Category Physics

The CNO energy-production mechanism in the universe is detected. An international team of about 100 scientists of the Borexino Collaboration, including particle physicist Andrea Pocar at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, report in Nature this week detection of neutrinos from the sun, directly revealing for the first time that the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen (CNO) fusion-cycle is at work in our sun.

The CNO cycle is the dominant energy source powering stars heavier than the sun, but it had so far never been directly detected in any star, Pocar explains.

For much of their life, stars get energy by fusing hydrogen into helium, he adds. In stars like our sun or lighter, this mostly happens through the ‘proton-proton’ chains...

Researchers have revealed how high-frequency sound waves can be used to build new materials, make smart nanoparticles and even deliver drugs to the lungs for painless, needle-free vaccinations.

While sound waves have been part of science and medicine for decades — ultrasound was first used for clinical imaging in 1942 and for driving chemical reactions in the 1980s — the technologies have always relied on low frequencies.

Now researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have shown how high frequency sound waves could revolutionise the field of ultrasound-driven chemistry.

A new review published in Advanced Science reveals the bizarre effects of these sound w...

Faster, smaller, smarter and more energy-efficient chips for everything from consumer electronics to big data to brain-inspired computing could soon be on the way after engineers at The University of Texas at Austin created the smallest memory device yet. And in the process, they figured out the physics dynamic that unlocks dense memory storage capabilities for these tiny devices.

The research published recently in Nature Nanotechnology builds on a discovery from two years ago, when the researchers created what was then the thinnest memory storage device. In this new work, the researchers reduced the size even further, shrinking the cross section area down to just a single square nanometer.

Getting a handle on the physics that pack dense memory storage capability into these devi...

Scientists have designed a 2D material-based multi-stacked structure comprising tungsten disulfide (WS2) layer sandwiched between hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) layers that displays long-range interaction between successive WS2 layers with potential for reducing circuit design complexity and power consumption.

2D materials have been popular among materials scientists owing to their lucrative electronic properties, allowing their applications in photovoltaics, semiconductors, and water purification. In particular, the relative physical and chemical stability of 2D materials allow them to be “stacked” and “integrated” with each other...