Category Physics

Quantum Materials quest could benefit from Graphene that buckles

Graphene buckling
Simulated mountain and valley landscape created by buckling in graphene. The bright linked dots are electrons that have slowed down and interact strongly. Image: Yuhang Jiang

Cooled graphene mimics effect of enormous magnetic fields that would benefit electronics. Graphene, an extremely thin two-dimensional layer of the graphite used in pencils, buckles when cooled while attached to a flat surface, resulting in beautiful pucker patterns that could benefit the search for novel quantum materials and superconductors, according to Rutgers-led research in the journal Nature.

Quantum materials host strongly interacting electrons with special properties, such as entangled trajectories, that could provide building blocks for super-fast quantum computers...

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Storing Energy in Red Bricks

smart brick

Chemists in Arts & Sciences have developed a method to make or modify “smart bricks” that can store energy until required for powering devices. (Image: D’Arcy laboratory)

Red bricks – some of the world’s cheapest and most familiar building materials – can be converted into energy storage units that can be charged to hold electricity, like a battery, according to new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

Brick has been used in walls and buildings for thousands of years, but rarely has been found fit for any other use. Now, chemists in Arts & Sciences have developed a method to make or modify “smart bricks” that can store energy until required for powering devices. A proof-of-concept published Aug...

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Electronic components join forces to take up 10 times Less Space on computer Chips


Electron microscope image of an array of new chip components that integrate the inductors, blue, and capacitors, yellow, needed to make the electronic signal filters in phones and other wireless devices.
Image courtesy Xiuling Li

Electronic filters are essential to the inner workings of our phones and other wireless devices. They eliminate or enhance specific input signals to achieve the desired output signals. They are essential, but take up space on the chips that researchers are on a constant quest to make smaller. A new study demonstrates the successful integration of the individual elements that make up electronic filters onto a single component, significantly reducing the amount of space taken up by the device.

Researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign have di...

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Materials Science Researchers develop First Electrically Injected Laser

Schematic illustration of electrically injected germanium-tin laser and its power output versus current and spectrum characteristics.

Materials science researchers, led by electrical engineering professor Shui-Qing “Fisher” Yu, have demonstrated the first electrically injected laser made with germanium tin. Used as a semiconducting material for circuits on electronic devices, the diode laser could improve micro-processing speed and efficiency at much lower costs.

In tests, the laser operated in pulsed conditions up to 100 kelvins, or 279 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.
“Our results are a major advance for group-IV-based lasers,” Yu said...

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