Nanowerk January 23, 2019 Researchers in China developed an ink combining graphene and carbon black, both of which are conductive, with a polymer binder in a solvent. As it is applied, the force causes it to lose its viscosity, so it flows easily, but as soon as the force is removed, it thickens and keeps its shape. The ink can act as the microelectrodes, metal-free current collectors and interconnects, simultaneously. They applied the graphene ink to a substrate, such as glass or flexible PET plastic, using a patterned screen as a stencil. The resulting pattern includes all the conductive parts […]
Materials that open in the heat of the moment
Science Daily January 24, 2019 The porous nanomaterials that are currently used for gas separation and storage are not tunable: their pores are persistent and rigid. Researchers in Japan designed a porous coordination polymer with copper atoms linked by butterfly-shaped ligands made from isophthalic acid and phenothiazine-5,5-dioxide. The material was comprised of tiny nanocages with protruding channels. At very low temperatures, the channels were very narrow; as the temperature was increased, the channels opened more and more, allowing gas molecules to move between the cages. A gas could move or become locked within the material depending on the size of […]
Lasers can send a whispered audio message directly to one person’s ear
MIT Technology Review January 28, 2019 To send the messages, researchers from MIT Lincoln Laboratory relied upon the photoacoustic effect in which water vapor in the air absorbs light and forms sound waves. The researchers used a laser beam to transmit a sound at 60 decibels (roughly the volume of background music or conversation in a restaurant) to a target person who was standing 2.5 meters away. A second technique modulated the power of the laser beam to encode a message, which produced a quieter but clearer result. The team used it to beam music, recorded speech, and various tones, […]
Extreme space weather can wreak havoc on Earth—these tools help warn of the dangers ahead
Phys.org January 23, 2019 Researchers in the UK have developed a system to improve the reliability of systems that predict space weather events by measuring the solar wind from distances further away from Earth than previously possible. In a project called HELCATS, they used a satellite set up to monitor the Sun and Earth from a side view, known as STEREO, to gather data on CMEs (coronal mass ejections) and how they vary in speed, density, and direction throughout a solar cycle. The idea was to exploit the STEREO Heliospheric Imaging data, with observations of over 1000 CMEs from 2007 […]
Engineers develop novel strategy for designing tiny semiconductor particles for wide-ranging applications
Science Daily January 25, 2019 An international team of researchers (Singapore, China) has developed a cheaper and more scalable bottom-up synthesis strategy that can consistently construct TMD QDs (transition metal dichalcogenide quantum dots) of a specific size and properties. To demonstrate the proof-of-concept they synthesised MoS2 QDs with specific properties for biomedical applications. They have successfully synthesised a small library of seven TMD QDs and were able to alter their electronic and optical properties accordingly. They process can be used to optimize TMD QDs for applications such as the next generation TV and electronic device screens, advanced electronics components and […]
Current generation via quantum proton transfer
Nanowerk January 23, 2019 Researchers in Japan have observed quantum tunneling effect in proton-transfer (PT) during potential-induced transformation of dioxygen on a platinum electrode in a low overpotential region at 298 K. This process is converted to the classical PT scheme in the high overpotential region. This observation indicates that the quantum tunneling governs the multistep electron-proton-driven transformation of dioxygen in the low overpotential condition. It shows the involvement of QTE in proton transfer during the basic energy conversion processes. The discovery may facilitate investigations of microscopic mechanisms of electrochemical reactions and stimulate the development of highly efficient electrochemical energy conversion […]
Artificial intelligence ARTIST instantly captures materials’ properties
Science Daily January 30, 2019 An international team of researchers (Finland, Denmark, Germany) has developed and trained the architecture ARTIST, made of three different neural network architectures: multilayer perceptron (MLP), convolutional neural network (CNN), and deep tensor neural network (DTNN), to predict molecular excitation using the coordinates and charges of the constituent atoms of each molecule as input. In demonstration they scanned the structures of 10k previously unseen organic molecules and obtained their spectra predictions to identify molecules for potential applications. The research has the potential to speed up the development of flexible electronics, produce better batteries and catalysts and […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of January 11, 2019
01. Overtones can provide faster data communication 02. Common frame for analyzing complex systems in physics and economics 03. Programming light on a chip 04. Scientists realize a three-dimensional ‘topological’ medium for electromagnetic waves 05. Controllable fast, tiny magnetic bits 06. Excitons pave the way to more efficient electronics 07. Five emerging cyber-threats to worry about in 2019 08. A century and half of reconstructed ocean warming offers clues for the future 09. Future of planet-cooling tech: Study creates roadmap for geoengineering 10. Lotus leaf inspires scientists to create world’s first self-cleaning metals And others… China Cleaned Up Beijing Air […]
Trends, events and predictions for 2019 (Podcast)
Physics World January 9, 2019 In the first episode of the year of Physics World Weekly, journalists gaze into their crystal balls to predict the future forecasting the key trends in physics and related areas of science, including the unabating rise of quantum-based technologies. They also preview some of the year’s key events including the International Year of the Periodic Table (IYPT2019), a United Nations-backed initiative to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the table’s creation by Dmitri Mendeleev. Readers of Physics World magazine can also discover some of the highlights to look out for in the monthly publication during 2019…read […]
Scientists realize a three-dimensional ‘topological’ medium for electromagnetic waves
Phys.org January 9, 2019 An international team of researchers (Singapore, China) constructed the 3-D photonic topological insulator out of a stack of thin plastic sheets embedded with metal antennas acting as tiny electromagnetic resonators. The key breakthrough was made when they realized how to tailor the resonators to interact with electromagnetic waves in a very specific way, granting the waves the desired topological characteristics. The current 3-D photonic topological insulator is limited to electromagnetic waves, at relatively low frequencies. According to the researchers if it can be scaled to optical frequencies there could be applications for creating optical computer chips, […]