Science Daily September 19, 2019 Applications like web browsers or smartphone apps often use a lot of memory. To address this ,researcher at the UMass. Amherst, have developed a system they call Mesh that can automatically reducee such memory demands. Programs written in C-like languages can suffer from serious memory fragmentation. Mesh effectively squeezes out these gaps by taking advantage of virtual memory of the hardware. Mesh finds chunks of memory that can be interleaved and reclaims the memory from one of the chunks by combining the two chunks into just one. According to the researchers the results to date […]
Nano bulb lights novel path
Eurekalert September 19, 2019 Researchers at Rice University made an incandescent light source by breaking down a one-element system into two or more subunits. They put sub-elements together in such a fashion that they interact with each other. The idea is to rely upon collective behavior, not just a single element. Breaking the filament into many pieces provides more degrees of freedom to design the functionality. The resonator’s output can be controlled by damping the lossy resonator or by controlling the level of coupling through a third element between the resonators. The ability to tune the oscillator phase provides new […]
New framework for nanoantenna light absorption
Science Daily September 23, 2019 To harness light’s energy into nanoscale volumes one must overcome the diffraction limit. Researchers at the University of Illinois overcame this hurdle by coupling photonic crystals with a plasmonic nanoantenna. The photonic crystals serve as light receivers and focus the energy into an electromagnetic field that is hundreds of times greater than that received from the original light source, such as an LED or laser. The nanoantennas, when “tuned” to the same wavelength, absorb the energy from the electromagnetic field and concentrate the energy into a smaller volume that is of greater intensity by yet […]
Scientists finally find superconductivity in place they have been looking for decades
Phys.org September 26, 2019 The biggest obstacle to making superconductors operate at higher temperatures and making superconductivity more robust has been the lack of a model. High-temperature superconductors are quantum materials, where electrons cooperate to produce unexpected properties. A team of researchers in the US (Stanford University, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) created a virtual version of a cuprate on a square lattice, like a wire fence with square holes where each virtual atom can accommodate at most two electrons that are free to jump or hop—either to their immediate neighbors on the square lattice or diagonally across each square. When […]
Shape-shifting robots built from smarticles could navigate Army operations
EurekAlert September 18, 2019 Working under a U.S. Army project a team of researchers in the US (Georgia Institute of Technology, Northwestern University) built robots entirely from smaller robots known as smarticles, unlocking the principles of a potentially new locomotion technique. The 3D-printed smarticles can do just one thing: flap their two arms. But when five of these smarticles are confined in a circle, they begin to nudge one another, forming a robophysical system known as a “supersmarticle” that can move by itself. The devices can change their location only when they interact with other devices while enclosed by a […]
Team closes in on ‘holy grail’ of room temperature quantum computing chips
Phys.org September 18, 2019 Researchers at the Stevens Institute of Technology have coaxed photons into interacting by firing a laser beam into a racetrack-shaped microcavity carved into a sliver of crystal. As the laser light bounces around the racetrack, its confined photons interact with one another, producing a harmonic resonance that causes some of the circulating light to change wavelength. They boosted its efficiency by using a chip made from lithium niobate on insulator. They used an ion-milling tool to etch a tiny racetrack. The team has already identified ways to increase their Q-factor by a factor of at least […]
‘Treasure trove’ of earthquake clues could be unearthed by wavy new technique
Science Daily September 24, 2019 Current rock mapping techniques use sound waves that help assess how rocks might behave when stress builds up, and how much shaking there would be in an earthquake. An international team of researchers (UK, New Zealand) have plugged current sound wave information into full waveform inversion which helps them paint a picture of the Hikurangi fault zone in unprecedented detail. They also captured the shallow faults which were responsible for the large Gisborne tsunami in 1947 — an example of a large tsunami caused by a relatively small slow slip earthquake. The researchers combined data […]
‘Valley states’ in this super-thin material could potentially be used for quantum computing
Phys.org September 23, 2019 Past research has shown that applying a magnetic field can shift the energy of the valleys in opposite directions, lowering the energy of one valley to make it “deeper” and more attractive to electrons, while raising the energy of the other valley to make it “shallower,” A team of researchers in the US (SUNY Buffalo, University of Nebraska) showed that the shift in the energy of the two valleys can be enlarged by two orders of magnitude if we place a thin layer of magnetic europium sulfide under the tungsten disulfide. After that when they applied […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of September 20, 2019
01. New topological insulator reroutes photonic ‘traffic’ on the fly 02. Researchers use laser light to transform metal into magnet 03. Uncovering the hidden “noise” that can kill qubits 04. The future of ‘extremely’ energy-efficient circuits 05. Scientists create fully electronic 2-D spin transistors 06. Scientists develop DNA microcapsules with built-in ion channels 07. Liquid Air Could Store Renewable Energy and Reduce Emissions 08. Welcome indoors, solar cells 09. Pearls: New light on enhancing lightweight armor for soldiers 10. MIT engineers develop “blackest black” material to date And others… Delivering on Quantum Innovation Device generates light from the cold night […]
Liquid Air Could Store Renewable Energy and Reduce Emissions
IEEE Spectrum September 18, 2019 Refrigerated food warehouses and factories consume immense amounts of energy. A team of researchers and companies in Europe working under the CryoHub project sponsored by EU are now developing a cryogenic energy storage system that could reduce carbon emissions from the food sector while providing a convenient way to store wind and solar power. The system will use extra wind and solar electricity to freeze air to cryogenic temperatures, where it becomes liquid, and in the process shrinks by 700 times in volume. The liquid air is stored in insulated low-pressure tanks similar to the […]