IEEE Spectrum March 9, 2020 Many of the chemicals used in hospitals are not approved for use on an aircraft. And some of the ones that are, aren’t nearly as effective or practical as assumed. A company in the US is building a machine called GermFalcon that uses ultraviolet light to wipe out coronavirus and other germs inside an airplane. The key design constraints for bringing UV-C sterilization into air travel were geometry, time, and power. They used retired airplanes to get the necessary measurements. GermFalcon has not been tested on any airlines so far…read more.
Introducing the light-operated hard drives of tomorrow
Phys.org March 10, 2020 An international team of researchers (Switzerland, Spain) present a method for reversible, light-induced tuning of ferromagnetism at room temperature using a halide perovskite/oxide perovskite heterostructure. They showed that photoinduced charge carriers from the CH3NH3PbI3 photovoltaic perovskite efficiently dope the thin La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 film and decrease the magnetization of the ferromagnetic state, allowing rapid rewriting of the magnetic bit. The method is still experimental, but it may be used to build the next generation of memory-storage systems, with higher capacities and with low energy demands. The research opens avenues for magnetooptical memory devices…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
New Antenna Will Boost UAV Communication with Satellites
IEEE Spectrum March 10, 2020 Conventional sabre-like antennas generate a donut-shape radiation pattern, which provides an omnidirectional coverage and is ideal for air-to-ground communication. However, a donut-shape pattern has a null at its zenith which inhibits communication with other satellites. To provide signal directly above the antenna researchers in China designed a novel sabre-like antenna incorporated two metal radiators into the design. The first is a monopole, which is perpendicular to the ground with an omnidirectional pattern. The second is a dipole, which is parallel to the ground with broadside pattern – creating a signal that fills the blind spot […]
‘Rock-breathing’ bacteria are electron spin doctors, study shows
Phys.org March 6, 2020 An international team of researchers (Israel, USA – University of Southern California) found that unlike most organisms whcih can use oxygen as the electron acceptor these bacteria transfer the electrons to a solid mineral or electrodes that are outside the cell. In terms of metabolism, they “breathe” the minerals or electrodes. To reach the external surface the electrons are shuttled through various protein molecules that form electrical conduits. These proteins have magnetic fields that can favor a particular spin as the electrons shuttle through. The magnetic fields are affected by chirality. The study has implications for […]
‘Spillway’ for electrons could keep lithium metal batteries from catching fire
Science Daily March 12, 2020 Researchers at UC San Diego have developed a novel separator design for lithium batteries to mitigate the effects of an internal short circuit by limiting the self‐discharge current to prevent cell temperature rise. A nano‐composite Janus separator with a fully electronically insulating side contacting the anode and a partially electronically conductive (PEC) coating with tunable conductivity contacting the cathode is implemented to intercept dendrites, control internal short circuit resistance, and slowly drain cell capacity. They demonstrated that Li‐metal batteries with the Janus separator perform normally before shorting, which then results in a gradual increase of […]
Super lightweight foam uses sunlight to harvest water from evaporation
Nanowerk March 10, 2020 Researchers in Italy have developed a hydrophilic and self-floating photothermal foam that can generate potable water from seawater and atmospheric moisture via solar-driven evaporation at its interface. Specifically, the foam shows an excellent solar-evaporation rate of 1.89 kg m–2 h–1 with a solar-to-vapor conversion efficiency of 92.7% under 1-Sun illumination. The collected water is suitable for potable use. The foam can be repeatedly used in multiple hydration–dehydration cycles, consisting of moisture absorption or water collection, followed by solar-driven evaporation; in each cycle, 1 g of the foam can harvest 250–1770 mg of water. The lightweight and […]
To make ultra-black materials that won’t weigh things down, consider the butterfly
Science Daily March 10, 2020 Recently, it has been shown that animals such as jumping spiders, birds, and butterflies have evolved ultra-black coloration comparable to the blackest synthetic materials. Researchers at Duke University examined a phylogenetically diverse set of butterflies and found considerable interspecific variation in the geometry of the holes in the structures reduce reflectance up to 16-fold. They produce ultra-black by creating a sparse material with high surface area to increase absorption and minimize surface reflection. They hypothesized that butterflies use ultra-black to increase the contrast of color signals. The findings could help engineers design thinner ultra-black coatings […]
Amazon rainforest could be gone within a lifetime
Science Daily March 10, 2020 Regime shifts can abruptly affect hydrological, climatic and terrestrial systems, leading to degraded ecosystems and impoverished societies. Researchers in the UK analysed empirical data from terrestrial, marine and freshwater environments and show positive sub-linear empirical relationships between the size and shift duration of systems. Each additional unit area of an ecosystem provides an increasingly smaller unit of time taken for that system to collapse, meaning that large systems tend to shift more slowly than small systems but disproportionately faster. They substantiated these findings with five computational models that reveal the importance of system structure in […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of March 6, 2020
01. Design of inorganic materials for brain-like computing 02. Magnetic whirls in future data storage devices 03. Manipulating atoms to make better superconductors 04. New optical system could lead to devices that can recognize objects instantly 05. This wearable device camouflages its wearer no matter the weather 06. A new AI chip can perform image recognition tasks in nanoseconds 07. Researchers identify breaking point of conducting material 08. Scientists created an ‘impossible’ superconducting compound 09. Potential superbug-killing compound 10. First bufferless lasers grown directly on silicon wafers in Si-photonics And others… Energy researchers invent error-free catalysts How a new quantum […]
Design of inorganic materials for brain-like computing
Science Daily March 3, 2020 A team of researchers in the US (Texas A&M, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) demonstrated that β′-CuxV2O5 exhibits a pronounced nonlinear response to applied temperature, voltage, and current, and the response can be modulated as a function of Cu stoichiometry. Unlike other materials that have a metal-insulator transition (MIT), this material relies on the movement of copper ions within a rigid lattice of vanadium and oxygen. They clarified the underlying mechanism driving this behavior. The utilization of coupled cation diffusion and polaron oscillation further demonstrates a means of using ionic vectors to obtain highly nonlinear conductance […]