Phys.org March 14, 2019 Multiplexing multiple orbital angular momentum (OAM) channels enables high-capacity optical communication but decreases the orthogonality between OAM channels for demultiplexing and eventually increases crosstalk in communication. To overcome this an international team of researchers (China, USA – Caltech, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Netherlands, France) developed scattering-matrix-assisted retrieval technique (SMART) to demultiplex OAM channels from highly scattered optical fields and achieve an experimental crosstalk of –13.8 dB in the parallel sorting of 24 OAM channels after passing through a scattering medium. They demonstrated high-fidelity transmission of images under scattering conditions at an error rate of <0.08%. using […]
NUS researchers create water-resistant electronic skin with self-healing abilities
Eurekalert March 18, 2019 An international team of researchers (China Singapore) has developed a material inspired by jellyfish. It is composed of a fluorocarbon elastomer and a fluorine-rich ionic liquid, has an ionic conductivity that can be tuned to as high as 10−3 S cm−1 and can withstand strains as high as 2,000%. Owing to ion–dipole interactions, it offers fast and repeatable electro-mechanical self-healing in wet, acidic and alkali environments. It can be printed into soft and pliable ionic circuit boards and touch, pressure and strain sensors. The material has applications in aquatic soft robots and water-resistant human–machine interfaces…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Nanocrystal ‘factory’ could revolutionize quantum dot manufacturing
Phys.org March 15, 2019 Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a microfluidic system (called NC Factory) which starts with cesium lead bromide perovskite quantum dots and introduced various halide salts to precisely tune their fluorescence color across the entire spectrum of visible light. Anions in these salts replace the bromine atoms in the green-emitting dots with either iodine atoms (to move toward the red end of the spectrum) or chlorine atoms (to move toward blue). Coupled with continuous process monitoring, the system can precisely control both chemical composition and processing parameters. It can be used to continuously manufacture […]
Nanocoating makes lightweight metal foams bone-hard and explosion-proof
Phys.org March 15, 2019 The metal foams currently available are suitably lightweight, but the production process is complicated and expensive, and the structures are still too weak and not resilient enough for many applications. Inspired by bone, researchers in Germany used aluminium or polymer foam as the initial lattice substrate to manufacture highly stable, porous metallic foams. They developed a proprietary procedure for coating the individual struts that make up the open-cell interior lattice. As a result, the exterior of the foam is stronger, more stable, light and the withstands extreme loads. They found polyurethane foams have a low density, […]
Long-distance quantum information exchange—success at the nanoscale
Phys.org March 15, 2019 An international team of researchers (Denmark, Australia, USA – Purdue University) discovered that by placing a large, elongated quantum dot between the left dots and right dots, it can mediate a coherent swap of spin states, within a billionth of a second, without ever moving electrons out of their dots. In other words, we now have both fast interaction and the necessary space for the pulsed gate electrodes. The research may have profound implications for the architecture of solid-state quantum computers allowing the realization of networks in which the increased qubit-qubit connectivity translated into a significantly […]
Global Funding Forecast Predicts Growth of R&D Spending Worldwide
R&D Magazine March 12, 2019 The Global R&D Funding Forecast is created based on proprietary reader surveys, current technology and economic reports and in-depth reporting. According to this year’s study, the global trend in R&D spending continues to grow worldwide, reflecting a surge to $240 billion in the Information & Technology sector. As in previous years, the growth in global R&D investments is being driven by spending in Asian countries, in particular China, which exceeds $500 billion in spending accounting for a 22 percent global share in investments. The United States will increase its R&D spending by $15.3 billion in […]
Finding the right ‘dose’ for solar geoengineering
Science Daily March 11, 2019 Applying huge doses of solar geoengineering to offset all warming from rising atmospheric C02 levels could worsen the climate problem — particularly rainfall patterns — in certain regions. However, through modeling, a team of researchers in the US (Harvard University, MIT, Princeton University Georgia Institute of Technology) found that if solar geoengineering (SG) is used to cut global temperature increases in half, no IPCC-defined region is made worse off in any of the major climate impact indicators. Climate models suggest that geoengineering could enable surprisingly uniform benefits. The model indicates that SG moderates changes in […]
Device that ‘shakes’ light a breakthrough In photonics
Nanowerk March 12, 2019 The nonlinear optical effects which used for manipulating photon frequency are weak and require a very strong laser, which creates “noise”. To better control light particles researchers at Yale University have created a device that consists of a series of waveguides. Light and microwave sent through the device wends its way through alternating suspended and clamped waveguides on a single chip. This creates a positive and negative effect, corresponding to the microwave. The light spirals in each of the waveguides to prolong the interaction and maximize efficiency. The deeper the modulation, the better you can control […]
Designing next-generation optical antennas
Phys.org March 13, 2019 A team of researchers in the US (University of Notre Dame, UT Austin) designed and built optical antennas on an Epsilon-Near-Zero Material (ENZ) material to demonstrate a multimode, nearly monochromatic antenna. They are currently working to incorporate the optical antennas into semiconductor devices in order to improve the interaction between light and semiconductor materials. The technique has potential applications in sensing, imaging, infrared optoelectronics, and thermal emission control…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Critical materials: Researchers eye huge supply of rare-earth elements from mining waste
Science Daily March 14, 2019 Large amounts of REEs (Rare-Earth Elements) exist in phosphogypsum (PG), a waste product from producing phosphoric acid, used in the production of fertilizers and other products, from phosphate rock. To extract REEs from PG waste a team of researchers in the US (Rutgers University, Idaho National Laboratory, industry, UC Davis, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) doped synthetic phosphogypsum with six rare-earth elements — yttrium, cerium, neodymium, samarium, europium and ytterbium. They found that a mixture of chemicals produced by the bacterium Gluconobacter oxydans was efficient in recovering REEs by bioleaching. Bioleaching is less harmful to the […]