Category Physics

Transparent Metamaterial for Energy-efficient Regulation in Building can Clean Itself like a Lotus Leaf

Innovative material for sustainable building
Cooling, light-transmissive, and glare-free: the new material combines several unique properties. Credit: Gan Huang, KIT

Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) introduce a polymer-based material with unique properties in the journal Nature Communications. This material allows sunlight to enter, maintains a more comfortable indoor climate without additional energy, and cleans itself like a lotus leaf. The new development could replace glass components in walls and roofs in the future. The research team has successfully tested the material in outdoor tests on the KIT campus.

Maximizing natural light in buildings is popular and can save on energy costs. However, traditional glass roofs and walls also present problems such as glare, lack of privacy, and overheating...

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First 3D-Printed, Defect-free Tungsten Components Withstand Extreme Temperatures

First 3D-printed, defect-free tungsten components withstand extreme temperatures
ORNL researchers used electron-beam additive manufacturing to 3D-print the first complex, defect-free tungsten parts with complex geometries. Research was performed at DOE’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at ORNL. The MDF, supported by DOE’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office, is a nationwide consortium of collaborators working to innovate, inspire and catalyze the transformation of U.S. manufacturing. Credit: Michaela Bluedorn/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory used additive manufacturing to produce the first defect-free complex tungsten parts for use in extreme environments. The accomplishment could have positive implications for clean-energy technologies such as fusion energy.

Tungsten has the highest melting po...

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AI Trained Draw Inspiration from Images, Not Copy Them

Artificial intelligence trained to draw inspiration from images, not copy them
Credit: Giannis Dara, https://github.com/giannisdaras/ambient-tweedie

Powerful new artificial intelligence models sometimes, quite famously, get things wrong—whether hallucinating false information or memorizing others’ work and offering it up as their own. To address the latter, researchers led by a team at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a framework to train AI models on images corrupted beyond recognition.

DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are among the text-to-image diffusion generative AI models that can turn arbitrary user text into highly realistic images. All three are now facing lawsuits from artists who allege generated samples replicate their work...

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Researchers Develop World’s Smallest Quantum Light Detector on a Silicon Chip

University of Bristol researchers develop world's smallest quantum light detector on a silicon chip
The silicon ePIC quantum chip, mounted on a printed circuit board for testing and similar to a motherboard inside a personal computer. Credit: University of Bristol

Researchers at the University of Bristol have made an important breakthrough in scaling quantum technology by integrating the world’s tiniest quantum light detector onto a silicon chip. The paper, “A Bi-CMOS electronic photonic integrated circuit quantum light detector,” was published in Science Advances.

A critical moment in unlocking the information age was when scientists and engineers were first able to miniaturize transistors onto cheap micro-chips in the 1960s.

Now, for the first time, University of Bristol academics have demonstrated the integration of a quantum light detector—smaller than a human hair—onto a s...

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