Programmable materials are true shapeshifters. They can change their characteristics in a controlled and reversible way with the push of a button, independently adapting to fit new conditions. They can be used, for example, to make comfy chairs or mattresses that prevent bedsores. To produce these, the support is formed in such a way that the contact surface is large which, as a result, lowers the pressure on parts of the body. This type of programmable material is being developed…
Georgia Tech researchers developed a new nanoelectronics platform based on graphene – a single sheet of carbon atoms. A pressing quest in the field of nanoelectronics is the search for a material that could replace silicon. Graphene has seemed promising for decades. But its potential faltered along the way, due to damaging processing methods and the lack of a new electronics paradigm to embrace it. With silicon nearly maxed out in its ability to accommodate faster computing, the next big…
Titanium oxides found to significantly increase efficiency and photoluminescence. White LEDs may soon be dethroned as the world’s go-to light source by an alternative with a much better sense of direction. As a next-generation optical control technology, a photonic crystal or nanoantenna is a two-dimensional structure in which nano-sized particles are arranged periodically on a substrate. Upon irradiation, the combination of a nanoantennawith a phosphor plate achieves an ideal mix of blue and yellow light. White LEDs have already been improved upon in the form of white…
When a material with magnetic properties, constructed from appropriately selected layers, is illuminated by a pulse from an X-ray laser, it instantly demagnetises. This phenomenon, so far poorly understood, could in the future be used in nanoelectronics, to build, for example, ultrafast magnetic switches. An important step toward this goal is a new simulation tool developed by a Polish-German-Italian team of scientists as part of a joint research project between the European XFEL and IFJ PAN. No information-processing device can operate at a speed…
Fast ‘green’ process revives essential battery components for reuse. How many rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are you wearing? How many are in your general vicinity? Probably more than a few, and they’re great for powering all the things important to modern lives: cellphones, watches, computers, cars and so much more. But where they go when they fail is a growing problem. Rice University scientists believe they have a partial solution that relies on the unique “flash” Joule heating process they developed to produce graphene…
A new study reveals the profound properties of a simple metal alloy. Scientists have measured the highest toughness ever recorded, of any material, while investigating a metallic alloy made of chromium, cobalt, and nickel (CrCoNi). Not only is the metal extremely ductile – which, in materials science, means highly malleable – and impressively strong (meaning it resists permanent deformation), its strength and ductility improve as it gets colder. This runs counter to most other materials in existence. The team, led…
Using a new analytical method, Empa researchers have tracked viruses as they pass through face masks and compared their failure on the filter layers of different types of masks. The new method should now accelerate the development of surfaces that can kill viruses, the team writes in the journal Scientific Reports. Using high pressure, the apparatus pushes artificial saliva fluid, colored in red, with test particles through a stretched mask. This is how the researchers simulate the process of a…
Contactless manipulation method could be used in industries such as robotics and manufacturing. University of Minnesota Twin Cities researchers have discovered a new method to move objects using ultrasound waves. The research opens the door for using contactless manipulation in industries such as manufacturing and robotics, where devices wouldn’t need a built-in power source in order to move. The study is published in Nature Communications, a peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal. While it’s been demonstrated before that light and sound waves…
International research team discovers novel quantum state. Water that simply will not freeze, no matter how cold it gets – a research group involving the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has discovered a quantum state that could be described in this way. Experts from the Institute of Solid State Physics at the University of Tokyo in Japan, Johns Hopkins University in the United States, and the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems (MPI-PKS) in Dresden, Germany, managed to cool…
Until now, it has been extremely tedious to perform measurements with high sensitivity and high spatial resolution using X-ray light in the tender energy range of 1.5 – 5.0 keV. Yet this X-ray light is ideal for investigating energy materials such as batteries or catalysts, but also biological systems. A team from HZB has now solved this problem: The newly developed monochromator optics increase the photon flux in the tender energy range by a factor of 100 and thus enable…
A soft and flexible electronic “e-skin,” so sensitive it can detect the minute temperature difference between an inhaled and an exhaled breath, could form the basis of a new form of on-skin biosensor. The ultrathin material is also sensitive to touch and body motion, suggesting a wide array of potential applications. “The skin plays a vital role in our interactions with the world,” says Vincent Tung from KAUST, who led the work. “Recreating its properties in an e-skin could have…
The system regulates its own temperature in response to environmental disturbances. Researchers have developed a synthetic system that responds to environmental changes in the same way as living organisms, using a feedback loop to maintain its internal conditions. This not only keeps the material’s conditions stable but also makes it possible to build mechanisms that react dynamically to their environment, an important trait for interactive materials and soft robotics. Living systems, from individual cells up to organisms, use feedback systems…
KIT researchers develop a chip that captures microbial dark matter in air, water, and soil – new tool for biotechnology and medicine. From human intestines to the bottom of the sea: Microorganisms populate nearly any habitat, no matter how hostile it is. Their great variety of survival strategies is of huge potential in biotechnology. Most of these organisms, however, are unknown, because they cannot be cultivated. To make better use of this “microbial dark matter”, a team of researchers from…
… new compounds of lanthanum and hydrogen. All superconductors known today that are used in research and industry are superconducting only below 150 degrees Kelvin (around minus 120 degrees Celsius). Materials that have this property at higher temperatures are therefore being sought worldwide. Based on theoretical modeling, hydrides have increasingly come into focus. An international research team led by scientists from the University of Bayreuth now reports in “Nature Communications” on new compounds of lanthanum and hydrogen synthesized under high…
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have created grids of tiny clumps of atoms known as quantum dots and studied what happens when electrons dive into these archipelagos of atomic islands. Measuring the behavior of electrons in these relatively simple setups promises deep insights into how electrons behave in complex real-world materials and could help researchers engineer devices that make possible powerful quantum computers and other innovative technologies. In work published in Nature Communications, the researchers…
Scientists learn how horseshoe crab sees through its cuticle lenses. An international team of scientists explained how horseshoe crab builds rudimentary but highly efficient compound eyes using the cuticle – a material that typically forms the exoskeleton of an animal. The primitive compound eyes of a horseshoe crab are one the largest to be found in nature. In contrast to many insects and spiders that build their eyes from glassy proteins, the horseshoe crab uses cuticle, the same material that…
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