EurekAlert May 13, 2020 To develop tomorrow’s batteries, partners from science and industry all over Europe have launched the research initiative BATTERY 2030+. The roadmap https://battery2030.eu/research/roadmap/ defines the milestones in more detail: A joint platform for the development of materials with the help of AI, networked sensors and self-healing technology for batteries, and sustainable production and recycling processes. It defines the properties of future batteries and lists measures to accelerate development. Three main research lines are identified: accelerate search for new materials and the right material mix, develop novel functions, and establish production and recycling concepts…read more.
Room-temperature superionic conduction achieved using pseudorotation of hydride complexes
Phys.org May 13, 2020 Solid-state ionic conductors’ superior ionic conductivities require high temperature to activate the rotation of polyanions, which conversely means low conductivities at room temperature. Researchers in Japan were able to reduce the activation temperature by using transition metal hydride complexes as a new class of rotatable polyanions, wherein hydrogen is the sole ligand species, covalently binding to single transition metals. The rotation of transition metal hydride complexes only requires displacements of highly mobile hydrogen and can therefore be expected to occur with low activation energy. The mechanism is quite general and would be useful in lowering the […]
Scientists demonstrate quantum radar prototype
Science Daily May 8, 2020 Instead of using conventional microwaves, an international team of researchers (Austria, UK. USA – MIT, Italy) entangled two groups of photons, which are called the ‘signal’ and ‘idler’ photons. The ‘signal’ photons are sent out towards the object of interest, whilst the ‘idler’ photons are measured in relative isolation, free from interference and noise. When the signal photons are reflected back, true entanglement between the signal and idler photons is lost, but a small amount of correlation survives, creating a signature or pattern that describes the existence or the absence of the target object — […]
Seeing Through Opaque Media
Technology.org May 12, 2020 While fluorescence microscopy can provide nano- to microscale resolution, the resolution decreases rapidly along with depth into biological tissue because most biological tissue is opaque. Researchers at Caltech have developed a method that utilizes the correlation between the dynamic speckle-encoded fluorescence and ultrasound-modulated light signal that originate from the same location within a sample. They imaged fluorescent targets with an improved resolution of ≤75 µm (versus a resolution of 1.3 mm with direct optical imaging) within a scattering medium with 17 ms decorrelation time. The new imaging modality paves the way for fluorescence imaging in highly scattering tissue in […]
Transporting energy through a single molecular nanowire
EurekAlert May 8, 2020 In the light-harvesting complexes of bacteria or plants, light is converted into energy, which is then transported to the reaction centre with minimal losses. To improve the energy transport efficiency an international team of researchers (Germany, the Netherlands) show how the excited-state energy landscape and thus the coherence characteristics of electronic excitations can be modified by the hierarchical level of H-type supramolecular architectures. They visualize, at room temperature, long-range incoherent transport of delocalized singlet excitons on pico- to nanosecond time scales in single supramolecular nanofibers and bundles of nanofibers. Increasing the degree of coherence enhances exciton […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of May 8, 2020
01. Breathable second skin materials provide smart protection against chemical and biological 02. Fossil fuel-free jet propulsion with air plasmas 03. Making Materials Mimic Each Other 04. Laser loop couples quantum systems over a distance 05. Shape-shifting carbon fibre could replace mechanical systems for planes and more 06. Researchers pave the way to designing omnidirectional invisible materials 07. Supercapacitor promises storage, high power and fast charging 08. Light, sound, action: Extending the life of acoustic waves on microchips 09. Army researchers see path to quantum computing at room temperature 10. Scientists take steps to create a ‘racetrack memory,’ potentially enhancing […]
Army researchers see path to quantum computing at room temperature
EurekAlert May 1, 2020 Researchers at MIT show that relatively simple integrated photonic circuits have the potential to realize a high fidelity deterministic controlled-phase gate between photonic qubits using bulk optical nonlinearities. The gate is enabled by converting travelling continuous-mode photons into stationary cavity modes using strong classical control fields that dynamically change the effective cavity-waveguide coupling rate. This architecture reduces the wave packet distortions that otherwise accompany the action of optical nonlinearities. They show that dynamically coupled cavities enable a trade-off between errors due to loss and wave packet distortion. The proposed architecture represents a new approach only relies […]
Breathable second skin materials provide smart protection against chemical and biological agents
Nanowerk May 6, 2020A team of researchers in the US (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center, MA) demonstrated a smart material that is both breathable and protective by successfully combining a base membrane layer comprising trillions of aligned carbon nanotube pores and a threat-responsive polymer layer grafted onto the membrane surface. The carbon nanotubes could easily transport water molecules through their interiors while also blocking all biological threats, which cannot fit through the tiny pores. To add protection against chemical hazards, a layer of polymer chains is grown on the material surface, which […]
Fossil fuel-free jet propulsion with air plasmas
Science Daily May 5, 2020 Researchers in China propose a prototype design of a propulsion thruster that utilizes air plasma induced by microwave ionization. They used a microwave air plasma jet thruster using high-temperature and high-pressure plasma generated by a 2.45 GHz microwave ionization chamber for injected pressurized air. They measured the lifting force and jet pressure at various settings of microwave power and the air flow rate and demonstrated that, given the same power consumption, its propulsion pressure is comparable to that of conventional airplane jet engines using fossil fuels. A carbon-emission free thruster could potentially be used as […]
How many jobs do robots really replace?
MIT News May 4, 2020 In this three part series, a team of researchers in the US (MIT, Boston University) shows theoretically that robots may reduce employment and wages and that their local impacts can be estimated using variation in exposure to robots—defined from industry-level advances in robotics and local industry employment. They estimate robust negative effects of robots on employment and wages across commuting zones. According to the researchers the areas most exposed to robots after 1990 do not exhibit any differential trends before then, and robots’ impact is distinct from other capital and technologies. One more robot per […]