Science Daily January 11, 2023 In recent ten years, optical pulling of micro-nano objects have been fully demonstrated. However, optical pulling of a macroscopic object is challenging. Researchers in China have demonstrated laser pulling of a macroscopic object in rarefied gas. The pulling force was originated from the Kundsen force when a gauss laser beam irradiates a macroscopic structure composed of the absorptive bulk cross-linked graphene material and a SiO2 layer. A torsional pendulum device qualitatively presented the laser pulling phenomenon. A gravity pendulum device was used to further measure the pulling force that is more than three orders of […]
Researchers develop fluidic memristor with diverse neuromorphic functions
Nanowerk January 13, 2023 Mimicking the structure of human brain could lead to the development of next-generation neuromorphic devices. Focusing on different aspects of neuromorphic engineering, researchers in China created nanofluidic devices consisting of nanometer-thick two-dimensional slits filled with a salt solution, and a nanofluidic ionic memristor based on confined polyelectrolyte-ion interactions. They demonstrated neuromorphic functions with a polyelectrolyte-confined fluidic memristor (PFM), resulting in ion memory effects emulating various electric pulse patterns with ultralow energy consumption. PFM is versatile and easily interfaces with biological systems, paving a way to building neuromorphic devices with advanced functions by introducing rich chemical designs…read […]
Researchers gain deeper understanding of mechanism behind superconductors
Phys.org January 17, 2023 High-temperature superconducting cuprates respond to doping with a dome-like dependence of their critical temperature (Tc). But the family-specific maximum Tc can be surpassed by application of pressure. Researchers in Germany investigated the phenomenon with high-pressure anvil cell NMR and measured the charge content at planar Cu and O, and with it the doping of the CuO2. They found that pressure increases the overall hole doping but when it enhances Tc above what can be achieved by doping, pressure leads to a hole redistribution favoring planar O. This is similar to the observation that the family-specific maximum […]
A year on, we now know why the Tongan eruption was so violent. It’s a wake-up call to watch other submarine volcanoes
Phys.org January 13, 2023 An international team of researchers (Tonga, New Zealand) studied the texture and chemistry of the erupted particles to find clues about the event’s violence. Isotopic “fingerprinting” showed at least three different magma sources were involved. Two magma bodies were older and resident in the middle of the Earth’s crust, the younger one joined shortly before the eruption. The mingling of magmas caused a strong reaction, driving water and other “volatile elements” out of solution and into gas. This created bubbles and an expanding magma foam, pushing the magma out vigorously at the onset of eruption. The […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of January 13, 2023
01. Discovery of a new form of carbon called long-range ordered porous carbon 02. Electrons take new shape inside unconventional metal 03. New approach to epidemic modeling could speed up pandemic simulations 04. Scientists make a quantum harmonic oscillator at room temperature 05. Lithium-sulfur batteries are one step closer to powering the future 06. New quantum computing architecture could be used to connect large-scale devices 07. New spin control method brings billion-qubit quantum chips closer 08. The optical fiber that keeps data safe even after being twisted or bent 09. Paper-supported photodetectors 10. ‘Smart’ coating can be precisely applied to […]
Discovery of a new form of carbon called long-range ordered porous carbon
Phys.org January 11, 2023 Carbon structures with covalent bonds connecting C60 molecules have been reported but until now there was no process to produce large enough quantities for detailed characterization and exploration necessary for potential applications. An international team of researchers (China, South Korea) has developed a gram-scale preparation method for long-range ordered porous carbon (LOPC), from C60 powder catalysed by α-Li3N at ambient pressure. LOPC consists of connected broken C60 cages that maintain long-range periodicity. At a lower temperature, shorter annealing time or by using less α-Li3N polymerized C60 crystal forms due to the electron transfer from α-Li3N to […]
Electrons take new shape inside unconventional metal
Phys.org January 10, 2023 After an extensive study of the angular dependence of quantum oscillations (QOs) in the electrical conductivity of YPtBi an international team of researchers (USA – University of Maryland, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rutgers University, Canada) has reported an anomalous Shubnikov–de Haas effect consistent with the presence of a coherent j=3/2 Fermi surface. The QO signal in YPtBi manifested an extreme anisotropy upon rotation of the magnetic field from the [100] to [110] crystallographic direction, where the QO amplitude vanished. According to the researchers this radical anisotropy for such a highly isotropic system cannot be […]
Killing Anthrax More Quickly with Hot Air Decontamination
Global Biodefence January 4, 2023 Although the hot air decontamination process is within materials specifications for aircraft, extended hot air exposure may affect sensitive systems. Germination occurs when a bacterial spore develops into a growing, vegetative bacterial cell. While spores are resistant to environmental extremes such as heat, most vegetative bacterial cells are susceptible to higher temperatures, so causing germination and raising ambient temperature is one way kill bacterial spores. Researchers at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWC-DD) field tested the bacterial spore germination process by spreading over 100 million human-safe bacterial surrogate for Bacillus anthracis bacterial spores […]
Lithium-sulfur batteries are one step closer to powering the future
Science Daily January 6, 2023 Lithium-sulfur batteries exhibit poor cycle life and low energy content due to the polysulfides shuttling during cycling. An international team of researchers (South Korea, USA – Argonne National Laboratory, Stanford University) developed redox-active interlayers consisting of sulfur-impregnated polar ordered mesoporous silica. Unlike the redox-inactive interlayers, these redox-active interlayers enabled the electrochemical reactivation of the soluble polysulfides, protected the lithium metal electrode from detrimental reactions via silica-polysulfide polar-polar interactions and increased the cell capacity. When tested in a non-aqueous Li-S coin cell configuration, the use of the interlayer enabled an initial discharge capacity of about 8.5 […]
New approach to epidemic modeling could speed up pandemic simulations
Science Daily January 5, 2023 Simulating large-scale epidemics requires substantial computational resources and in many cases is practically infeasible. One way to reduce the computational cost of simulating epidemics on the networks derived from modern datasets is sparsification, where a representative subset of edges is selected based on some measure of their importance. Researchers at Santa Fe Institute used the effective resistance, which takes both local and global connectivity into account. They tested their method in simulations on a U.S.-wide mobility network and fond that it preserved epidemic dynamics with high fidelity. According to the researchers combined with efficient epidemic […]