As part of an international collaboration, a team at the HZB has examined the corrosion processes of high-quality BiVO4 photoelectrodes using different state-of-the-art characterisation methods. The result is the first operando stability study of high-purity BiVO4 photoanodes during the photoelectrochemical oxygen evolution reaction (OER). This work shows how the stability of photoelectrodes and catalysts can be compared and enhanced in the future. Hydrogen is a versatile fuel that can store and release chemical energy when needed. Hydrogen can be produced…
New publication: a clearer picture of the sequence of glacial and interglacial periods During the last 2.6 million years of Earth’s climate has altered between glacial and interglacial states. As such, there have been times in which the transition between the two climate states appeared with either regular or irregular periodicity. AWI researcher Peter Köhler has now discovered that the irregular appearance of interglacials has been more frequent than previously thought. His study makes a significant contribution to our understanding…
It still sounds unlikely today, but declines in insect numbers could well make it a frequent occurrence in the future: fields full of flowers, but not a bee in sight. A research group of the University of Jena and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle-Jena-Leipzig (iDiv) has discovered that insects have a decisive influence on the biodiversity and flowering phases of plants. If there is a lack of insects where the plants are growing, their flowering behaviour changes….
How optimally joined aluminum and fiber composite plastics contribute to climate protection In order to improve city air quality and protect the environment, many municipalities are planning to acquire electric refuse vehicles for their parks and pedestrian passages. However, these are equipped with heavy batteries or fuel cells and can therefore usually transport less waste than classic waste trucks with combustion engines. However, German engineers now intend to change this by using lightweight designs. To this end, the Fraunhofer Institute…
… as Great Hopes for Medicine and Biotechnology In the coming years, scientists at the Chair of Technical Biochemistry at TU Dresden will work on the genomic investigation of previously unexplored cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria are among the oldest forms of life and are of great ecological importance. In order to unlock the genetic potential of unusual cyanobacteria for the production of new active agents and to explore the potential for applications in biotechnology, the team headed by Dr Paul D’Agostino has…
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered a way to control the growth of twisting, microscopic spirals of materials just one atom thick. The continuously twisting stacks of two-dimensional materials built by a team led by UW-Madison chemistry Professor Song Jin create new properties that scientists can exploit to study quantum physics on the nanoscale. The researchers published their work today in the journal Science. “This is the current frontier of 2D material research. In the last few years,…
Social life as a driving factor of birds’ generosity. Ravens, crows, magpies and their relatives are known for their exceptional intelligence, which allows them to solve complex problems, use tools or outsmart their conspecifics. One capability, however, that we humans value highly, seems to be missing from their behavioral repertoire: generosity. Only very few species within the crow family have so far been found to act generously in experimental paradigms, while the highly intelligent ravens, for example, have demonstrated their…
‘Multi-ferroic’ materials in low-energy data storage. A new UNSW study comprehensively reviews the magnetic structure of the multiferroic material bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3 – BFO). The review advances FLEET’s search for low-energy electronics, bringing together current knowledge on the magnetic order in BFO films, and giving researchers a solid platform to further develop this material in low-energy magnetoelectric memories. BFO is unique in that it displays both magnetic and electronic ordering (ie, is ‘multiferroic’) at room temperature, allowing for low-energy switching…
Microscopy breakthrough reveals how proteins behave in 3D, enabling new insights into cell behavior and disease progression. Six years ago, the Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to three scientists for finding ways to visualize the pathways of individual molecules inside living cells. Now, researchers at the University of Rochester and the Fresnel Institute in France have found a way to visualize those molecules in even greater detail, showing their position and orientation in 3D, and even how they wobble…
By expanding on existing designs for electrodes of ultra-thin solar panels, Stanford researchers and collaborators in Korea have developed a new architecture for OLED – organic light-emitting diode – displays that could enable televisions, smartphones and virtual or augmented reality devices with resolutions of up to 10,000 pixels per inch (PPI). (For comparison, the resolutions of new smartphones are around 400 to 500 PPI.) Such high-pixel-density displays will be able to provide stunning images with true-to-life detail – something that…
Topological states of matter hold tremendous promise for potential applications in quantum technologies. The creation and control of such states on demand with short flashes of light is currently under intense investigation. Now an international collaboration of researchers involving a theory team at the MPSD has shown that short-lived topological states can be tracked with equally short light flashes spiraling like a corkscrew. In the past decade, quantum materials science has seen a surge in the quest for topological materials….
Most diseases are caused by aberrant cell signaling processes and basic research in cell signaling is needed to identify targets for future therapeutic approaches, especially in cases where no cures or effective treatments are currently available. Cellular optogenetics uses light to precisely control cell signaling in space and over time, making it an invaluable technique for disease research. However, this potentially revolutionary method has been difficult for many researchers to use as, over long periods of time, the used light…
Researchers discover how water can affect its own filtration. Membranes with microscopic pores are useful for water filtration. The effect of pore size on water filtration is well-understood, as is the role of ions, charged atoms, that interact with the membrane. For the first time, researchers have successfully described the impact water molecules have on other water molecules and on ions as part of the filtration mechanism. The researchers detail a feedback system between water molecules which opens up new…
The distribution of group interactions in a social network affects the critical point at which explosive jumps in opinion, popularity, or disease spread occur. Contagion processes, such as opinion formation or disease spread, can reach a tipping point, where the contagion either rapidly spreads or dies out. When modeling these processes, it is difficult to capture this complex transition, making the conditions that affect the tipping point a challenge to uncover. In the journal Chaos, from AIP Publishing, Nicholas Landry…
Metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, are composed of metal ions periodically surrounded by organic bridging molecules, and these hybrid crystalline frameworks feature a cage-like hollow structure. This unique structure motif offers great potential for a range of applications in energy storage, chemical transformations, optoelectronics, chemiresistive sensing, and (photo)electrocatalysis, among others. Debuted in the early 2000s, MOFs are a fascinating nanomaterial. Though numerous applications exploit MOFs, little has been known as to how oxygen may work in the synthesis of MOFs. Led…
Hitting a specific point on a screen with a laser pointer during a presentation isn’t easy – even the tiniest nervous shaking of the hand becomes one big scrawl at a distance. Now imagine having to do that with several laser pointers at once. That is exactly the problem faced by physicists who try to build quantum computers using individual trapped atoms. They, too, need to aim laser beams – hundreds or even thousands of them in the same apparatus…
Feedback
