MIT News April 1, 2021 Using RF researchers at MIT have designed, implemented, and evaluated RF-Grasp, a robotic system that can grasp fully occluded objects in unknown and unstructured environments. It can identify and locate target objects through occlusions and perform efficient exploration and complex manipulation tasks in non-line-of-sight settings. It relies on an eye-in-hand camera and batteryless RFID tags attached to objects of interest. There are two main innovations: (1) an RF-visual servoing controller that uses the RFID’s location to selectively explore the environment and plan an efficient trajectory toward an occluded target, and (2) an RFvisual deep reinforcement […]
Scientists develop ultra-thin terahertz source
Phys.org March 30, 2021 One of the biggest challenges in terahertz technology is that commonly accepted ‘intense terahertz source’ is faint and bulky. To overcome these limitations researchers in the UK developed terahertz sources from extremely thin materials (about 25 atomic layers). By illuminating an electronic-grade semiconductor with two different types of lasers light, each oscillating at different frequency they were able to elicit the emission of short bursts of Terahertz radiation. The emission region of their new development, a semiconductor source of terahertz, is 10 times thinner than previously achieved, with comparable or even better performances. They are able […]
Small robot swimmers that heal themselves from damage
Science Daily March 24, 2021 Swimming robots that can “swim” through fluids and carry out useful functions, such as cleaning up the environment, delivering drugs, are often made of brittle polymers or soft hydrogels, which can easily crack or tear. Researchers at UC San Diego made swimmers that were 2 cm long in the shape of a fish that contained a conductive bottom layer; a rigid, hydrophobic middle layer; and an upper strip of aligned, strongly magnetic microparticles. Platinum in the tail, which reacted with hydrogen peroxide fuel to form oxygen bubbles propelled the robot. In a petri dish filled […]
Special heat treatment improves novel magnetic material
Science Daily March 31, 2021 Previously an international team of researchers (Germany, China) discovered that manganese silicide hosts magnetic skyrmions. Whereas Mn-Si alloy, B20 phase, is particularly suitable for the formation of skyrmion, MnSi1.7 is a contaminant. Now the team has developed a simple and efficient method to overcome this problem and prepare single‐phase MnSi films on Si substrates. It is based on the millisecond reaction between metallic Mn and Si using flash‐lamp annealing (FLA). By controlling the FLA energy density, single‐phase MnSi or MnSi1.7 or their mixture can be grown at will. Compared with bulk MnSi, the prepared MnSi […]
Study shows promise of quantum computing using factory-made silicon chips
Phys.org March 31, 2021 An international team of researchers (UK, France) measured an electron spin in a singly occupied gate-defined quantum dot, fabricated using CMOS-compatible processes at the 300-mm wafer scale. For readout, they used spin-dependent tunneling combined with a low-footprint single-lead quantum-dot charge sensor, measured using rf gate reflectometry. They demonstrated spin readout in two devices using this technique, obtaining valley splittings in the range 0.5–0.7 meV using excited-state spectroscopy, and measured a maximum electron-spin relaxation time. These long lifetimes indicate the silicon-nanowire geometry and fabrication processes employed here show a great deal of promise for qubit devices, while […]
Wild Technological Leaps by the 2030s
Next Big Future March 26, 2021 According to Next Big Future the 2020s could see the true birth of true 21st Century Technology. Technologies addressed in the article include Fully Reusable Rockets Instead of Planes, Millions of Satellites for Multi-gigabit Internet and Super GPS Everywhere, Self-Driving Cars, Self Driving Trucks and Robotaxis, AI Conquers Self-Driving and Ready to Automate Robots and Everything Else That Moves, Hyper Integration of Cities for Massive Economic Boosts and a Post Pandemic Boom Greater Than Post WW2 Boom, Solar and Battery Future Could go to 50% by 2030…read more.
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of March 26, 2021
01. Detecting photons transporting qubits without destroying quantum information 02. Big breakthrough for ‘massless’ energy storage 03. A material that is superconductive at room temperature and lower pressure 04. Optical fiber could boost power of superconducting quantum computers 05. Researchers’ algorithm designs soft robots that sense 06. Scientists observe complex tunable magnetism in a topological material 07. Toward perdurable flexible electronics 08. Tunable smart materials 09. Wafer-thin nanopaper changes from firm to soft at the touch of a button 10. Catching electrons in action in an antiferromagnetic nanowire And others… Aerosol formation in clouds The blast that shook the ionosphere […]
Aerosol formation in clouds
Science Daily March 24, 2021 Cloud processing is potentially important for secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation, a major aerosol component: however, laboratory experiments fail to mimic this process under atmospherically relevant conditions. An international team of researchers (Switzerland, UK, USA – Carnegie Mellon University, industry) developed a wetted-wall flow reactor to simulate aqueous-phase processing of isoprene oxidation products (iOP) in cloud droplets. They found that 50 to 70% (in moles) of iOP partition into the aqueous cloud phase, where they rapidly react with OH radicals, producing SOA. Integrating their experimental results into a global model, they showed that clouds effectively […]
Big breakthrough for ‘massless’ energy storage
Science Daily March 22, 2021 Stiff and strong batteries that use solid‐state electrolytes and resilient electrodes and separators are generally lacking. Researchers in Sweden have demonstrated a structural battery composite with unprecedented multifunctional performance featuring an energy density of 24 Wh kg−1 and an elastic modulus of 25 GPa and tensile strength exceeding 300 MPa. The structural battery is made from multifunctional constituents, where reinforcing carbon fibers (CFs) act as electrode and current collector. A structural electrolyte is used for load transfer and ion transport and a glass fiber fabric separates the CF electrode from an aluminum foil‐supported lithium–iron–phosphate positive electrode. The battery performs […]
The blast that shook the ionosphere
Science Daily March 17, 2021 An international team of researchers (India, Japan) reported an N-shaped pulse with period ~ 1.3 min propagating southward at ~ 0.8 km/s, as changes in ionospheric total electron content using continuous GNSS stations in Israel and Palestine, ~ 10 min after the August 4, 2020 chemical explosion in Beirut, Lebanon. The peak-to-peak amplitude of the disturbance reached ~ 2% of the background electrons, comparable to recently recorded volcanic explosions in the Japanese Islands. They succeeded in reproducing the observed disturbances assuming acoustic waves propagating upward and their interaction with geomagnetic fields…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE