Oxidation-induced super-elasticity in metallic glass nanotubes

Nanowerk  February 2, 2024 Although metallic nanostructures are interesting for nanoscience and nanotechnologies, environmental attacks on them can easily initiate cracking on the surface of metals deteriorating their overall functional/structural properties. An international team of researchers (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan) shown that severely oxidized metallic glass nanotubes can attain an ultrahigh recoverable elastic strain at room temperature. They showed that the physical mechanisms underpinning the observed superelasticity could be attributed to the formation of a percolating oxide network in metallic glass nanotubes, which not only restricts atomic-scale plastic events during loading but also leads to the recovery of elastic rigidity […]

New quantum nanodevice can simultaneously act as a heat engine and a refrigerator

Phys.org  December 28, 2020 An international team of researchers (Japan, Ukraine, USA – University of Michigan) has experimentally demonstrated the quantum version of the heat engine which uses an electron in a transistor. The electron has two possible energy states. The team could increase or decrease the gap between these energy states by applying an electric field and microwaves. This can be analogous to the periodic expanding–compressing operation of a fluid in a chamber. The device also emitted microwaves when the electron went from the high-energy level to the lower one. By monitoring whether the upper energy level was occupied, […]