Phys.org August 13, 2018 Researchers in China succeeded in synthesizing the new Q1D K2Mo3As3 compound whose Tc value exceeded 10 K. Bulk superconductivity below 10.4 K was confirmed by electrical resistivity, magnetic susceptibility, and heat capacity measurements. The K2Mo3As3 is the first MoAs-based superconductor and possesses the record Tc in all Q1D superconductors. This discovery indicates that Cr and Mo based Q1D superconductors may share some common underlying origins within the similar structural motifs and will help to uncover the exotic superconducting mechanism in low dimensional materials… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Tag Archives: Advanced materials
Electrospun sodium titanate speeds up the purification of nuclear waste water
Eurekalert June 27, 2018 Electrospun ion exchange fibres provide highly efficient and sustainable material for separation of trace pollutants, such as radionuclides and heavy metals. Researchers in Finland developed a process for electrospinning sodium titanate fibres and tested its ion exchange kinetics measurements. They found that by exploiting electrospun inorganic sub-micron fibres the ion exchanger mass required for a given capacity can be decreased significantly. With the help of this new method, waste water can be treated faster than before, and the environmentally positive aspect is that the process leaves less solid radio-active waste… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
New carbon could signal step-change for the world’s most popular batteries
Phys.org June 25, 2018 An international team of researchers (China, India, UK, France) used ‘Eglinton homocoupling’ involving removing silicon from carbon-silicon groups to produce carbon to carbon links resulting in OSPC-1, an amorphous, very stable and highly conductive anode material for lithium-ion batteries. It does not form dendrites, able to store lithium ions at more than double the rate as graphite with high charging speeds and longer-lasting than graphite. They found no signs of deterioration after over 100 charging and discharging cycles. The method used by the team has the potential to be extended to other 3-D carbon materials… read […]
Thermal camouflage disguises hot and cold
Nanowerk June 27, 2018 Thermal camouflage requires an ability to control the emitted thermal radiation from the surface. An international team of researchers (Turkey, USA – MIT, UK) used electro-modulation of IR absorptivity and emissivity of multilayer graphene via reversible intercalation of nonvolatile ionic liquids. The new surfaces are thin, ultraflexible and they can conformably coat their environment. By combining active thermal surfaces with a feedback mechanism, they demonstrated an adaptive thermal camouflage system which can reconfigure its thermal appearance and blend itself with the varying thermal background in a few seconds. These devices can disguise hot objects as cold […]
Harry Potter had magic – We have metamaterials
Nanowerk June 15, 2018 Researchers at Northeastern University have developed a deep-learning-based model, comprising two bidirectional neural networks assembled by a partial stacking strategy, to automatically design and optimize three-dimensional chiral metamaterials with strong chiroptical responses at predesignated wavelengths. The model can help to discover the intricate, nonintuitive relationship between a metamaterial structure and its optical responses from a number of training examples. This approach realizes the forward prediction of optical performance much more accurately and efficiently and helps inversely retrieve designs from given requirements…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Promising new material has the right properties to capture solar energy, split water into hydrogen and oxygen
Phys.org June 18, 2018 Using supercomputers to calculate the quantum energy states of four halide double perovskites, an international team of researchers (UK, USA – Cornell University) found that the double perovskites Cs2BiAgCl6 and Cs2BiAgBr6 are potentially promising materials for photo-catalytic water splitting. They would require controlling their surface termination to obtain energy levels appropriate for water splitting. The energy of the halogen P orbitals is found to control the conduction band level; therefore, the team proposes that mixed halides could be used to fine-tune the electronic affinity…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Light-bending nano-patterns for LEDs
Nanowerk June 8, 2018 Researchers in Singapore designed and experimentally realized high efficiency beam deflecting and polarization beam splitting metasurfaces consisting of GaN nanostructures etched on the GaN epitaxial substrate itself. They demonstrated a polarization insensitive beam deflecting metasurface with 64% and 90% absolute and relative efficiencies, and the broad functionality that can be realized on this platform. The broadband response in the blue wavelength range of 430–470 nm. The nanophotonic platform of GaN shows the way to off- and on-chip nonlinear and quantum photonic devices working efficiently at blue emission wavelengths common to many atomic quantum emitters such as Ca+ […]
Scientists find ordered magnetic patterns in disordered magnetic material
Science Daily June 8, 2018 A team of researchers in the US (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, UC Berkeley) has generalized the concept of chirality driven by interfacial the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction (DMI) to complex multicomponent systems and demonstrated on the example of chiral ferrimagnetism in amorphous GdCo films. They found that 2 nm thick GdCo films preserve ferrimagnetism and stabilize chiral domain walls. The type of chiral domain walls depends on the rare‐earth composition/saturation magnetization. The success of the experiments opens the possibility of controlling some properties of domain walls, such as chirality, with temperature, and of switching a material’s chiral […]
Building nanomaterials for next-generation computing
Science Daily May 30, 2018 Researchers at Northwestern University tested different conditions to map out the different parameters required to grow specific heterostructures from four types of 2-D materials: molybdenum disulfide and diselenide, and tungsten disulfide and diselenide. The unified Time-Temperature-Architecture Diagrams provide directions for the exact conditions required to generate numerous heterostructure morphologies and compositions. Using these diagrams, the researchers developed a unique library of nanostructures with physical properties of interest to physicists and materials scientists which may be useful for heterostructure fabrication beyond the first four materials… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Wood to supercapacitors
Nanowerk May 24, 2018 Researchers in China have developed an economical and sustainable method for the synthesis of ultrathin carbon nanofiber (CNF) aerogels from the wood‐based nanofibrillated cellulose aerogels via a catalytic pyrolysis process. They demonstrated that wood‐derived CNF aerogels exhibit excellent electrical conductivity, a large surface area, and potential as a binder‐free electrode material for supercapacitors. The results suggest great promise in developing new families of carbon aerogels based on the controlled pyrolysis of economical and sustainable nanostructured precursors… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE