Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of January 6, 2025
01. Breakthrough anti-counterfeiting tech creates hidden security features in materials
02. Light and symmetry study may offer opportunities for anti-counterfeiting
03. Researchers demonstrate self-assembling electronics
04. Self-heating flexible electronics lower manufacturing temperature requirements
05. Researchers use laser beams to pioneer new quantum computing breakthrough
06. 3D-printed particles propel themselves across the surface of a fluid
07. Cooperative motion by atoms protects glass from fracturing
08. Microscopy at the tip of a hair-thin optical fiber: New approach pre-shapes light for unprecedented control
09. AI fact checks can increase belief in false headlines, study finds
10. New spin quantum battery can be charged without an external field
And others
Fast-curing silicone ink opens new doors in 3D printing
Infrared detectors made from quantum dots
Photonic processor could enable ultrafast AI computations with extreme energy efficiency
Simple method can recover and recycle quantum dots in microscopic lasers
An unexpected delay in a standard quantum optical process generates pairs of photons
3D-printed particles propel themselves across the surface of a fluid
Phys.org December 1, 2024
Marangoni surfers are simple, cost-effective tabletop experiments that, despite their simplicity, exhibit rich dynamics and collective behaviors driven by physicochemical mechanisms, hydrodynamic interactions, and inertial motion. An international team of researchers (the Netherlands, USA – Harvard University) designed, developed and manufactured self-propelled particles to move on the air-water interface. They had tunable motility, and surface tension-mediated forces-controlled particle-particle interactions. Rapid prototyping through 3D printing facilitated the exploration of a wide design space, enabled precise control over particle shape and function. They investigated self-assembly in the system and highlighted its potential for modular designs where mechanically linked particles with varying characteristics followed outlined trajectories. According to the researchers their work offers a flexible, low-cost approach to designing active interfacial systems and opens new possibilities for further advancements of adaptive, multifunctional devices… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
AI fact checks can increase belief in false headlines, study finds
Phys.org December 4, 2024
Recent AI language models have shown impressive ability in fact-checking tasks, but how humans interact with fact-checking information provided by these models is unclear. Researchers at Indiana University investigated the impact of fact-checking information generated by a popular large language model (LLM) on belief in and sharing intent of political news headlines in a preregistered randomized control experiment. Although the LLM accurately identified most false headlines (90%), they found that the information did not significantly improve participants’ ability to discern headline accuracy or share accurate news. In contrast, viewing human-generated fact checks enhanced discernment in both cases. Subsequent analysis revealed that the AI fact-checker was harmful in specific cases: It decreased beliefs in true headlines and mislabels it as false, and increased beliefs in false headlines that it is unsure about. However, AI fact-checking information increases the sharing intent for correctly labeled true headlines. According to the researchers their findings highlight an important source of potential harm stemming from AI applications and underscore the critical need for policies to prevent or mitigate such unintended consequences… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Breakthrough anti-counterfeiting tech creates hidden security features in materials
Nanowerk December 5, 2024
An international team of researchers (Republic of Korea, USA – University of Chicago) developed a scalable and cost-efficient method for producing multiplexed plasmonic colors by in situ photoreducing AgNPs within microgel architectures with controlled porosity. They used digital micro-mirror device (DMD)-based flow microlithography system combined with a programmable dithering-mask technique to synthesize shape or barcoded microparticles with large-scale, high-resolution images embedded with hidden multiplexed plasmonic colors. Quantitative agreement was achieved between chemically encrypted and optically decrypted plasmonic colors using a deep learning classifier. According to the researchers their work paves a new way for hidden data storage, secure optical labeling, and anti-counterfeiting technologies… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Cooperative motion by atoms protects glass from fracturing
Phys.org December 2, 2024
The slow β, or Johari–Goldstein (JG) relaxation process, has been widely observed in glasses and is known to induce the stress relaxation associated with mechanical properties. So far, jumping motions of only a fraction of the particles were believed to contribute to the JG process in glass. However, there is no direct experimental evidence of the atomic-scale images due to the difficulties in microscopic observation. Researchers in Japan observed atomic motions in the quasi-spherical model ionic-glass-former calcium potassium nitrate. The experiment directly indicated that most particles underwent angstrom-scale motions in the time scale of the JG relaxation. Study of experiments and simulations revealed that most particles contributed to the JG process through unexpected collective nonjumping motions with angstrom-scale displacement, activated by jumping motions of a fraction of particles. According to the researchers their work has advanced our understanding of the puzzling mechanism of the JG process… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Fast-curing silicone ink opens new doors in 3D printing
Phys.org December 2, 2024
Silicone elastomers have a broad variety of applications in robotics, biomedical devices, and structural metamaterials. The extrusion-based method known as direct ink write (DIW) method is limited to manufacturing mostly planar or pseudo-3D structures, but not feasible for obtaining tall or overhanging structures, or structures comprised by thin walls. Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory demonstrated a novel Fast Cure silicone-based ink that enabled manufacturing of complex 3D structures. The Fast Cure ink was a two-part mixture. The silicone structures were produced by inline mixing and coextrusion of a part containing a catalyst (part A) and a part containing a crosslinker (part B). The extruded strands rapidly rigidized, increasing their self-supportive capacity resulting in shape retention… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Infrared detectors made from quantum dots
Nanowerk December 3, 2024
Although hybrid graphene-colloidal PbS quantum dots (QDs) phototransistors are promising to overcome the geometrical restrictions of photodetectors to flat substrates, the experimental demonstration of their application to curved surfaces remains elusive. Researchers in Switzerland demonstrated the seamless integration of an infrared photodetector to a polymer optical fiber (POF), by wrapping graphene around the POF of 1 mm in diameter and, inkjet printing of PbS QDs onto the curved surface. The device acted as a functional coating and detected infrared light propagating through the POF without interrupting the waveguide. The ink supported drop-on-demand, and was colloidally stable over 7 months. According to the researchers their work brings the integration of this cost-effective and adaptable hybrid detector approach closer to multifunctional e-textiles, and help to improve the interfacing of the skin as desired for wearable and non-invasive healthcare applications… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Light and symmetry study may offer opportunities for anti-counterfeiting
Phys.org November 29, 2024
An international team of researchers (the Netherlands, Greece) investigated the effect of a mirror-symmetry plane in multiple-scattering media under plane-wave illumination along the symmetry plane. Designed and fabricated samples’ optical transport properties were compared quantitatively with three-dimensional modeling. Strong polarization-dependent deviations of the bulk speckle-averaged intensity distribution at the symmetry plane showed either up to a factor 2 enhancement or complete suppression of the ensemble-averaged intensities. According to the researchers their work could have application in counterfeiting… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Microscopy at the tip of a hair-thin optical fiber: New approach pre-shapes light for unprecedented control
Phys.org December 3, 2024
Light transmission through a multimode fiber (MMF) has gained major importance for imaging and manipulation. Most phase retrieval algorithms used for a MMF implicitly assume light propagation to be described by a unitary operation, yet the transmission matrix of a multimode fiber is inherently non-unitary. An international team of researchers (UK, Australia) demonstrated that this assumption could impede the performance of many commonly used MMF phase retrieval algorithms and demonstrated that the weighted Yang–Gu algorithm outperformed other phase retrieval algorithms in this scenario. Once accounted for, the non-unitary property of the transmission matrix could be leveraged to generate intricate intensity and phase patterns at the output of the fiber, and shape specific output fields. According to the researchers this was experimentally demonstrated by generating Laguerre–Gaussian beams that carry orbital angular momentum, and by forming images in planes offset from the distal end of the fiber facet… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
New spin quantum battery can be charged without an external field
Phys.org November 30, 2024
Researchers in Italy investigated the performance of a one-dimensional dimerized chain as a spin quantum battery. Integrable model showed a rich quantum phase diagram that emerged through a mapping of the spins onto auxiliary fermionic degrees of freedom. They used a charging protocol relying on the double quench of an internal parameter, the strength of the dimerization, and addressed the energy stored in the systems. They observed three distinct regimes, depending on the timescale characterizing the duration of the charging: a short-time regime related to the dynamics of the single dimers, a long-time regime related to the recurrence time of the system at finite size, and a thermodynamic limit time regime. In the latter, the energy stored was almost unaffected by the charging time and the precise values of the charging parameters, provided the quench crossed a quantum phase transition. They analytically proved that the three-timescale behavior and the strong dependence of the energy stored on the quantum phase diagram also hold in the quantum Ising chain in a transverse field. According to the researchers their results could play a relevant role in the design of stable solid-state quantum batteries… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE