Nanotechweb January 12, 2018 An international team of researchers (Japan, Australia) has synthesized of YBa2Cu3O x superconducting nanorods using solution chemistry. Initially, a mixture of fine-grained coprecipitated powder was obtained and subsequently converted to YBa2Cu3O x nanorods by heating to 1223 K in oxygen for 12 h. The nanorods are superconducting without the need for any further sintering or oxygenation, thereby providing an avenue for direct application to substrates at room temperature or direct use as formed nanorods. The research opens a route to designer superconductors, tailoring them for specific uses… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
What sort of stream networks do scientific ideas flow along?
Physorg January 12, 2018 Researchers in Poland have shown that tracking the dependencies between co-authors reveals not only the paths along which scientific ideas flow, but also reconstructs the structure of scientific cooperation and detects emerging communities. Interestingly, the proposed method of analysis can be an effective tool to fight terrorists and even dishonest politicians… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of January 13, 2018
01. Researchers design dendrite-free lithium battery 02. A biological solution to carbon capture and recycling? 03. Researchers demonstrate the existence of a new kind of magnetoresistance involving topological insulators 04. What’s the noise eating quantum bits? 05. Scientists develop ultrafast battery with quarter-million cycle life 06. A major step forward in organic electronics 07. Leaving flatland – quantum Hall physics in 4-D 08. How the Meltdown Vulnerability Fix Was Invented 09. Beijing Is Getting a $2.1 Billion AI District 10. FAU to develop novel real-time undersea wireless communications and surveillance technology
FAU to develop novel real-time undersea wireless communications and surveillance technology
Eurekalert January 11, 2018 The current state-of-the-art approaches for undersea localization and tracking are expensive and power-intensive. Under an NSF grant, researchers at Florida Atlantic University will develop novel optimal algorithms for oceanic-scale 3D acoustic underwater localization and tracking, software and hardware technology to create and maintain a programmable software-defined undersea acoustic testbed comprising of four nodes. The new technology is expected to resolve interoperability issues in heterogeneous network deployments that include real-time interaction between undersea, water-surface, aerial, and satellite communication nodes… read more.
Beijing Is Getting a $2.1 Billion AI District
MIT Technology Review January 4, 2018 China is gearing up to build a technology park in Beijing entirely dedicated to the development of artificial intelligence. The endeavor is just the latest sign of China’s remarkable ambition to master and dominate artificial intelligence by 2020. The plan will apparently establish a “national AI research center” and will include efforts to form partnerships with foreign research institutions and companies. China’s AI masterplan seems to have been inspired, in part, by the the U.S. government report at the very end of the Obama administration, PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. Related document National […]
How the Meltdown Vulnerability Fix Was Invented
IEEE Spectrum January 4, 2018 Meltdown and Spectre flaws take advantage of the processors’ hardware rather than a software flaw, so they circumvent security schemes built into major operating systems. An international team of researchers (Australia, USA – University of Pennsylvania, industry partners) found that Meltdown breaks the most fundamental isolation between user applications and the operating system. This attack allows a program to access the memory, and thus also the secrets, of other programs and the operating system. Spectre is potentially wider reaching because it breaks the isolation between different applications. It allows an attacker to trick error-free programs, which follow […]
Leaving flatland – quantum Hall physics in 4-D
Phys.org January 4, 2018 An international team of researchers (Germany, Italy, UK, Switzerland, USA – University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania State University, Israel) has demonstrated a way to observe physical phenomena proposed to exist in higher-dimensional systems in analogous real-world experiments. Using ultracold atoms trapped in a periodically modulated two-dimensional superlattice potential, the scientists could observe a dynamical version of a novel type of quantum Hall effect that is predicted to occur in four-dimensional systems. The research provides the first experimental glimpse into the physics of higher-dimensional quantum Hall systems, which offer many fascinating prospects… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
A major step forward in organic electronics
Eurekalert January 11, 2018 Researchers in Sweden have shown that ladder-type polymers, such as poly(benzimidazobenzophenanthroline) (BBL), can successfully work as stable and efficient n-channel material for OECTs. BBL-based OECTs show high transconductance (up to 9.7 mS) and excellent stability in ambient and aqueous media. They have demonstrated that BBL-based n-type OECTs can be successfully integrated with p-type OECTs to form electrochemical complementary inverters. The latter show high gains and large worst-case noise margin at a supply voltage below 0.6 V. Applications of the organic components include logic circuits that can be printed on textile or paper, various types of cheap […]
Scientists develop ultrafast battery with quarter-million cycle life
Phys.org January 8, 2018 Rechargeable aluminum-ion batteries are promising in high-power density but still face critical challenges of limited lifetime, rate capability, and cathodic capacity. Researchers in China have designed a “trihigh tricontinuous” (3H3C) graphene film cathode. It retains high specific capacity of around 120 mAh g−1 at ultrahigh current density of 400 A g−1 (charged in 1.1 s) with 91.7% retention after 250,000 cycles. The battery works well within a wide temperature range of −40 to 120°C with remarkable flexibility bearing 10,000 times of folding, promising for all-climate wearable energy devices. This design opens an avenue for future super-batteries… […]
What’s the noise eating quantum bits?
Phys.org January 8, 2018 The ability to develop SQUID-based quantum computers will require the stored magnetic data survive for long times. Theory calculations by a team of researchers in the US (University of Wisconsin–Madison, Argonne National Laboratory, UC Irvine, NIST-Colorado), showed that adsorbed molecular oxygen on the surfaces is the dominant contributor to magnetic noise for superconducting niobium and aluminum thin films. They found that surface treatment with ammonia and improving the sample vacuum environment dramatically reduced the surface contamination (to less than one oxygen molecule per 10 nm2), minimizing magnetic noise. Their work provides a design strategy for the […]