Proton implantation prior to device fabrication could unlock the true potential of silicon carbide as a reliable semiconductor material. Silicon carbide (SiC) is a semiconductor material that outperforms pure silicon-based semiconductors in several applications. Used mostly in power inverters, motor drives, and battery chargers, SiC devices offer benefits such as a high power density and reduced power losses at high frequencies even at high voltages. Although these properties and its relatively low cost make SiC a promising contender in various…

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…

Inexpensive catalyst uses energy from light to turn ammonia into hydrogen fuel. Rice University researchers have engineered a key light-activated nanomaterial for the hydrogen economy. Using only inexpensive raw materials, a team from Rice’s Laboratory for Nanophotonics, Syzygy Plasmonics Inc. and Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment created a scalable catalyst that needs only the power of light to convert ammonia into clean-burning hydrogen fuel. The research is published online today in the journal Science. The research follows government and industry investment to create infrastructure and markets…

The Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems IWES has successfully completed a boulder detection campaign off the coast of the island of Rügen in the German Baltic Sea on behalf of 50Hertz. In order to allow efficient planning of the grid operator’s new offshore platform seismic measuring techniques have been employed to detect boulders below the sea-floor in. This innovative process allows identification of large rocks up to 100 m below the seafloor. That enables planning of windfarms and platforms…

… 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…

Theory-guided development of an easier, more versatile process for synthesizing unsymmetric ligands provides new avenues of exploration in transitional metal catalysis. Researchers at the Institute for Chemical Reaction Design and Discovery (WPI-ICReDD) have discovered the key to synthesizing a molecular tool that could greatly expand the variety of catalytic reactions possible with transition metals. The team has taken a well-established set of compounds that can be used to make transition metal catalysts and developed a simple, radical-based reaction for creating…

– from contact lenses to latex gloves. Researchers from North Carolina State University have demonstrated a new technique for directly printing electronic circuits onto curved and corrugated surfaces. The work paves the way for a variety of new soft electronic technologies, and researchers have used the technique to create prototype “smart” contact lenses, pressure-sensitive latex gloves, and transparent electrodes. “There are many existing techniques for creating printed electronics using various materials, but limitations exist,” says Yong Zhu, corresponding author of…

The automotive industry is working intensively on autonomous driving – a demanding and multifaceted challenge. The Cognitive Neuroinformatics working group at the University of Bremen, headed by Professor Kerstin Schill, has contributed important research findings to the development of advanced driver assistance systems as part of a cooperation project with automotive supplier Continental. With the help of artificial intelligence, complex traffic situations can now be more easily identified. PRORETA 5 is the name of the research project that the automotive…

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…

A new model now describes the boiling process with much greater precision. When a liquid boils in a vessel, tiny vapor bubbles form at the bottom and rise, transferring heat in the process. How these small bubbles grow and eventually detach was previously not known in any great detail. A German-Chinese research team under the leadership of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden Rossendorf (HZDR) has now managed to fundamentally expand this understanding. The findings could be applied to future cooling systems for…

… thanks to new microscope. A team of scientists from the Department of Energy’s Ames National Laboratory developed a new characterization tool that allowed them to gain unique insight into a possible alternative material for solar cells. Under the leadership of Jigang Wang, senior scientist from Ames Lab, the team developed a microscope that uses terahertz waves to collect data on material samples. The team then used their microscope to explore Methylammonium Lead Iodide (MAPbI3) perovskite, a material that could…

Strongest increase since 1990 in Europe. Despite many efforts to curb urban sprawl, it continues to progress dramatically. From 1990 to 2014, urban sprawl increased by 95 percent worldwide. During this period, the built-up area grew by an average of around 1.2 square kilometres (more than 160 football fields) every hour. This is the result of a joint study by scientists from the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER) in Dresden (Germany) and Concordia University in Montréal…

When a surface is getting wet, also the composition of the liquid plays a role in the wetting process. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS) found that phase separation within the wetting liquid directly affects the dynamics of spreading. Their findings may be important in various applications, including tissue engineering, biology and semiconductor manufacturing. The study was recently published in the scientific journal PNAS. During phase separation, liquid mixtures of several components turn into an…

Architects from HTWK Leipzig show how solar modules can be integrated aesthetically and efficiently into curtain-type concrete and aluminum facades. Using solar energy on the walls of buildings – that is one goal of the Leipzig Institute of Architecture (ai:L) at the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences (HTWK Leipzig). From November 15 to 17, 2022, the ai:L team will present its solar facades Solar.shell and Solar.con, developed in research projects, at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona. Prof….

As nations work to eliminate carbon emissions, batteries will play a huge role. Electric vehicles powered by batteries seem likely to dominate the future of commercial and consumer transportation. Likewise, large stationary batteries will augment renewables like wind and solar by storing energy when production exceeds demand on the electrical grid, then sending that energy back to the grid when needed. But even today’s most advanced lithium-ion batteries don’t yet have the combination of economics, durability and energy density necessary…