Science Daily July 29, 2020 When interspersed in fabric the thermally conductive boron nitride has the ability to transfer heat, allow moisture to evaporate from the skin and repel water. To improve the process researchers in China enabled boron nitride to better interpenetrate and remain porous. According to the researchers the material has improved thermal conductivity, moisture permeability, and better resistance to water penetrability and repellency…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Author Archives: Hema Viswanath
Researchers create surface coating that can create false infrared images
UC Berkeley July 23, 2020 At certain temperature tungsten-doped vanadium dioxide can phase shift from an insulator to a metal. An international team of researchers (US Berkeley, Singapore, China) created special structures made from delicately engineered thin films of tungsten-doped vanadium dioxide. With judicious engineering of the doping profile, the insulator-metal phase transition can even out, allowing the substance to emit a constant level of thermal radiation over wide range of temperature variations (15-70 degrees Celsius). This state of equilibrium prevents a camera from detecting the true infrared signals that an object normally emits around room temperature. The coatings can […]
Researchers develop a method for predicting unprecedented events
Science Daily July 23, 2020 Challenging the quintessentially unpredictable nature of black swan events researchers at Stanford University developed a forecasting method based on natural systems. They leveraged increasingly available long-term high-frequency ecological tracking data, to analyze multiple natural and experimental ecosystems (marine plankton, deciduous forest), and recovered hidden linearity embedded in universal ‘scaling laws’ of species dynamics. They developed a method using these scaling laws to reduce data dependence in ecological forecasting and accurately predict extreme events beyond the span of historical observations in diverse ecosystems. They would like to expand the application of their method to other systems […]
Scientists develop novel transparent broadband electromagnetic interference shielding materials
Phys.org July 27, 2020 Electromagnetic interference shielding materials are visibly opaque. Researchers in China proposed and fabricated visibly transparent EMI shielding materials using an ultrathin silver layer sandwiched by oxides (SLSO) as building blocks. The structure exhibited the highest EMI shielding effectiveness (SE) of 70 dB at 27.6 GHz (>62 dB on average at 4–40 GHz) and a transmittance close to 90% at a visible wavelength of 550 nm, which is comparable with those of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and glass substrates. The D-SLSO structure suppresses optical reflections as antireflection coatings and enhances EMI shielding via Fabry–Pérot interference. They describe other […]
Self-healing soft material outsmarts nature
Nanowerk July 27, 2020 Current self-healing materials have shortcomings such as low healing strength and long healing times limit their practical application. An international team of researchers (USA – State University of Pennsylvania, Germany, Turkey) studied the molecular structure and amino acid sequences of squid proteins and developed a new stretchable biosynthetic material using protein engineering. The squid takes longer to heal because the molecular structure of the proteins inside its tentacles is not perfectly intertwined. With the laboratory-developed squid-inspired material, the scientists changed the nanostructure of the molecules until they created crosslinks between all of them in such a […]
The solar cell you can print
EurekAlert July 27, 2020 Researchers in the UK are working on a grant drive next-generation solar technology into new applications. Their performance competes with current technology, but they have the advantages of being flexible, lightweight, cheap to produce, and they can be printed directly onto products during manufacture. The goal is to Deliver the fundamental science and engineering to underpin the development of these promising solar technologies; Develop low-carbon, low-cost manufacturing methods that will enable them to be produced at scale; Develop prototypes to show how they can provide solar power in new applications…read more.
Taking the guesswork out of twistronics
Nanowerk July 27, 2020 An international team of researchers (USA – Harvard University, China) introduces theoretical concepts and methods for the processing of materials information, and as a case study, apply them to investigate the electronic structure of multi-layer graphene-based assemblies in a high-throughput fashion. They provide a critical discussion of patterns and trends in tight binding band structures and identify specific layered assemblies using low-dispersion electronic bands as indicators of potentially interesting physics like strongly correlated behavior. A combination of data-driven models for visualization and prediction is used to intelligently explore the materials space. This work more generally aims […]
Tailored meta-grid of nanoparticles boosting performance of light-emitting diodes
Phys.org July 29, 2020 Current methods to use new materials for increasing LED light output are has led to the LED chips becoming bulkier or costly to manufacture. According to a theoretical model proposed by researchers in the UK a significant enhancement in light extraction from LEDs can be achieved by boosting the transmission across LED-chip/encapsulant interface. They propose introducing a monolayer of plasmonic nanoparticles on top of the LED chip which can reduce the Fresnel reflection loss at the chip/encapsulant interface. A similar effect is also applicable for enhancing the trapping of light in solar cells…read more. Open Access […]
Testing Chernobyl fungi as a radiation shield for astronauts
Phys.org July 27, 2020 Certain fungi thrive in high-radiation environments on Earth, such as the area around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. These organisms appear to perform radiosynthesis using pigments known as melanin to convert gamma-radiation into chemical energy. A team of researchers in the US (University of North Carolina, Stanford University) cultivated a 1.7 mm think lawn of Cladosporium sphaerospermum of the melanized radiotrophic fungus and tested its capability to attenuate ionizing radiation on the International Space Station over a time of 30 days. They found that the radiation below the lawn was 2.17±0.35% lower compared to the negative […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of July 24, 2020
01. Physicists develop technology to transform information from microwaves to optical light 02. Nature provides inspiration for researchers developing selective membranes 03. New material can generate hydrogen from salt and polluted water 04. Researchers diffract a beam of organic molecules 05. Scientists strengthen quantum building blocks in milestone critical for scale-up 06. ‘Seeing’ and ‘manipulating’ functions of living cells 07. Geoengineering is just a partial solution to fight climate change 08. Shells and grapefruits inspire first manufactured non-cuttable material 09. A new species of darkling beetle larvae that degrade plastic 10. U.S. and Japan Seeking to Break China’s Grip on […]