Flavins Perform Electron Magic
Researchers discover the secret behind the third way living organisms extract energy from their environment.
Mission Not So Impossible Now: Control Complex Molecular Organization
Scientists achieved thin films with structures virtually impossible via traditional methods.
Making Glass Invisible: A Nanoscience-Based Disappearing Act
Glare-free cell phone screens, ultra-transparent windows, and more efficient solar cells--these are some of the applications that could be enabled by texturing glass surfaces with tiny nanoscale features that reduce surface reflections to nearly zero.
Spin-Polarized Surface States in Superconductors
Novel spin-polarized surface states may guide the search for materials that host Majorana fermions, unusual particles that act as their own antimatter, and could revolutionize quantum computers.
Imaging Probe Printed Onto Tip of Optical Fiber
The Molecular Foundry and aBeam Technologies bring mass fabrication to nano-optical devices.
Solid-State Batteries
Solid-state batteries, which eschew the flammable and unstable liquid electrolytes of conventional lithium-ion batteries, could be a safer option. Now, researchers have demonstrated a new way to produce more efficient solid-state batteries. This proof-of-principle study may lead to safer and more compact batteries useful for everything from sensor networks to implantable biomedical devices. Researchers at the University of Maryland will present this work during the AVS 64th International Symposium and Exhibition, in Tampa, Florida.
New Studies on Disordered Cathodes May Provide Much-Needed Jolt to Lithium Batteries
In a pair of papers published this month in Nature Communications and Physical Review Letters, a team of scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has come up with a set of rules for making new disordered materials, a process that had previously been driven by trial-and-error. They also found a way to incorporate fluorine, which makes the material both more stable and have higher capacity.
Plenty of Room at the Top: Breaking through the Sunlight-to-Electricity Conversion Limit
In hybrid materials, "hot" electrons live longer, producing electricity, not heat, in solar cells.
Efforts to Revive Coal Industry Unlikely to Work, May Slow Job Growth
Current federal efforts to revive the coal industry will likely do more harm than good to fragile Appalachian communities transitioning from coal as a major source of employment, according to a study conducted by Indiana University researchers.
Scientists Get First Close-ups of Finger-Like Growths that Trigger Battery Fires
Menlo Park, Calif. -- Scientists from Stanford University and the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have captured the first atomic-level images of finger-like growths called dendrites that can pierce the barrier between battery compartments and trigger short circuits or fires. Dendrites and the problems they cause have been a stumbling block on the road to developing new types of batteries that store more energy so electric cars, cell phones, laptops and other devices can go longer between charges.
Deep-Depletion: A New Concept for MOSFETs
Diamond is largely recognized as the ideal material in wide bandgap development, but realizing its full potential in field-effect transistors has been challenging. Researchers incorporate a new approach by using the deep-depletion regime of bulk-boron-doped diamond MOSFETs. The new proof of concept enables the production of simple diamond MOSFET structures from single boron-doped epilayer stacks. This method increases the mobility by an order of magnitude. The results are published this week in Applied Physics Letters.
Imperfections Show "Swimming" Particles the Way to Self-Healing and Shape-Changing
Defects in liquid crystals act as guides in tiny oceans, directing particle traffic.
Piezoelectrics Stretch Their Potential with a Method for Flexible Sticking
Thin-film piezoelectrics, with dimensions on the scale of micrometers or smaller, offer potential for new applications where smaller dimensions or a lower voltage operation are required. Researchers have demonstrated a new technique for making piezoelectric microelectromechanical systems by connecting a sample of lead zirconate titanate piezoelectric thin films to flexible polymer substrates. They report their results in this week's Journal of Applied Physics.
Nanoribbons Enable "On-Off" Switch for Graphene
Built from the bottom up, nanoribbons can be semiconducting, enabling broad electronic applications.
Tree Mortality and Droughts: A Global Perspective
Stress-induced embolisms that interrupt water transport are a universal component of tree mortality.
Ames Laboratory, UConn Discover Superconductor with Bounce
The U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory has discovered extreme "bounce," or super-elastic shape-memory properties in a material that could be applied for use as an actuator in the harshest of conditions, such as outer space, and might be the first in a whole new class of shape memory materials.
Experiment Provides Deeper Look into the Nature of Neutrinos
The first glimpse of data from the full array of a deeply chilled particle detector operating beneath a mountain in Italy sets the most precise limits yet on where scientists might find a theorized process to help explain why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe.
Transparent Solar Technology Represents 'Wave of the Future'
See-through solar materials that can be applied to windows represent a massive source of untapped energy and could harvest as much power as bigger, bulkier rooftop solar units, scientists report today in Nature Energy.
Electricity From Shale Gas vs. Coal: Lifetime Toxic Releases From Coal Much Higher
Despite widespread concern about potential human health impacts from hydraulic fracturing, the lifetime toxic chemical releases associated with coal-generated electricity are 10 to 100 times greater than those from electricity generated with natural gas obtained via fracking, according to a new University of Michigan study.
Tiny Tornados at the Dawn of the Universe
Swirling soup of matter's fundamental building blocks spins ten billion trillion times faster than the most powerful tornado, setting new record for "vorticity."
Taming 'Wild' Electrons in Graphene
Graphene - a one-atom-thick layer of the stuff in pencils - is a better conductor than copper and is very promising for electronic devices, but with one catch: Electrons that move through it can't be stopped. Until now, that is. Scientists at Rutgers University-New Brunswick have learned how to tame the unruly electrons in graphene, paving the way for the ultra-fast transport of electrons with low loss of energy in novel systems. Their study was published online in Nature Nanotechnology.
On-Demand 3-D Printing of Tiny Magic Wands
Direct writing of pure-metal structures may advance novel light sources, sensors and information storage technologies.
Heavy Quarks Probe the Early Universe
New studies of behaviors of particles containing heavy quarks shed light into what the early universe looked like in its first microseconds.
Cool Roofs Have Water Saving Benefits Too
The energy and climate benefits of cool roofs have been well established: By reflecting rather than absorbing the sun's energy, light-colored roofs keep buildings, cities, and even the entire planet cooler. Now a new study by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has found that cool roofs can also save water by reducing how much is needed for urban irrigation.
The Blob That Ate the Tokamak: Physicists Gain Understanding of How Bubbles at the Edge of Plasmas Can Drain Heat and Reduce Fusion Reaction Efficiency
Scientists at PPPL have completed new simulations that could provide insight into how blobs at the plasma edge behave. The simulations, produced by a code called XGC1 developed by a national team based at PPPL, performed kinetic simulations of two different regions of the plasma edge simultaneously.