Nanowerk March 24, 2022 The low efficiency of raindrop energy harvesting is a dominating barrier to the raindrop solar cells in practical applications. An international team of researchers (China, Egypt) has developed a MoO3/top electrode-based triboelectric nanogenerator (MT-TENG) with high rain droplet energy conversion efficiency, integrated with a perovskite solar cell through shared electrodes. The interface electrons between the triboelectric layer and electrode were blocked by the MoO3 layer with high permittivity and wide bandgap, and the MoO3-based TENG (M-TENG) increased the surface charge density. The top electrode structure in the solid–liquid interface increased the output charge by 101.1 times […]
Tonga Islands: A seismic algorithm reveals the magnitude of the January 2022 eruption
Phys.org April 20, 2022 By analyzing the seismic waves researchers in France were able to design an algorithm that can detect and locate a volcanic eruption in near real-time and, using equations that describe explosive eruptions, assess its size. Until now, such an assessment required field work and took several weeks or months, since it was necessary to estimate the volume of ash and lava produced. The authors show that the Hunga Tonga eruption ejected a volume of around 10 km3, making it the largest explosive eruption of the twenty-first century, equivalent in strength to that of the devastating eruption […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of April 15, 2022
01. Scientists find ‘knob’ to control magnetic behavior in quantum material 02. Converting solar energy to electricity on demand 03. A new heat engine with no moving parts is as efficient as a steam turbine 04. In race to build quantum computing hardware, silicon begins to shine 05. Discovery of matter-wave polaritons sheds new light on photonic quantum technologies 06. Intense laser light modifies the pairing of electrons 07. Light-powered microbes are super-producing chemical factories 08. Achieving higher performance with potassium ion battery 09. Quantum teleportation: The express lane for quantum data traffic 10. Researchers create a magnet made of […]
Achieving higher performance with potassium ion battery
Phys.org April 14, 2022 Low temperature aqueous batteries (LT-ABs) have attracted extensive attention in recent years. However, they suffer from electrolyte freezing, slow ionic diffusion and sluggish interfacial redox kinetics at low temperature. In a review article researchers in China discussed the physicochemical properties of aqueous electrolytes in terms of phase diagram, ion diffusion and interfacial redox kinetics to guide the design of low temperature aqueous electrolytes (LT-AEs). They introduced the characteristics of equilibrium and non-equilibrium phase diagrams to analyze the antifreezing mechanisms and propose design strategies for LT-AEs. To understand and regulate the ion diffusion kinetics they reviewed the […]
Converting solar energy to electricity on demand
Science Daily April 11, 2022 An international team of researchers (Sweden, China, Spain) has developed a closed energy system called Molecular Solar Thermal Energy Storage Systems (MOST). It is based on a specially designed molecule of carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen, which when hit by sunlight changes shape into an energy-rich isomer which can be stored in liquid form for later use when needed, such as at night or in winter. A specially designed catalyst releases the saved energy as heat while returning the molecule to its original shape, so it can then be reused in the heating system. In combination […]
A new heat engine with no moving parts is as efficient as a steam turbine
MIT News April 13. 2022 Thermophotovoltaics (TPVs) can enable approaches to energy storage and conversion that use higher temperature heat sources than the turbines. However, despite predictions that TPV efficiencies can exceed 50% the demonstrated efficiencies are still only as high as 32%. A team of researchers in the US (MIT, National Renewable Energy Laboratory) has fabricated TPV cells with efficiencies of more than 40% and experimentally demonstrated the efficiency of high-bandgap tandem TPV cells. The TPV cells comprising III–V materials with bandgaps between 1.0 and 1.4 eV are optimized for emitter temperatures of 1,900–2,400 °C. The cells exploit the concept […]
In race to build quantum computing hardware, silicon begins to shine
Phys.org April 6, 2022 A team of researchers in the US (Princeton University, Sandia National Laboratory) used a two qubits silicon device and forced them to interact. The spin state of each electron can be used as a qubit and the interaction between the electrons can entangle these qubits. To do this they constructed a cage in the form of a wafer-thin semiconductor made primarily out of silicon. At the top of the cage they patterned little electrodes, which create the electrostatic potential used to corral the electron. Two of these cages put together, separated by a barrier, or gate, […]
Discovery of matter-wave polaritons sheds new light on photonic quantum technologies
Phys.org April 6, 2022 Exploiting the interaction between polaritons has led to the realization of superfluids of light as well as of strongly correlated phases in the microwave domain, with similar efforts underway for microcavity excitons–polaritons. Researchers at Stony Brook University have developed an ultracold-atom analogue of an exciton–polariton system in which interacting polaritonic phases can be studied with full tunability and in the absence of dissipation. In their optical lattice system, they replaced exciton by an atomic excitation, whereas an atomic matter wave was substituted for the photon under a strong dynamical coupling between the two constituents that hybridizes […]
Intense laser light modifies the pairing of electrons
Phys.org April 12, 2022 Researchers in Germany have realized a method to affect and measure the effective exchange interaction between several electrons bound in a molecule with two differently colored laser pulses. Using soft X-ray light, they excited an electron deeply bound to the sulfur atom in a sulfur hexafluoride molecule, thereby extending its radius of motion to the entire molecule for a short time before it leaves the molecule. Due to the spin-orbit interaction of the deeply bound electrons remaining there, the hole formed at the sulfur atom thereby produces a characteristic double structure of two lines measurable in […]
Light-powered microbes are super-producing chemical factories
Phys.org April 11, 2022 Microorganisms that produce useful substances are usually developed by modifying metabolism to convert energy that would normally be used for growth into a resource for synthesizing these target substances. Researchers in Japan used light, an external energy source, to improve production of useful substances without disrupting the microorganisms’ natural metabolism. As a test they introduced a heterologous membrane protein called rhodopsin into Escherichia coli. Rhodopsin is a pump that is activated by light, and the action of the pump leads to the generation of ATP without using the cell’s natural machinery to produce it. This approach […]