Phys.org July 26, 2024 Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), which typically exhibit great toughness, have emerged as promising candidates for innovative energy storage solutions. An international team of researchers (Japan, USA – University of Maryland Baltimore County, Michigan State University, South Africa) produced SWCNT ropes wrapped in thermoplastic polyurethane elastomers, and demonstrated experimentally that a twisted rope composed of these SWCNTs possesses the remarkable ability to reversibly store nanomechanical energy. The gravimetric energy density of the twisted ropes reaches up to 2.1 MJ kg−1, exceeded the energy storage capacity of mechanical steel springs by over four orders of magnitude and surpassed advanced lithium-ion […]
When copper becomes transparent: European XFEL creates exotic matter
Phys.org July 29, 2024 To understand its electronic structure and structure upon irradiation with strong laser pulses, an international team of researchers (Germany, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, USA – University of Washington) simultaneously created and characterized warm dense copper over a large irradiation intensity range. An absorption peak below the L edge appeared from transient depletion of the 3d band. The peak shifted to lower energy with increasing intensity, indicating the movement of the 3d band upon strong X-ray excitation. At higher intensities, substantial ionization and collisions led to the transition from reverse saturable absorption to saturable absorption of the […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of July 26, 2024
01. Aluminum scandium nitride films: Enabling next-gen ferroelectric memory devices 02. Harvesting water from air with less energy 03. ‘New El Niño’ discovered south of the equator 04. A new way to control the magnetic properties of rare earth elements 05. Machine learning unlocks secrets to advanced alloys 06. Metallic minerals on the deep-ocean floor split water to generate ‘dark oxygen,’ new study finds 07. New 3D reconstruction method aids analysis of property-defining defects 08. Researchers zero in on the underlying mechanism that causes alloys to crack when exposed to hydrogen-rich environments 09. Sea ice’s cooling power is waning faster […]
Aluminum scandium nitride films: Enabling next-gen ferroelectric memory devices
Phys.org July 19, 2024 By subjecting the films to post-heat-treatment at various temperatures up to 600 °C in both H2 and Ar gases Researchers in Japan investigated the changes in the crystal structure and ferroelectric properties of aluminum scandium nitride films sandwiched between platinum and titanium nitride and titanium nitride electrodes. The remanent polarization underwent slight change, whereas the coercive field was strengthened by approximately 9% because of the post-heat-treatment up to 600 °C irrespective of the atmosphere and electrode material. This change was much smaller than that reported for ferroelectric zirconium dioxide films as well as for lead zirconate titanate and […]
Genetic breeding offers new method for mosquito population control
Phys.org July 22, 2024 A team of researchers in the US (Virginia Polytechnic and State University, Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, LA) discovered a significant correlation between pupal abnormalities and the feminization of subsequent adults exemplified by the relative abundance of ovarian and testicular tissues. All intersex individuals were genetic males as they expressed a male determining factor, Nix. The presence of both male and female splice variants indicated that sex determination was disrupted. Intersexes had largely normal gene expression in testes but significant gene downregulation in male accessory glands when compared with normal males. They concluded that evolving […]
Harvesting water from air with less energy
Phys.org July 20, 2024 Researchers in Israel have proposed an innovative atmospheric moisture harvesting system based on a model where water vapor is separated from the air prior to cooling and condensation. The model simulated its three interconnected cycles (air, desiccant, and water) over a range of ambient conditions, and optimal configurations for different operational conditions. Compared to specifications of commercial atmospheric moisture harvesting systems their model represented saving of 5–65% of the electrical energy requirements due to the vapor separation process. They showed that the liquid desiccant separation stage that was integrated into atmospheric moisture harvesting systems could work […]
Machine learning unlocks secrets to advanced alloys
MIT News July 18, 2024 The tendency of certain chemical motifs to be more common than others is known as chemical short-range order (SRO), and it has received substantial consideration in alloys with multiple chemical elements present in large concentrations due to their extreme configurational complexity. SRO renders solid solutions “slightly less random than completely random,” but not easily quantifiable due to the sheer number of possible chemical motifs and their subtle spatial distribution on the lattice. Researchers at MIT presented a multiscale method to predict and quantify the SRO state of an alloy with atomic resolution, incorporating machine learning […]
Metallic minerals on the deep-ocean floor split water to generate ‘dark oxygen,’ new study finds
Phys.org July 22, 2024 Deep-seafloor organisms consume oxygen, which can be measured by in situ benthic chamber experiments. An international team of researchers (UK, Germany, USA – Boston University, University of Minnesota, Northwestern University) conducted experiments at the polymetallic nodule-covered abyssal seafloor in the Pacific Ocean in which oxygen increased over two days to more than three times the background concentration. Through situ incubations they attributed the increase to the polymetallic nodules. Given high voltage potentials (up to 0.95 V) on nodule surfaces, they hypothesized that seawater electrolysis might have contributed to this dark oxygen production… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL […]
New 3D reconstruction method aids analysis of property-defining defects
Phys.org July 23, 2024 The formation kinetics and nanoscale three-dimensional structure of topological defects are poorly understood. An international team of researchers (Switzerland, Japan, USA – Northwestern University, Cornell University, France, Germany, Austria) described the fabrication of a pair of topological defects in the volume of a single-diamond network templated into gold from a triblock terpolymer crystal. They resolved the three-dimensional structure of nearly 70,000 individual single-diamond unit cells with a spatial resolution of 11.2 nm, allowing analysis of the long-range order of the network. The defects observed morphologically resembled the comet and trefoil patterns of equal and opposite half-integer topological […]
‘New El Niño’ discovered south of the equator
Phys.org July 22. 2024 An international team of researchers (India, Japan) simulated Interannual sea surface temperature (SST) variations in the subtropical-midlatitude Southern Hemisphere which are often associated with a circumpolar wavenumber-4 (W4) pattern. They found that incoming climatological solar radiation goes into a thinner (thicker) mixed layer, the shallower (deeper) mixed layer promotes surface warming (cooling) leading to positive (negative) SST anomalies, developing the SST-W4 pattern during austral summer. Due to the temperature difference between the mixed layer and the water below the mixed layer, anomalous latent heat fluxes, and disappearance of the overlying atmospheric W4 pattern cause the decay […]