Category Chemistry/Nanotechnology

This diagram depicts the way a mid-infrared laser (red cylinder, left) can send a beam through the atmosphere that generates filaments of ionized air molecules (multicolored beam, center, shown with magnified view). These filaments, which can be kilometers long, help to keep the beam concentrated enough to generate mid-infrared light in air (blue cloud, right) that can reveal detailed chemical composition through spectral analysis (chart at right) of the light picked up by a mid-infrared detector (bottom). Credit: Diagram courtesy of the researchers

Researchers have found a new way of using mid-infrared lasers to turn regions of molecules in the open air into glowing filaments of electrically charged gas, or plasma...

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are using a locust’s sense of smell to develop new biorobotic sensing devices.

Washington Uni engineers in St. Louis are looking to capitalize on the sense of smell in locusts to create new biorobotic sensing systems that could be used in homeland security applications. A/Prof B. Raman et al are using the sensitive locust olfactory system to develop a bio-hybrid nose. Biological sensing systems are far more complex than their engineered counterparts, including the chemical sensing system responsible for our sense of smell. Although the sense of smell is a primitive sense, it is conserved across many vertebrate and invertebrate species.

For several years and with prior funding from ONR, Raman has been studying how sensory signals are receive...

Scientists find how Charge-Carrying Particles move in Perovskite

Perovskites can be used in solar batteries of future. New results will help scientists to search for a required perovskite structure by taking into account its fundamental features, rather than at random. Perovskite is a material with an almost ideal structure. The majority of high-temperature superconductors are perovskite-based due to their non-ideal structure. The material can also be used to produce flexible solar batteries without rare-earth metals, which would help to reduce costs and enable large-scale manufacture.

“This material exhibits many interesting and intriguing properties, most notably giant magnetoresistance...

Electrocatalytic water splitting is about to get less costly, thanks to research at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Credit: Image courtesy of KTH The Royal Institute of Technology

A hydrogen-fuel economy could finally become a reality with the recent discovery of a cheap, stable and efficient means of getting hydrogen from water. Scientists at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm have unlocked one major barrier to exploiting this renewable energy source. Because the best-performing catalysts for electrochemical oxidation, or “water splitting,” are expensive precious metals, the team led by KTH Professor Licheng Sun is one of many worldwide searching for cheaper alternatives. Sun had earlier developed molecular catalysts for water oxidation (Nature Chem...