The world’s smallest light-trapping silicon cavity

In this episode:00:48 A gap for trapping lightConfining photons within materials opens up potential applications in quantum computing and telecommunications. But capturing light requires nanoscale cavities, which are difficult to make. This week, a team has created the smallest silicon gap yet for this purpose, just two nano-metres wide, by exploiting the intermolecular forces that are usually an obstacle when creating such small structures. They show this gap can trap light effectively, but they also believe that their method could be used to create tiny cavities for use in a range of different fields.Research Article: Babar et al.News and Views: Self-assembling structures close the gap to trap light07:28 Research HighlightsResearchers head into the wilderness to search for dark matter, and the discovery that bottlenose dolphins can sense weak magnetic fields.Research Highlight: The hunt for dark-matter particles ventures into the wildResearch Highlight: Dolphins have a feel for electric fields09:54 The environmental cost of tackling povertyExtreme poverty, defined as living on less than US$2.15 a day, affects around 10% of the world’s population. In the past, economic growth has generally been seen as key to reducing poverty; however, such growth has also led to an increase in climate-warming emissions. To find out whether poverty can be tackled without costing the planet, a team of researchers modelled how different levels of economic growth would affect global emissions. They found that ending poverty has only a negligible impact on emissions, which could be lowered even further by decarbonising energy production.Research Article: Wollburg et al.News and Views: Tackling extreme poverty around the world need not impede climate actionNews: Catastrophic change looms as Earth nears climate ‘tipping points’, report saysNews: Scientists skip COP28 to demand climate action at home18:36 Briefing ChatScientists create a robotic octopus arm that you can control with a finger, and how disruptive science seems to elude farflung teams. Nature News: How does it feel to have an octopus arm? This robo-tentacle lets people find outNature News: ‘Disruptive’ science: in-person teams make more breakthroughs than remote groupsSubscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.