Nanowerk March 27, 2023 Physical reservoir computing is a computational paradigm that enables spatiotemporal pattern recognition to be performed directly in matter. The use of physical matter leads the way toward energy-efficient devices capable of solving machine learning problems without having to build a system of millions of interconnected neurons. An international team of researchers (Germany, Belgium) proposed a high-performance “skyrmion mixture reservoir” that implemented the reservoir computing model with multidimensional inputs. This implementation solved spoken digit classification tasks with an overall model accuracy of 97.4% and a < 1% word error rate. According to the researchers due to the quality of […]
Tag Archives: Materials science
Using chemical exfoliation to produce superconducting tungsten disulfide ink
Phys.org March 23, 2023 Liquid-phase chemical exfoliation can achieve industry-scale production of 2D materials for a wide range of applications. However, because of their sensitivity to air and depreciation of physical performance many 2D materials cannot be used for practical application. An international team of researchers (USA – Princeton, Rutgers Universty, Germany) has developed a chemical exfoliation method to create a stable, aqueous, surfactant-free, superconducting ink containing phase-pure 1T”S2 monolayers that are isostructural to the air-sensitive topological insulator 1T′-WTe2. The printed film was metallic at room temperature and superconducting below 7.3 kelvin, showed strong anisotropic unconventional superconducting behavior with an […]
MIT physicists predict exotic new phenomena and give “recipe” for realizing them
MIT News March 17, 2023 van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures formed by 2D magnets and semiconductors have provided a fertile ground for fundamental science and spintronics. Through first-principles calculations researchers at MIT have found a proximity exchange splitting of 14 meV (equivalent to an effective Zeeman field of 120 T) in the vdW magnet-semiconductor heterostructure MoS 2/CrBr 3, leading to a 2D spin-polarized half-metal with carrier densities ranging up to 1013 cm−2. They explored the effect of large exchange coupling on the electronic band structure when the magnetic layer hosts chiral spin textures such as skyrmions. A flat Chern band […]
Scientists use lasers to recreate ‘twisted’ superconducting material
Phys.org March 21, 2023 In strong correlations and superconductivity in twisted-bilayer graphene the superposition of two twisted honeycomb lattices generating a moiré pattern is the key to the observed flat electronic bands, slow electron velocity and large density of states. An international team of researchers (USA – University of Chicago, China) demonstrated quantum simulation of superfluid to Mott insulator transition in twisted-bilayer square lattices based on atomic Bose–Einstein condensates loaded into spin-dependent optical lattices. The lattices are made of two sets of laser beams that independently address atoms in different spin states, which form the synthetic dimension accommodating the two […]
Surprise in the quantum world: Disorder leads to ferromagnetic topological insulator
Nanowerk March 21, 2023 The recent realizations of the quantum anomalous Hall effect in MnBi2Te4 and MnBi4Te7 benchmark the (MnBi2Te4)(Bi2Te3)n family as a promising hotbed for further quantum anomalous Hall effect improvements. However, the quantum anomalous Hall effect realization is complicated in MnBi2Te4 and MnBi4Te7 due to the substantial antiferromagnetic coupling between the septuple layers. Although ferromagnetic state can be stabilized by interlacing the septuple layers with an increasing number n of Bi2Te3 quintuple layers the mechanisms driving the FM state and the number of necessary quintuple layers are not understood, and the surface magnetism remains obscure. An international team […]
Shape memory achieved for nano-sized objects
Phys.org March 9, 2023 Magnetoelectric (ME) oxide materials can convert magnetic input into electric output and vice versa, making them excellent candidates for advanced sensing, data storage, and communication. However, their application has been limited to rigid devices due to their brittle nature. An international team of researcher (Switzerland, Germany, South Korea, Spain) has developed flexible ME oxide composite (BaTiO3/CoFe2O4) thin film nanostructures with distinct ME coupling coefficients. In contrast to rigid bulk counterparts, these ceramic nanostructures displayed a flexible behavior after being released from the substrate, and could be transferred onto a stretchable substrate such as polydimethylsiloxane. These ceramic […]
New method creates material that could create the next generation of solar cells
Science Daily February 24, 2023 Halide perovskites show ubiquitous presences in growing fields at both fundamental and applied levels. Discovery, investigation, and application of innovative perovskites are heavily dependent on the synthetic methodology in terms of time-/yield-/effort-/energy- efficiency. Conventional wet chemistry method provides the easiness for growing thin film samples but represents as an inefficient way for bulk crystal synthesis. A team of researchers in the US (Pennsylvania State University, U.S. Army CCDCAMC) has developed a universal solid state-based route for synthesizing high-quality perovskites by means of simultaneously applying both electric and mechanical stress fields during the synthesis, i.e., the […]
Scientists identify new mechanism of corrosion
Science Daily February 23, 2023 Often, the progression of localized corrosion is accompanied by the evolution of porosity in materials previously reported to be either three-dimensional or two-dimensional. Using new tools and analysis techniques, a team of researchers in the US (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University, MIT, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, University of Virginia) realized that a more localized form of corrosion, which they call 1D wormhole corrosion, has previously been miscategorized in some situations. Using electron tomography, they showed multiple examples of 1D and percolating morphology. To understand the origin of this mechanism in a Ni-Cr alloy […]
Designing advanced ‘BTS’ materials for temperature and long-wave infrared sensing
Phys.org February 20, 2023 Replicating the molecular structure and functional motifs of biological compounds often provide clues to advance material designs and offers a blueprint for unprecedented functionalities. An international team of researchers (USA – Caltech, South Korea) has developed a flexible biomimetic thermal sensing (BTS) polymer that was designed to emulate the ion transport dynamics of a plant cell wall component, pectin. Using a simple yet versatile synthetic procedure, they engineered the physicochemical properties of the polymer by inserting elastic fragments in a block copolymer architecture, making it flexible and stretchable. The thermal response of the flexible polymer outperformed […]
Keeping drivers safe with a road that can melt snow, ice on its own
Science Daily February 16, 2023 In this study, a novel and economical green sustained-release microcapsule salt-storage anti-icing agent was prepared by researchers in China using solid waste porous sustained-release skeleton loading organic acetate salt as the core material and styrene-acrylic-acrylate copolymer P(AA-MA-BA-St) as the wall material, which have less corrosiveness and extended the release time. The blast furnace slag and NaHCO3 were selected as the sustained-release skeleton and corrosion inhibitors. The optimal conditions of the synthesis of vesicle wall materials were investigated: 3.8 wt % acrylic acid polymerized at 110 °C with 3 wt % AIBN and for 3.5 h, […]