Category Physics

Researchers have made a popular type of dye-sensitized solar cell (aromatic-fused porphyrin) more efficient by adjusting and updating their structure. The team report a series of adaptations with a power conversion efficiency of 10.7%, the highest yet for this kind of dye-sensitized solar cell, the most efficient solar technology available at present.

Current dye-sensitized solar cells are made up of a porous layer of titanium dioxide covered with a molecular dye. As sunlight is taken in, electrons are excited as they pass through, and are collected for power, before being ‘recycled’, reintroduced into the electrolyte and back to the dye molecule...

Yale researchers have figured out how to catch and save Schrödinger’s famous cat, the symbol of quantum superposition and unpredictability, by anticipating its jumps and acting in real time to save it from proverbial doom. In the process, they overturn years of cornerstone dogma in quantum physics.

The discovery enables researchers to set up an early warning system for imminent jumps of artificial atoms containing quantum information. A study announcing the discovery appears in the June 3 online edition of the journal Nature.

Schrödinger’s cat is a well-known paradox used to illustrate the concept of superposition – the ability for two opposite states to exist simultaneously – and un...

Laser-induced graphene nanogenerators could power future wearables. Researchers have produced triboelectric nanogenerators with laser-induced graphene. The flexible devices turn movement into electrical energy and could enable wearable, self-powered sensors and devices.

The Rice lab of chemist James Tour has adapted laser-induced graphene (LIG) into small, metal-free devices that generate electricity...

The diamond on your finger is most likely made of recycled seabed cooked deep in the Earth. Traces of salt trapped in many diamonds show the stones are formed from ancient seabeds that became buried deep beneath the Earth’s crust, according to new research led by Macquarie University geoscientists in Sydney, Australia.

Most diamonds found at the Earth’s surface are formed this way; others are created by crystallization of melts deep in the mantle.

In experiments recreating the extreme pressures and temperatures found 200 kilometres underground, Dr Michael Förster, Professor Stephen Foley, Dr Olivier Alard, and colleagues at Go...