Nanowerk December 18, 2024 The storage medium must be modifiable on the nanoscale. While polymers are promising storage media, they face challenges with synthesis, erasing temperatures, and stability. Researchers in Australia developed a low-cost and robust polymer system that allows repeated writing, reading and erasing. It provided a network of S─S bonds that could be broken and re-formed repeatedly. They leveraged this property to encode information, and thermal S─S metathesis and polymer re-flow to erase. This control enabled data encoding not just as a function of the presence or absence of an indent, but also indentation depth. It increased the […]
Tag Archives: S&T -Australia
Engineers unlock lithium from extreme environments
Phys.org October 22, 2024 In contrast to the predominant production of lithium from hard rock, lithium extraction from brine sources has proven more economical and sustainable. However, the low efficiency of the extraction process, complex composition and poor selectivity against magnesium, are the major competing species. Researchers in Australia showed a loose nanofiltration process involving ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) for direct and efficient Li+ extraction as well as effective Mg2+ utilization from salt-lake brines. Taking advantage of selective binding between EDTA4− and Mg2+, their process achieved ultrahigh Mg2+ rejection of 99.85%, ultrafast Li+ flux and unprecedented Li+/Mg2+ separation factor under industrial […]
Huge waves in the atmosphere dump extreme rain on northern Australia
Phys.org October 10, 2024 Convectively coupled equatorial waves (CCEWs) can be potential sources of predictability for sub-seasonal to seasonal prediction over northern Australia. Researchers in Australia studied the relationship between these waves and rainfall in northern Australia from 1981 to 2018. They found the waves had a significant impact on rainfall during the southern summer (December–February) and autumn (March–May). When waves combined in certain ways, heavy rain events become even more likely. Due to Australia’s vast landmass and local geography, the impacts of these waves were quite different across the continent. They showed that the activity of the “atmospheric melodies” […]
Doughnut-shaped region found inside Earth’s core deepens understanding of planet’s magnetic field
Phys.org August 30, 2024 Thermochemical inhomogeneities in the Earth’s outer core that enhance our understanding of the geodynamo have been elusive. Seismic constraints on such inhomogeneities would provide clues on the amount and distribution of light elements in the core apart from iron and nickel. Researchers in Australia found evidence for a low-velocity volume within the outer core via the global coda correlation wavefield. Several key correlogram features with a unique sensitivity to the liquid core showed variations with wave paths remarkably slower in the equatorial than polar planes constrained a torus structure at low latitudes with lower velocity than […]
New salts raise the bar for lithium ion battery technology
Phys.org August 16, 2021 Lithium battery materials, currently in use, fall short in terms of safety and performance holding back the next generation of high-performance batteries. In particular, the development of the electrolyte poses a key challenge for higher power batteries suitable for energy storage and vehicle applications. Researchers in Australia have synthesized safe fluoroborate salts with battery grade purity by recrystallisation process. When put in a lithium battery with lithium manganese oxide cathodes, the cell cycled for more than 1000 cycles, even after atmospheric exposure. The salt was found to be very stable on aluminum current collectors at higher […]
New advanced material shows extraordinary stability over wide temperature range
Phys.org June 14, 2021 Researchers in Australia have demonstrated that the zero thermal expansion material made of scandium, aluminum, tungsten, and oxygen did not change in volume from 4 to 1400 Kelvin (-269 to 1126 °Celsius). They confirmed the structural stability of Sc1.5Al0.5W3O12 with only minute changes to the bonds, position of oxygen atoms and rotations of the atom arrangements which appear to be undertaken cooperatively. The crystallographic data from the diffraction experiments reflects the combination of subtle but observable distortions of the polyhedral units, bond lengths, angles and oxygen atoms that allow the material to absorb temperature changes. It […]
Future sparkles for diamond-based quantum technology
Science Daily May 17, 2021 Advancement of diamond based photonic circuitry requires robust fabrication protocols of key components – including diamond resonators and cavities. Researchers in Australia have developed a new hard masking method, which uses a thin metallic tungsten layer to pattern the diamond nanostructure, enabling the creation of one-dimensional photonic crystal cavities. The use of tungsten instead of a more conventional silicon oxide layer enables good repeatability and reliability of the fabrication procedures. The process yields high quality diamond cavities with quality factors (Q-factors) approaching 1 × 104. They showed that the cavities can be picked up and […]
Surpassing the lower limit on computing energy consumption
Phys.org April 20, 2021 Researchers in Australia have confirmed the potential for topological materials to substantially reduce the energy consumed by computing. They demonstrated that the subthreshold swing of a topological transistor in which conduction is enabled by a topological phase transition via electric field switching, can be sizably reduced in a noninteracting system by modulating the Rashba spin–orbit interaction. By developing a theoretical framework for quantum spin Hall materials with honeycomb lattices, they showed that the Rashba interaction can reduce the subthreshold swing by more than 25% compared to Boltzmann’s limit in currently available materials but without any fundamental […]
A new, positive approach could be the key to next-generation, transparent electronics
EurekAlert April 5, 2021 Wide-bandgap p-type oxides have carrier mobilities that are one to two orders of magnitude lower due to strong carrier localization near their valence band edge. Researchers in Australia have grown bilayer beta tellurium dioxide (β-TeO2) through the surface oxidation of a eutectic mixture of tellurium and selenium. It is theoretically proposed as a high-mobility p-type semiconductor. The isolated β-TeO2 nanosheets are transparent and have a direct bandgap of 3.7 eV. Field-effect transistors based on the nanosheets exhibit p-type switching with an on/off ratio exceeding 106 and a field-effect hole mobility of up to 232 cm2 V−1 s−1 at room temperature. […]
Adapting solar energy technology to detect chemical warfare agents and pesticides
Nanowerk March 4, 2021 The wrong amounts or incorrect use of these fumigants like methyl iodide can be harmful to people and degrade the ozone layer. Researchers in Australia borrowed a new technology that is being used to improve solar power – synthetic nanocrystals based on a perovskite structure – and turned it into a detection method. The presence of methyl iodide causes the nanocrystal emission to shift from green to yellow, and then on to orange, red, and finally deep red, depending on the amount of fumigant present. They demonstrated that the change in colour is dependent on the […]