Nanowerk July 10, 2023 Phase change memory could potentially revolutionize data storage because of its high storage density, and faster read and write capabilities. But still, the complex switching mechanism and intricate fabrication methods associated with these materials have posed challenges for mass production. Unlike conventional amorphous-crystalline PCMs, NbTe4 demonstrates both a low melting point and a high crystallization temperature. This unique combination offers reduced reset energies and improved thermal stability at the amorphous phase. Researchers in Japan fabricated NbTe4 and evaluated its switching performance. It exhibited a significant reduction in operation energy compared to conventional phase-change memory compounds. The […]
Organic electronics: Sustainability during the entire lifecycle
Science Daily July 7, 2023 Organic electronics can make a decisive contribution to decarbonization and, at the same time, help to cut the consumption of rare and valuable raw materials. To do so, it is not only necessary to further develop manufacturing processes, but also to devise technical solutions for recycling as early on as the laboratory phase. To design built-in sustainability into the materials selection, processing and device architectures of all emerging applications, an international team of researcher (UK, USA – UC Santa Barbara, Germany) is promoting a circular strategy. They evaluated the status of embedded carbon in organic […]
Researchers: We’ve Underestimated The Risk of Simultaneous Crop Failures Worldwide
Science Alert July 5, 2023 Concurrent weather extremes driven by a strongly meandering jet stream could trigger simultaneous harvest failures across major crop-producing regions, but so far this has not been quantified. The ability of state-of-the art crop and climate models to adequately reproduce such high impact events is a crucial component for estimating risks to global food security. An international team of researchers (USA – Columbia University, Germany) has found an increased likelihood of concurrent low yields during summers featuring meandering jets in observations and models. While climate models accurately simulate atmospheric patterns, associated surface weather anomalies and negative […]
Researchers devise new quantum photonics technique to create better holograms
Phys.org July 10, 2023 It is possible to observe interference between independent light sources by measuring correlations in their intensities rather than their amplitudes. An international team of researchers (Canada, UK) applied this concept of intensity interferometry to holography. They combined a signal beam with a reference and measured their intensity cross-correlations using a time-tagging single-photon camera. The correlations revealed an interference pattern from which they reconstructed the signal wavefront in both intensity and phase. They demonstrated the principle with classical and quantum light, including a single photon. Since the signal and reference do not need to be phase-stable nor […]
Satellite security lags decades behind the state of the art
Science Daily July 11, 2023 Despite its critical importance, little academic research has been conducted on satellite security and the security of onboard firmware. This lack likely stems from by now outdated assumptions on achieving security by obscurity, effectively preventing meaningful research on satellite firmware. Researchers in Germany have provided a taxonomy of threats against satellite firmware and conducted an experimental security analysis of three real-world satellite firmware images. They based their analysis on a set of real-world attacker models and found several security-critical vulnerabilities in all analyzed firmware images. The results showed that modern in-orbit satellites suffer from different […]
Scientists develop 2D nanosheets for sustainable carbon capture
Phys.org July 6, 2023 Mica, a commonly occurring mineral, has significant potential for various applications due to its unique structure and properties. However, due to its non-Van Der Waals bonded structure, it is difficult to exfoliate mica into ultrathin nanosheets. Researchers in Singapore characterized exfoliated 2D mica nanosheets (eMica nanosheets) by various techniques, and their ability to capture CO2 was tested by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Their results showed an 87% increase in CO2 adsorption capacity with eMica nanosheets compared to conventional mica. Further characterization by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), as well as first-principles calculations, showed […]
Sticky, slippery, water repellent channels form maze-like, gravity-powered biomedical devices
Science Daily July 11, 2023 Motivated by the need to develop new point-of-care clinical tests researchers at Duke University developed a technology that only uses surface chemistry and gravity to manipulate the sequence, timing, movement, and interactions of discrete droplets across a surface solely by gravity. To demonstrate the application of the technology they fabricated a device that combined fluidic elements to carry out a multi-step enzymatic assay of LDH with minimal user intervention. To fabricate the device, they developed a surface coating toolbox of nine different coatings with three levels of wettability and three levels of slipperiness that could […]
Supercomputer used to simulate winds that cause clear air turbulence
Science Daily July 12, 2023 Although clear air turbulence (CAT) generation in the free atmosphere has been studied by high-resolution numerical simulations, few studies simulated aircraft-scale turbulence eddies and validated them with high-frequency airborne observation. Researchers in Japan used a regional numerical weather prediction model to simulate the event with fine resolution. They compared the onboard-recorded data with the virtual flight data, to confirm that turbulent eddies were reasonably reproduced. The CAT was largely generated by breaking Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability waves in the free atmosphere. They resolved the KH waves and their breaking. When the resolution was finer, the turbulent […]
Superconducting qubit foundry accelerates progress in quantum research
MIT News July 5, 2023 Sponsored by the Laboratory for Physical Sciences (LPS) Qubit Collaboratory, a National Quantum Initiative-funded center, the program makes MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s cutting-edge fabrication capabilities available at no cost to institutions working on U.S. government-funded research. Researchers can submit quantum circuit designs for fabrication, and the completed circuits are returned to advance scientific inquiry in their home facilities. The qubits are made on-site at the Microelectronics Laboratory, considered to be one of the U.S. government’s most advanced foundries, and in specialized prototyping facilities. More than 20 research groups are poised to leverage the foundry as the […]
Thermal cloak passively keeps electric vehicles cool in the summer and warm in the winter
Science Daily July 11, 2023 Despite intensive efforts invested, high-efficacy, all-season temperature regulation on real-world objects has not yet been achieved through truly passive, reliable structures. Researchers in China proposed and experimentally realized a Janus thermal cloak (JTC) composed of an all-ceramic, radiative-cooling phononic metafabric facing the sky and a photon-recycling foil facing indoor space. The phononic metafabric, which supports broadband hyperbolic phonon polaritons (HPhPs) and strong scattering of phonon transport, showed resilience under harsh thermal, mechanical, and corrosive environments. Field tests on electric vehicles showed that the JTC realized daytime sub-ambient cooling by 8.0°C in summer and nighttime supra-ambient […]