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Chinese, U.S. Physicists Yield Co-research Fruits of Nanoscale Particles

Jul 23, 2018

Chinese, U.S. physicists yield co-research fruits
Chinese and U.S. physicists have produced record-breaking nanoscale particles that spin 1 million times faster than a jet engine, a discovery that Chinese experts said shows that scientists from both countries yearn to cooperate against the backdrop of a U.S. scientific blockade.

The 320 nanometer long, 170 nanometer wide dumbbell-shaped particle was produced using silica material and can rotate 1 billion revolutions a second, Physical Review Letters reported Friday.  

A jet engine can rotate no faster than 1,000 times a second before falling apart, according to the peer-reviewed scientific journal published 52 times a year by the American Physical Society. 

The research was led by Purdue University cooperating with Chinese scientists from Peking University, Tsinghua University and the Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, the Xinhua News Agency reported.  

The device was set in a vacuum where a laser was used to levitate the dumbbell and let it spin.  

When the laser pulsed, the dumbbell vibrated, meaning the device might be used to analyze vacuum friction, U.S. news agency United Press International reported.  

"Though minimal, friction exists in a vacuum such as outer space," Cao Zhen, a research fellow at Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, told the Global Times. "That's why satellites also slow in space." 

Further research into vacuum friction could help estimate friction in space and amount of fuel a satellite should carry, according to Cao.  

This is not the only joint research project by Chinese and U.S. scientists, experts say.  

In 2018, the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the U.S. National Science Foundation agreed to provide financial support for joint projects in biological diversity research, news portal sciencenet.cn reported.   

Researchers from both countries "always had the willingness to cooperate on programs in which both sides are interested, regardless of the blockade or trade war," said Chen Hua, a research fellow at Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. 

Research cooperation truly has been limited in recent years by the U.S. "blockade," Chen said, "which is not good for both countries." (Global Times) 

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