Science Daily February 18, 2022 There are numerous challenges in the deployment of wearable devices with soft sensing technologies due to their poor resilience, high energy consumption, and omnidirectional strain responsivity. Researchers in the UK have developed a versatile ionic gelatin-glycerol hydrogel for soft sensing applications. The device is inexpensive and easy to manufacture, self-healable at room temperature, can undergo strains of up to 454%, presents stability over long periods of time, and is biocompatible and biodegradable. The material is ideal for strain sensing applications, with a linear correlation coefficient R2 = 0.9971 and a pressure-insensitive conduction mechanism. The experimental results show […]
Tongan volcano eruption leaves scientists with unanswered questions [24 minutes]
Nature Podcast February 16, 2022 On the 15th of January, a volcano in the South Pacific Ocean erupted, sending ash into the upper atmosphere, and unleashing a devastating tsunami that destroyed homes on Tonga’s nearby islands. Now scientists are trying to work out exactly what happened during the eruption — and what it means for future volcanic risks. Podcast
Versatile ‘nanocrystal gel’ could enable advances in energy, defense, and telecommunications
Science Daily February 18, 2022 By using reversibly bonded molecular linkers, gelation can be realized in nanocrystal gels that can be made into responsive and tunable materials. However, there is no experimental means to monitor linking leading to gelation. Researchers at UT Austin developed a metal coordination linkage with a distinct optical signature that allowed them to quantify linking in situ and establish structural and thermodynamic bases for assembly. Because of coupling between linked indium tin oxide nanocrystals, their infrared absorption shifted abruptly at a chemically tunable gelation temperature. They quantified bonding spectroscopically and used molecular simulation to understand temperature-dependent […]
Wallet-sized device focuses terahertz energy to generate high-resolution images
EurekAlert February 18, 2022 Researchers at MIT have built the most precise, electronically steerable, terahertz antenna array, called “reflectarray” which contains nearly 10,000 antennas onto a device the size of a credit card. It can precisely focus a beam of terahertz energy on a tiny area and control it rapidly with no moving parts. The researchers demonstrated the device by generating 3D depth images with military-grade resolution and twice the angular resolution of those produced by a large radars. The new phase shifter design consumes no power at all. The reflectarray uses one main source of energy to fire terahertz […]
Why the Tongan eruption will go down in the history of volcanology
Nature.com February 19, 2022 The eruption that devastated Tonga on 15 January lasted just 11 hours, but it will take years for scientists to work out exactly what happened during the cataclysmic explosion — and what it means for future volcanic risks. Geochemical analysis of that material, described in a paper found that the 2009 and 2014–15 eruptions involved molten rock that had not risen recently from the great depths of Earth’s mantle. Instead, it had spent some time in a magma chamber located 5–8 kilometres deep in Earth’s crust and gone through some tell-tale chemical changes before ultimately erupting […]
World’s smallest battery can power dust-sized computer
Nanowerk February 19, 2022 The size and adequate energy storage mismatch between microbatteries and microelectronics has emerged as a fundamental barrier against the take-off of tiny intelligent systems requiring power anytime anywhere. The on-chip self-assembly process known as micro-origami is capable of winding stacked thin films into Swiss-roll structures to reduce the footprint area, which exactly mimics the manufacture of the most successful full-sized batteries—cylinder batteries. In addition to discussing in detail the technical difficulties of reducing the size of on-chip microbatteries with various structures and potential solutions, researchers in Germany highlight the following two basic requirements for eventual integration […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of February 18, 2022
01. Chaining atoms together yields quantum storage 02. An innovative technology for 6G communication networks 03. It’s in the air – battery discovery takes up the charge 04. Researchers combine piezoelectric thin film and metasurfaces to create lens with tunable focus 05. Researchers use solar cells to achieve fast underwater wireless communication 06. Researchers create molecule that can pave way for mini transistors 07. Two-dimensional material could store quantum information at room temperature 08. Researchers identify mechanism by which fatigue cracks grow 09. Solar-powered system offers a route to inexpensive desalination 10. Squeezing the noise out of microscopes with quantum […]
Chaining atoms together yields quantum storage
Phys.org February 16, 2022 Researchers at Caltech have developed an approach for quantum storage that relies on nuclear spins oscillating collectively as a spin wave. This collective oscillation effectively chains up several atoms to store information. They utilized a qubit made from an ion of ytterbium and embedded the ion in a transparent crystal of yttrium orthovanadate (YVO4) and manipulated its quantum states via a combination of optical and microwave fields. The Yb qubit was used to control the nuclear spin states of multiple surrounding vanadium atoms in the crystal. A unique feature of this system is the pre-determined placement […]
Fabrication of perovskite solar cells with just a piece of paper? A new method tells you how! (w/video)
Nanowerk February 15, 2022 Most perovskite films in laboratories around the world are deposited through spin coating which guarantees high control on film thickness as well as morphology. However, most of the ink is expelled during deposition and wasted. An international team of researchers (Iran, Italy) has developed a completely new method that uses a simple sheet of paper to deposit the perovskite films without a spin coater or other large area techniques such as slot-die coating or blade coating. They fabricated solar cells on flexible PET substrates manually with 11% power conversion efficiency. Deposition after soaking the sheet of […]
Graphene spintronics: 1D contacts improve mobility in nano-scale devices
Science Daily February 11, 2022 An international team of researchers (UK, Japan) used monolayer graphene encapsulated by hexagonal boron nitride in van der Waals heterostructure with one-dimensional contacts. They measured electron mobility up to 130,000cm2/Vs at low temperatures (20K or -253oC) and spin diffusion lengths approaching 20 μm. The nanoscale-wide 1D contacts allow spin injection both at room and at low temperature, with the latter exhibiting efficiency comparable with 2D tunnel contacts. At low temperature, the spin signals can be enhanced by as much as an order of magnitude by electrostatic gating, adding new functionality. According to the researchers the […]