Planck constant and e is the electron charge – was made for two-dimensional
Source: Media Newswire (press release)
Microwave tomography system helps detect cancer in 3-D
01.01.70
A research team from Chalmers University of Technology (Gothenburg, Sweden) has designed a microwave tomography system that could be used to diagnose breast cancer.
The system currently consists of 30 microwave transmitter/receivers arranged in circular fashion. The microwave radiation from the transmitters spreads out in a complex pattern across the breast and is then captured by the receivers, after which software reconstructs an image of the breast tissue in three dimensions.
Andreas Fhager, the associate professor of biomedical electromagnetics at Chalmers who developed the system, said that the 3-D images obtained from it show significantly better contrast between healthy and malignant tissue compared to x-ray-based systems. That makes it easier to detect really small tumors that may currently be obscured by healthy tissue. Unlike x-ray systems , the new system also emits negligible doses of nonionizing radiation.
With time, the Chalmers team hope to be able to use the system to not only detect the location of cancerous tissues but also to heat and destroy them with microwave radiation from the transmitters.
Source: Vision Systems Design