Category Physics

Liquid Metals come to the Rescue of Semiconductors

New deposition approach: synthesising and exfoliating (transferring onto a silicon substrate for example) 2D semiconducting MoS2

Possible pathway to fast-switching, ultra-low energy electronics based on 2D materials. Two-dimensional semiconductors offer a possible solution to the limited potential for further shrinking traditional silicon-based electronics: the long-predicted end of ‘Moore’s Law’. 2D-based electronics, which could eliminate wasted dissipation of heat and allow for very fast, ultra-low energy operation, could be enabled by a new liquidmetal deposition technique.

Moore’s law is an empirical suggestion describing that the number of transistors doubles every few years in integrated circuits (ICs)...

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New Solar Panel design could lead to Wider use of Renewable Energy

Checkerboard design of solar panel Credit: Dr Davide Zecca

Designing solar panels in checkerboard lines increases their ability to absorb light by 125%, a new study says. Researchers say the breakthrough could lead to the production of thinner, lighter and more flexible solar panels that could be used to power more homes and be used in a wider range of products.

The study — led by researchers from the University of York and conducted in partnership with NOVA University of Lisbon (CENIMAT-i3N) — investigated how different surface designs impacted on the absorption of sunlight in solar cells, which put together form solar panels.

Scientists found that the checkerboard design improved diffraction, which enhanced the probability of light being absorbed which is then used to create el...

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Signals from Distant Stars Connect Optical Atomic Clocks across Earth for the first time

Fig.
Antennas and optical lattice clocks used in the measurements

Upper left: Transportable 2.4 m antenna installed at the INAF radio observatory in Medicina, Italy.
Upper middle: Transportable 2.4 m antenna installed at NICT in Koganei, Japan.
Upper right: 34 m antenna located at NICT in Kashima, Japan.
Bottom left: The ytterbium optical lattice clock IT-Yb1, operated at INRIM in Torino, Italy.
Bottom right: The strontium optical lattice clock NICT-Sr1, located at NICT in Koganei, Japan.

Transportable radio telescopes could provide global high-precision comparisons of the best atomic clocks. Using radio telescopes observing distant stars, scientists have connected optical atomic clocks on different continents...

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Diamonds are a Quantum scientist’s best friend

Professor Somnath Bhattacharyya next to the vapour deposition chamber that is used to produce diamonds in the lab.

The discovery of triplet spin superconductivity in diamonds has the potential to revolutionise the high-tech industry. New research led by Professor Somnath Bhattacharyya in the Nano-Scale Transport Physics Laboratory (NSTPL) in the School of Physics at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, details the phenomenon. Triplet superconductivity occurs when electrons move in a composite spin state rather than as a single pair. This is an extremely rare, yet efficient form of superconductivity that until now has only been known to occur in one or two other materials, and only theoretically in diamonds.

“In a conventional superconducting material such as aluminium, superconductivity is destroyed by magnetic fields and magnetic impurities, however triplet superc...

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