Category Physics

A PLATED QUBIT DEVICE. PHOTO: D. PAPAS/NIST

A powerful new plated metal combination that superconducts at easily attained temperatures could pave the road for the next critical steps in the development of cutting-edge supercomputers. CIRES chemist and instrument designer Don David and colleagues Dave Pappas and Xian Wu just published the new recipe: an ultrathin layer of rhenium sandwiched between layers of gold, each measuring 1/1000th the diameter of a human hair that can superconduct at critical temperature over 6 Kelvin.

“The sheer magnitude of the critical temperature was unexpected,” said Don David, director of the CIRES Integrated Instrument Development Facility and coauthor on a paper published this week in Applied Physics Letters...

The potential of this discovery in terms of reducing energy use and therefore our energy bills is really exciting. Dr Lidija Šiller, joint lead author, Newcastle University

Experts have created a new form of highly-efficient, low-cost, sustainable insulation based on the wings of a dragonfly. The material, known as an aerogel, is the most porous material known to man and ultralight, with a piece the size of a family car weighing less than a kilogram. Starting out as a wet silica gel, similar in structure to jelly, the material is carefully dried to create a strong, porous material...

2018 EECS Forrest Organic Solar Cell. Credit: Michigan Engineering

In an advance that makes a more flexible, inexpensive type of solar cell commercially viable, University of Michigan researchers have demonstrated organic solar cells that can achieve 15% efficiency. This level of efficiency is in the range of many solar panels, or photovoltaics, currently on the market. “Organic photovoltaics can potentially cut way down on the total solar energy system cost, making solar a truly ubiquitous clean energy source,” said Stephen Forrest, the Peter A. Franken Distinguished University Professor of Engineering and Paul G. Goebel Professor of Engineering, who led the work.

At 15% efficiency and given a 20-year lifetime, researchers estimate organic solar cells could produce electricity at a cost o...