Category Physics

Producing Highly Efficient LEDs based on 2D Perovskite Films

The structure and performance of 2D perovskite LEDs.
(Figure source: DOI number: 10.1038/s41467-021-21522-8 )

Energy-efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have been used in our everyday life for many decades. But the quest for better LEDs, offering both lower costs and brighter colours, has recently drawn scientists to a material called perovskite. A recent joint-research project co-led by the scientist from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has now developed a 2D perovskite material for the most efficient LEDs.

From household lighting to mobile phone displays, from pinpoint lighting needed for endoscopy procedures to light source to grow vegetables in Space, LEDs are everywhere...

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Using Artificial Intelligence to generate 3D Holograms in Real-time

hologram projection

Researchers have developed a way to produce holograms almost instantly. The deep learning-based method is so efficient, it could run on a smartphone, they say.

Despite years of hype, virtual reality headsets have yet to topple TV or computer screens as the go-to devices for video viewing. One reason: VR can make users feel sick. Nausea and eyestrain can result because VR creates an illusion of 3D viewing although the user is in fact staring at a fixed-distance 2D display. The solution for better 3D visualization could lie in a 60-year-old technology remade for the digital world: holograms.

Holograms deliver an exceptional representation of 3D world around us. Plus, they’re beautiful. (Go ahead — check out the holographic dove on your Visa card...

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Cheap, Nontoxic Carbon Nanodots poised to be Quantum Dots of the Future

Tiny fluorescent semiconductor dots, called quantum dots, are useful in a variety of health and electronic technologies but are made of toxic, expensive metals. Nontoxic and economic carbon-based dots are easy to produce, but they emit less light. A new study that uses ultrafast nanometric imaging found good and bad emitters among populations of carbon dots. This observation suggests that by selecting only super-emitters, carbon nanodots can be purified to replace toxic metal quantum dots in many applications, the researchers said.

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, brought together researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Delaware, Baltimore County in a collaborative project through the Beckman ...

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Life’s rich pattern: Researchers use Sound to Shape the Future of Printing

material swirling in a circle of speakers
Utrasound and computer algorithms control how material settles into shape

Researchers in the UK have developed a way to coax microscopic particles and droplets into precise patterns by harnessing the power of sound in air. The implications for printing, especially in the fields of medicine and electronics, are far-reaching.

The scientists from the Universities of Bath and Bristol have shown that it’s possible to create precise, pre-determined patterns on surfaces from aerosol droplets or particles, using computer-controlled ultrasound. A paper describing the entirely new technique, called ‘sonolithography’, is published in Advanced Materials Technologies.

Professor Mike Fraser from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Bath, explained: “The power of ultrasound h...

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