Nanowerk October 2, 2023 Present integrated stretchable electronics easily suffer from electrical deterioration and face challenges in forming robust multilayered soft-rigid hybrid configurations. Researchers in Singapore have developed a bilayer liquid-solid conductor (b-LSC) with amphiphilic properties that reliably interfaces with both rigid electronics and elastomeric substrates. The top liquid metal could self-solder its interface with rigid electronics at a resistance 30% lower than the traditional tin-soldered rigid interface. The bottom polar composite comprising liquid metal particles and polymers could not only reliably interface with elastomers but also help the b-LSC heal after breakage. The b-LSC fabrication could be scaled up […]
Physicists coax superconductivity and more from quasicrystals
Phys.org September 28, 2023 Owing to their complexity and scarcity, quasicrystals are underexplored relative to periodic and amorphous structures. An international team of researchers (USA – MIT, Japan, Israel) introduced a new type of highly tunable quasicrystal easily assembled from periodic components. By twisting three layers of graphene with two different twist angles, they formed two mutually incommensurate moiré patterns. In contrast to many common atomic-scale quasicrystals, the quasiperiodicity in their system was defined on moiré length scales of several nanometres. This ‘moiré quasicrystal’ allowed them to tune the chemical potential and thus the electronic system between a periodic-like regime […]
Powering the quantum revolution: Quantum engines on the horizon
Phys.org September 27, 2023 Quantum theory offers genuine non-classical forms of energy, different from heat, which so far have not been exploited in cyclic engines. An international team of researchers (Germany. Japan, Argentina) experimentally realized a quantum many-body engine fueled by the energy difference between fermionic and bosonic ensembles of ultracold particles that follows from the Pauli exclusion principle. They employed a harmonically trapped superfluid gas of 6Li atoms close to a magnetic Feshbach resonance that allowed them to effectively change the quantum statistics from Bose–Einstein to Fermi–Dirac, by tuning the gas between a Bose–Einstein condensate of bosonic molecules and […]
Scientists unveil fire-safe fuel
Science Daily September 28, 2023 Flammability and combustion of high energy density liquid propellants are controlled by their volatility. Researchers at UC Riverside designed a fuel that ignites only with the application of electric current. They demonstrated a new concept through which the volatility of a high energy density ionic liquid propellant can be dynamically manipulated enabling one to (a) store a thermally insensitive oxidation resistant nonflammable fuel, (b) generate flammable vapor phase species electrochemically by applying a direct-current voltage bias, and (c) extinguish its flame by removing the voltage bias, which stops its volatilization. They showed that a thermally […]
Seeking Innovative Concepts for Space Superiority
DARPA News September 18, 2023 The Bringing Classified Innovation to Defense and Government Systems (BRIDGES) initiative aims to connect innovation from small companies that traditionally do not work with the U.S. government with classified Department of Defense research and development efforts. It aims to provide companies that demonstrate they can provide innovation and value to the DOD the means to obtain a facility clearance and interact directly with DOD customers at classified levels. With this topic, the agency is looking for new methods and technologies that may provide warfighters with disruptive options for protecting and defending space systems across the […]
Striking rare gold: Researchers unveil new material infused with gold in an exotic chemical state
Phys.org September 30, 2023 Although Cu2+ is ubiquitous, the relativistic destabilization of the 5d orbitals makes the isoelectronic Au2+ exceedingly rare, typically stabilized only through Au–Au bonding or by using redox non-innocent ligands. An international team of researchers (USA – Stanford University, UC Berkeley, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Canada) have developed the perovskite Cs4AuIIAuIII2Cl12, an extended solid with mononuclear Au2+ sites, which is stable to ambient conditions and characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The 2+ oxidation state of Au was assigned using 197Au Mössbauer spectroscopy, electron paramagnetic resonance, and magnetic susceptibility measurements, with comparison to paramagnetic […]
Superbolts: Scientists figure out what causes Earth’s strongest lightning
Phys.org September 28, 2023 Exceptionally high-energy lightning strokes >106 J (X1000 stronger than average) in the very low-frequency band between 5 and 18 kHz, also known as superbolts (SB), occur mostly during winter over the North-East Atlantic, the Mediterranean Sea, and over the Altiplano in South America. An international team of researchers (Israel, USA- University of Washington) compared the World-Wide Lightning Location Network database with meteorological and aerosol data to examine the causes of lightning stroke high energies. Their results showed that the energy per stroke increases sharply as the distance between the cloud’s charging zone (where the cloud electrification […]
Thunderstorms clumping together: How understanding water vapor helps scientists predict future climate change
Phys.org October 2, 2023 Convective clouds in the atmosphere can aggregate in a variety of ways, from individual cells to larger systems like tropical cyclones and squall lines. An international team of researchers (USA – University of New Mexico, MIT, Germany, Ethiopia, France) used remote sensing datasets of water vapor isotopic composition along with objective measures of convective aggregation to better understand the impact of convective aggregation on the atmospheric hydrologic cycle in the global tropics for the period 2015–2020. When convection was unaggregated, vertical velocity profiles were top-heavy, mixing ratios increased and water vapor δD decreased as the mean […]
Tiny CRISPR tool could help shred viruses
Science Daily September 27, 2023 The CRISPR-Cas13 ribonucleases have been widely applied for RNA knockdown and transcriptional modulation owing to their high programmability and specificity. However, the large size of Cas13 effectors and their non-specific RNA cleavage upon target activation limit the adeno-associated virus-based delivery of Cas13 systems for therapeutic applications. Researchers at Rice University descried detailed biochemical and structural characterizations of a compact Cas13 (Cas13bt3) suitable for adeno-associated virus delivery. Distinct from many other Cas13 systems, Cas13bt3 cleaves the target and other nonspecific RNA at internal “UC” sites and was activated in a target length-dependent manner. The cryo-electron microscope […]
Ultrafast quantum simulation of large-scale quantum entanglement
Phys.org September 29, 2023 An international team of researchers (Japan, Germany) has reported the observation and control of ultrafast many-body dynamics of electrons in ultracold Rydberg-excited atoms, spatially ordered in a three-dimensional Mott insulator (MI) with unity filling in an optical lattice. By mapping out the time-domain Ramsey interferometry in the picosecond timescale, they could deduce entanglement growth indicating the emergence of many-body correlations via dipolar forces. They analyzed the observations with different theoretical approaches and found that the semiclassical model broke down, indicating that quantum fluctuations play a decisive role in the observed dynamics. Combining picosecond Rydberg excitation with […]