Phys.org November 18, 2021 Xenon is used almost exclusively as an ionizable propellant for space propulsion. However, xenon is rare, it must be stored under high pressure and production cost is high. Researchers in France used iodine propellant in a system and presented in-orbit results of the technology. They stored iodine as a solid and sublimated at low temperatures. Plasma was produced with a radio-frequency inductive antenna with enhanced ionization efficiency. Both atomic and molecular iodine ions were accelerated by high-voltage grids to generate thrust, and a highly collimated beam was produced with substantial iodine dissociation. The propulsion system was […]
Tag Archives: S&T France
Keeping one step ahead of earthquakes
Phys.org November 3, 2021 According to the researchers in France AI has the potential to improve the accuracy and speed of early warning systems. Earthquake early warning (EEW) systems are evolving rapidly due to advances in computer power and network communication. They work by identifying the first signals generated by an earthquake rupture before the strongest shaking and tsunami reach populated areas. These signals follow the origin of the earthquake and can be recorded seconds before the seismic waves. Prompt elasto-gravity signal (PEGS) which was recently identified travels at the speed of light but is a million times smaller than […]
An artificial ionic neuron for tomorrow’s electronic memories
Nanowerk August 17, 2021 Researchers in France report that devices made of a single layer of water transporting ions within graphene nanoslits have the same transmission capacity as a neuron. They developed an analytical theory, backed up by molecular dynamics simulations, that predicts strongly nonlinear effects in ion transport across quasi–two-dimensional slits. They showed that under an electric field, ions assemble into elongated clusters, whose slow dynamics result in hysteretic conduction. The memristor effect, can be harnessed to build an elementary neuron. As a proof of concept, they carried out molecular simulations of two nanofluidic slits that reproduced the Hodgkin-Huxley […]
Toward a more energy-efficient spintronics
EurekAlert April 22, 2020 In order to generate and detect spin currents, spintronics traditionally uses ferromagnetic materials whose magnetization switching consume high amounts of energy. Researchers in France have demonstrated an alternative strategy to achieve low-power spin detection in a non-magnetic system by harnessing the electric-field-induced ferroelectric-like state of strontium titanate to manipulate the spin–orbit properties of a two-dimensional electron gas and efficiently convert spin currents into positive or negative charge currents, depending on the polarization direction. The research opens the way to the electric-field control of spin currents and to ultralow-power spintronics…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Sliding walls – a new paradigm for microfluidic devices
Nanowerk April 9, 2020 Currently, fluidic control in microdevices is mainly achieved either by external pumps and valves, which are expensive and bulky, or by valves integrated in the chip. Researchers in France propose a new paradigm for actuation in microfluidic devices based on rigid or semi-rigid walls with transversal dimensions of hundreds of micrometres that can slide within a microfluidic chip and to intersect microchannels with hand-driven or translation stage-based actuation. The new concept for reconfigurable microfluidics, the implementation of a wide range of functionalities was facilitated and allowed for no or limited dead volume, low cost and low […]
The extraordinary powers of bacteria visualized in real time
Science Daily May 23, 2019 The global spread of antibiotic resistance is a major public health issue. The spread of antibiotic resistance is for the most part due to the capacity of bacteria to exchange genetic material through a process known as bacterial conjugation. The ability of the bacterium to expel the antibiotic before it can exert its destructive effect using “efflux pumps” found on its membrane. Experimenting with E. Coli researchers in France have revealed that in just 1 to 2 hours, the single-stranded DNA fragment of the efflux pump was transformed into double-stranded DNA and then translated into […]
Locating a shooter from the first shot via cellphone
Phys.org May 13, 2019 Tactical Communication and Protective Systems (TCAPS), earmuffs or earplugs with built-in microphones allowing active hearing protection, have four microphones: two outside the ear canal and two inside it, underneath the hearing protection. Researchers in France have developed a proof of concept shooter location device because most modern combat weapons fire bullets at supersonic speeds, creating two acoustic wave – supersonic shock wave and the second one is a muzzle wave. The device uses the microphone underneath the hearing protection to detect the shock and muzzle waves generated by supersonic shots and record the time difference of […]
Toward novel computing and fraud detection technologies with on-demand polymers
Science Daily April 1, 2019 Researchers in France have constructed synthetic polymers with fully controlled primary structures using solid-phase iterative chemistry, a process that was originally developed to make peptides. In the last few years, the team has been making precisely tailored polymers for data-storage applications. In these polymers, each monomer or subunit stands for a specific piece of information. So far, the researchers have created tiny data storage devices made of layered sequence-coded polymers. Recently observed that the molecular bits that they contain occupy much smaller volumes than do the nucleotides in DNA. They believe that within the next […]
The first walking robot that moves without GPS
Science Daily February 13, 2019 To navigate safely in hostile environment, desert ants assess their direction from the polarized pattern of skylight and judge the distance traveled based on both a stride-counting method and the optic flow. Using this concept a team of researchers in France has designed AntBot equipped with an optical compass used to determine its direction by means of polarized light, and by an optical movement sensor directed to the sun to measure the distance covered. Armed with this information, AntBot was able to explore its environment and to return on its own to its base, with […]
A step closer to single-atom data storage
Phys.org July 10, 2018 Researchers in France found that the holmium atoms could retain record-breaking coercivity in a magnetic field exceeding 8 Tesla. Only at around 45K, the magnets began to spontaneously align themselves to the applied magnetic field. This showed that they can withstand relatively high temperature perturbations and might point to the way forward for running single-atom magnets at more commercially viable temperatures. Each atom can store a single bit of data that can be written and read using quantum mechanics. Such devices promise enormous data capacities… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE