Phys.org May 15, 2024 Integration of functional materials and structures on the tips of optical fibers has enabled various applications in micro-optics. 3D printing technology holds promise for fabricating advanced micro-optical structures on fiber tips. Material selection has been limited to organic polymer-based photoresists because existing methods for 3D direct laser writing of inorganic materials involve high-temperature processing that is not compatible with optical fibers. Researchers in Sweden demonstrated 3D direct laser writing of inorganic glass with a subwavelength resolution on optical fiber tips. They showed two distinct printing modes that enabled the printing of solid silica glass structures “Uniform […]
Tiny displacements, giant changes in optical properties
Nanowerk May 7, 2024 It is shown that structural disorder in the form of anisotropic, picoscale atomic displacements modulates the refractive index tensor and results in the giant optical anisotropy observed in BaTiS3. An international team of researchers (University of Southern California, Washington University, University of Wisconsin–Madison, UC Santa Barbara, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Switzerland) used scanning transmission electron microscopy to directly observe the globally disordered Ti a–b plane displacements and found them to be ordered locally over a few unit cells. First-principles calculations showed that the Ti a–b plane displacements selectively reduced the refractive index […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of May 17, 2024
01. Ultrasound experiment identifies new superconductor 02. For sustainable aviation fuel, researchers engineer a promising microorganism for precursor production 03. Researchers develop nanotechnology for creating wafer-scale nanoparticle monolayers in seconds 04. Scientists demonstrate the potential of electron spin to transmit quantum information 05. Researchers develop compiler acceleration technology for quantum computers 06. Scientists discover a new type of porous material that can store greenhouse gases 07. Stable magnetic bundles achieved at room temperature and zero magnetic field 08. Innovative electrospinning method creates advanced ceramic nanofibers and springs 09. Transforming common soft magnets into a next-generation thermoelectric conversion materials by 3 […]
Clues from deep magma reservoirs could improve volcanic eruption forecasts
Phys.org May 10, 2024 Researchers in the UK demonstrated that the size, frequency, and composition of large-scale, explosive volcanic eruption can be explained by processes in long-lived, high-crystallinity source reservoirs that control the episodic creation of large volumes of eruptible silicic magma and its delivery to the subvolcanic chamber where it is stored before eruption. A large volume of low-crystallinity silicic magma which remains trapped until buoyancy causes magma-driven fractures to propagate into the overlying crust, allowing rapid magma transfer from the reservoir into the chamber. Ongoing melt percolation in the reservoir accumulates a new magma layer and the process […]
Disorder improves battery life
Science Daily May 8, 2024 On charging the Li-deficient frameworks in lithium (Li)-ion cathodes become vulnerable to lattice strain and structural and/or chemo-mechanical degradation, resulting in rapid capacity deterioration and thus short battery life. Guided by fundamental principles of structural chemistry and achieved through an improved ceramic synthesis process, an international team of researchers (the Netherlands, China) developed an approach that addressed these issues using the integration of chemical short-range disorder (CSRD) into oxide cathodes, which involved the localized distribution of elements in a crystalline lattice over spatial dimensions, spanning a few nearest-neighbour spacings. They demonstrated how the introduction of […]
For sustainable aviation fuel, researchers engineer a promising microorganism for precursor production
Phys.org May 9, 2024 Isoprenol is a precursor for a promising SAF compound DMCO (1,4-dimethylcyclooctane) and is produced in several engineered microorganisms. Recently, Pseudomonas putida has gained interest as a future host for isoprenol bioproduction as it can utilize carbon sources from inexpensive plant biomass. A team of researchers in the US (industry, PNNL, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) engineered metabolically versatile host P. putida for isoprenol production. They employed two computational modeling approaches to predict gene knockout targets and optimize the “IPP-bypass” pathway in P. putida to maximize isoprenol production. Altogether, the highest isoprenol production titer from P. putida was […]
Hidden citations in physics may obscure true impact
Phys.org May 8, 2024 When a discovery or technique becomes common knowledge, its citations suffer from what Robert Merton called “obliteration by incorporation.” This phenomenon leads to the concept of hidden citations, representing unambiguous textual references to a discovery without an explicit citation to the corresponding manuscript(s). Previous attempts to detect hidden citations have been limited to manually identifying in-text mentions. Researchers at Northeastern University relied on unsupervised interpretable machine learning applied to the full text of each paper to systematically identify hidden citations. They found that for influential discoveries hidden citations outnumber citation counts, emerging regardless of publishing venue […]
Illuminating ‘the ugly side of science’: fresh incentives for reporting negative results
Nature May 8, 2024 A 2012 study showed that, from 1990 to 2007, there was a 22% increase in positive conclusions in papers; by 2007, 85% of papers published had positive results. People fail to report [negative] results, because they know they won’t get published — and when people do attempt to publish them, they get rejected. A 2022 survey of researchers in France in chemistry, physics, engineering, and environmental sciences showed that, although 81% had produced relevant negative results and 75% were willing to publish them, only 12.5% had the opportunity to do so. One factor that is leading […]
Innovative electrospinning method creates advanced ceramic nanofibers and springs
Nanowerk May 9, 2024 Electrospinning has been applied to produce ceramic fibers using sol gel-based spinning solutions consisting of ceramic precursors, a solvent, and a polymer to control the viscosity of the solution. However, the addition of polymers to the spinning solution makes the process more complex, increases the processing time, and results in porous mechanically weak ceramic fibers. Researchers in the UK developed a coelectrospinning technique, where a nonspinnable sol consisting of only the ceramic precursor(s) and solvent(s) was encapsulated inside a polymeric shell, forming core–shell precursor fibers that were further calcined into ceramic fibers with reduced porosity, decreased […]
Researchers develop compiler acceleration technology for quantum computers
Phys.org May 9, 2024 Researchers in Japan used a random search technique to find quantum gate sequences that implement perfect quantum state preparation or unitary operator synthesis with arbitrary targets. The approach was based on the recent discovery that there is a large multiplicity of quantum circuits that achieved unit fidelity in performing a given target operation, even at the minimum number of single-qubit and two-qubit gates needed to achieve unit fidelity. They showed that the fraction of perfect-fidelity quantum circuits increased rapidly as soon as the circuit size exceeded the minimum circuit size required for achieving unit fidelity. This […]