Scientists in the UK and US have shown how to increase photovoltaic efficiencies by attaching nanocrystal quantum dots to patterned semiconductor layers. The approach exploits the phenomenon of non-radiative energy transfer and could, say the researchers, lead to a new generation of more efficient solar cells.

Physicists have teleported quantum information between two atoms separated by a significant distance, for the first time. Until now this feat had only been achieved between photons, and between two nearby atoms through the intermediary action of a third. “Our system has the potential to form the basis for a large-scale ‘quantum repeater’ that can network quantum memories over vast distances” said group leader Christopher Munroe of the University of Maryland.

Two years ago researchers at Duke University in the US unveiled the first “invisibility cloak” — a device that can make objects vanish from sight, at least when viewed using a narrow band of microwave frequencies. Now, Ulf Leonhardt of St Andrew’s University in the UK and Tomás Tyc of Masaryk University in the Czech Republic have come up with a new way of using mathematics to describe a invisibility cloak (Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1166332).

On his blog Bruce Schneier writes "I'm always in favor of security research, and I have enjoyed following the developments in quantum cryptography. But as a product, it has no future. It's not that quantum cryptography might be insecure; it's that cryptography is already sufficiently secure."