EurekAlert July 15, 2020 Omniphobic–all-liquid repellent–films can repel a broad range of liquids, but the applicability of these coatings has always been limited to silicon wafers or smooth glass. Researchers in Canada have developed a facile procedure to generate an omniphobic coating on any surface, including metals, paper, ceramics, etc. The process involves depositing an ultra smooth, silicon wafer-like silica layer and then treating this layer with a highly reactive chlorosilane, which grafts polydimethylsiloxane chains onto the surface. Negligible contact angle hysteresis (≤1°) for various liquids, including ultralow surface tension oils, alcohols, and fluoro-solvents, was achieved on many different substrates […]
Underused part of the electromagnetic spectrum gets optics boost from metamaterial
Phys.org July 14, 2020 Terahertz radiation potentially has applications in next-generation wireless communications (6G/7G), security systems, biomedicine, etc. because of the lack of appropriate materials and sophisticated optical components for flexible control of terahertz waves. Researchers in Japan have engineered a 2.28-µm ultra-thin terahertz metasurface collimator with a high directivity of 4.6 times consisting of 339 pairs of meta-atoms compared with a single terahertz continuous-wave source. The metasurface exhibits an extremely high refractive index of 15.0 and a low reflectance of 15.5% at 3.0 THz. It should facilitate ground-breaking applications such as arbitrary phase converters, solid immersion lenses, and cloaking…read more. […]
Using magnetic worms to engineer nanoscale communication systems
Nanowerk July 15, 2020 High-frequency electromagnetic waves are used to transmit and process information in microelectronic devices. To gain a better understanding of precisely the way magnons behave and propagate in different structures researchers in Switzerland examined how electromagnetic waves propagate, and how they could be manipulated, in artificial ferromagnetic quasicrystals. They found that under controlled conditions a single electromagnetic wave coupled to an artificial quasicrystal splits into several spin waves which then propagate within the structure. Each of these spin waves represents a different phase of the original electromagnetic wave, carrying different information. By imaging wavefronts in quasicrystals, insight […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of July 10, 2020
01. Magnetic memory states go exponential 02. New biomaterial could shield against harmful radiation 03. Scaling up the quantum chip 04. Harvesting hydrogen from nanogardens 05. Scientists create new device to light up the way for quantum technologies 06. Shining light into the dark: New discovery makes microscopic imaging possible in dark conditions 07. Engineers design a reusable, silicone rubber face mask 08. Physics team observes extremely fast electronic changes in real time in a special material class 09. Porous graphene ribbons doped with nitrogen for electronics and quantum computing 10. Generator developed for harvesting energy from droplets And others… […]
Call for immunology to return to the wild
EurekAlert July 2, 2020 The viruses that cause COVID-19, AIDS, Ebola, and rabies – among others – all made the lethal jump from wildlife into humans. At the Australian Wild and Comparative Immunology (WACI) https://www.wacimmuno.com/ workshop researchers in Australia outline how integrating a more diverse set of species and environments could enhance the biomedical research cycle. The viruses that cause COVID-19, AIDS, Ebola, and rabies – among others – all made the lethal jump from wildlife into humans. Understanding how the immune system works in animals that live with coronaviruses in a natural environment, such as bats, can give us […]
Detecting hidden nanostructures by converting light into sound
Nanowerk July 8, 2020 Using laser-induced, extremely high-frequency ultrasound researchers in the Netherlands detected diffraction gratings buried below a stack of tens of 18-nm-thick SiO2 and Si3N4 layers and an optically opaque metal layer. The shape and amplitude of a buried metal grating were encoded on the spatial phase of the reflected acoustic wave. They showed that the complex shape of the diffracted signal as a function of time can be reproduced using a comprehensive numerical model that includes the generation, propagation, and optical detection of the acoustic waves. The results show that laser-induced ultrasound is a promising technique for […]
Engineers design a reusable, silicone rubber face mask
MIT News July 9, 2020 A team of researchers in US (MIT, Brigham and Women’s Hospital) has designed a new face mask made of durable silicone rubber. Liquid silicone rubber can be easily molded into any shape using injection molding. It can be manufactured using injection molding, which is widely used in factories around the world. The mask includes an N95 filter, but it requires much less N95 material than a traditional N95 mask. Th filters are designed to be replaced after every use, while the rest of the mask can be sterilized and reused. They tested several different sterilization […]
Generator developed for harvesting energy from droplets
Phys.org July 8, 2020 An international team of researchers (the Netherlands, China) has designed a charge trapping‐based electricity generator (CTEG) for passive energy harvesting from water droplets with high efficiency. The hydrophobic fluoropolymer films utilized in CTEG are pre‐charged by a homogeneous electrowetting‐assisted charge injection method, allowing an ultrahigh negative charge density. By connecting the bottom electrode and top electrode of a Pt wire, instantaneous current is generated from continuously falling water droplets. CTEG devices have shown robustness without appreciable degradation for intermittent testing during 100 days. The approach is applicable for energy harvesting from wave‐like oscillatory fluid motion. it […]
Harvesting hydrogen from nanogardens
Nanowerk July 3, 2020 By manipulating (electro)chemical gradients using a combined hydrothermal and electrodeposition strategy, an international team of researchers (China, the Netherlands) has shown the controlled growth of Co(OH)2 nanostructures, mimicking the process of garden cultivation. The resulting “nano-garden” can selectively contain different patterns, all of which can be fully phosphidated into CoP without losing the structural integrity. Under pH-universal conditions, the CoP “soil + flower-with-stem” structure shows a much more “effective” surface area for gas-evolving reactions with lower activation and concentration overpotentials. This provides superior bifunctional catalytic activity for both reactions, outperforming noble metal counterparts…read more. Open Access […]
The Locust Plague in East Africa Is Sending Us a Message, And It’s Not Good News
Science Alert July 3, 2020 Swarming in the trillions, voracious insects are destroying precious pastures and crops in what is considered the worst regional locust plague in decades, from Kenya through Ethiopia and Yemen, reaching as far as parts of northern India. According to researchers in Kenya and Germany the first major swarms emerged late last year, after unusually warm and wet weather, and they numbered in the hundreds of billions. Come April, the next generation hit the skies, this time in the trillions. The third generation is expected to take off this July in even larger numbers. Treating huge […]