Phys.org September 5, 2024 Researchers in Israel fabricated a biodegradable composite material based on hydroxyethyl cellulose polymer and tyrosine nanocrystals, which demonstrated enhanced strength and ductility superior to most biodegradable plastics. This emergent behavior resulted from an assembly pattern that led to a uniform nanoscale morphology and strong interactions between the components. Water-resistant biodegradable composites encapsulated with hydrophobic polycaprolactone as a protection layer were also fabricated. According to the researchers self-assembly of robust sustainable plastics with emergent properties by using readily available building blocks provides a valuable toolbox for creating sustainable materials… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Tag Archives: S&T Israel
Harvesting water from air with less energy
Phys.org July 20, 2024 Researchers in Israel have proposed an innovative atmospheric moisture harvesting system based on a model where water vapor is separated from the air prior to cooling and condensation. The model simulated its three interconnected cycles (air, desiccant, and water) over a range of ambient conditions, and optimal configurations for different operational conditions. Compared to specifications of commercial atmospheric moisture harvesting systems their model represented saving of 5–65% of the electrical energy requirements due to the vapor separation process. They showed that the liquid desiccant separation stage that was integrated into atmospheric moisture harvesting systems could work […]
Study of photons in quantum computing reveals that when photons collide, they create vortices
Phys.org June 6, 2024 All-optical generation of photonic vortices requires sufficiently strong nonlinearity that is typically achieved in the classical optics regime. Researchers in Israel realized quantum vortices of photons that resulted from a strong photon-photon interaction in a quantum nonlinear optical medium. The interaction caused faster phase accumulation for copropagating photons, producing a quantum vortex-antivortex pair within the two-photon wave function. For three photons, the formation of vortex lines and a central vortex ring confirmed the existence of a genuine three-photon interaction. The wave function topology, governed by two- and three-photon bound states, imposed a conditional phase shift of […]
New research shows how light propagates in integrated circuits on chips
Phys.org January 31, 2024 While the geometry of photonic integrated circuits can be characterized by existing means, their optimal and accurate performance requires detailed characterization of the light propagating within them. Researchers in Israel demonstrated the direct visualization of the light as it travels inside photonic integrated circuits. They used the natural nonlinear optical properties of silicon to directly map the electric field of the waves guided inside the integrated circuits, characterized waveguides and multimode splitters while extracting various parameters of the device. According to the researchers their work may be crucial component for the characterization of photonic circuitry, design […]
Atomic-scale spin-optical laser: new horizon of optoelectronic devices
Nanowerk August 7, 2023 Researchers in Israel developed a spin-optical monolayer laser by incorporating a WS2 monolayer into a heterostructure microcavity supporting high-Q photonic spin-valley resonances. They generated the spin-valley modes from a photonic Rashba-type spin splitting of a bound state in the continuum, which gave rise to opposite spin-polarized ±K valleys due to emergent photonic spin–orbit interaction under inversion symmetry breaking. The laser showed intrinsic spin polarizations, high spatial and temporal coherence, and inherent symmetry-enabled robustness features, enabling valley coherence in the WS2 monolayer upon arbitrary pump polarizations at room temperature. According to the researchers their work on monolayer-integrated […]
Researchers induce cancer cells to ‘commit suicide’ with a self-produced bacterial toxin
Phys.org July 4, 2023 Suicide gene therapies and immunotoxins have been investigated for the treatment of tumors by direct cancer cell cytotoxicity. Recent advances in mRNA delivery also demonstrated the potential of mRNA-based vaccines and immune-modulators for cancer therapeutics by utilizing nanocarriers for mRNA delivery. Researchers in Israel designed a bacterial toxin-encoding modified mRNA, delivered by lipid nanoparticles into a B16-melanoma mouse model. They showed that local administration of LNPs entrapping a modified mRNA that encodes for a bacterial toxin, induced significant anti-tumor effects and improved overall survival of treated mice. They proposed mmRNA-loaded LNPs as a new class of […]
New approach for understanding temperature effects on photovoltaic device performance
Phys.org June 14, 2023 Little is known about the operational temperature which is critical in a solar cell’s ability to convert sunlight to free energy. Researchers in Israel analyzed the photovoltaic effect while assuming a fixed ambient temperature and a varying system temperature rather than using the standard fixed system temperature–based approaches. They studied the potential-dependent current and temperature of solar cells and thermoradiative power generators and showed that the optimal band gap of a solar cell depends on its heat-transfer coefficient and that its efficiency may rise or fall as solar concentration increases, depending on its ability to dissipate […]
This Incredible Tiny Robot Can Locate And Capture Individual Cells
Science Alert April 8, 2023 While dielectrophoretic (DEP)-based cargo manipulation can be achieved at high-solution conductivity, electrical propulsion of these micromotors becomes ineffective at solution conductivities. Researchers in Israel found that combination of a rotating magnetic field and electric field results in enhanced micromotor mobility and steering control through tuning of the electric field frequency. They demonstrated the micromotor’s ability of identifying apoptotic cell among viable and necrotic cells based on their dielectrophoretic difference. This enabled analysis of apoptotic status in the single-cell samples for drug discovery, cell therapeutics, and immunotherapy. According to the researcher’s hybrid micromotor approach for label-free […]
New method for fast, efficient and scalable cloud tomography
Phys.org March 28, 2023 One way to study clouds is to use spaceborne imagers, but these imagers still face challenges of efficiency and scalability. Researchers in Israel have developed an effective inverse rendering framework for recovering the 3D distribution of clouds. They focused on clouds which have a key role in the climate system and require efficient analysis at a huge scale. Data for such reconstruction are multiview images of each cloud taken simultaneously. This acquisition mode is expected by upcoming future spaceborne imagers, such as Cloud Computed Tomography (CT). Prior art showed that scattering CT can rely on Monte–Carlo […]
A diamond-based quantum amplifier
Phys.org December 16, 2022 Artificial quantum systems, based on superconducting circuits, can now amplify and detect even single microwave photons. However, this requires operating at millikelvin temperatures. Natural quantum systems can also be used for low-noise microwave amplification using stimulated emission effects; but they generate a higher noise, especially when operating above ~1 K. Researchers in Israel have demonstrated the use of electron spins in diamond as a quantum microwave amplifier operating with quantum-limited internal noise, even above liquid nitrogen temperatures. They reported on the amplifier’s design, gain, bandwidth, saturation power, and noise. According to the researchers this capability can […]