Category Physics

Examples of the new smart material, left to right: A flexible strip; a flexible strip that stiffened when twisted; a flexible strip transformed into a hard composite that can hold up a weight. Credit: Christopher Gannon/Iowa State University

Scientists have developed a rubbery material that transforms itself into a hard composite when bent, twisted or squeezed. The new material could be used in medicine to support delicate tissues or in industry to protect valuable sensors. Stress a muscle and it gets stronger. Mechanically stress the rubbery material – say with a twist or a bend – and the material automatically stiffens by up to 300%, the engineers said...

Physical picture of the electron gas expanding in the magnetic wall, where Q = 0 for the adiabatic expansion, resulting in a change of the internal energy of the electron gas is equal to the work done on their surroundings. The magnetic field can behave as a flexible wall with no heat transfer, i.e., the perfectly adiabatic wall. Credit: Kazunori Takahashi

Extending thermodynamics to out of equilibrium electron gas in a magnetic nozzle. Thermodynamics provides insight into the internal energy of a system and the energy interaction with its surroundings. This relies on the local thermal equilibrium of a system. A challenging topic of research has been the application of classical thermodynamics to out of equilibrium systems, e.g...

Scanning electron microsopy images before and after stability
measurement for 700 h. Interface between PBSCF cathode and BZCYYb4411 electolyte (a)
before stability measurement. (b) after stability measurement. High-magnification of
microstructure of cathode. (c) before stability measurement. (d) after stability measurement. (e)
EDS line scan at the cathode and electrolyte interface after stability measurement

By combining a high-activity cathode with a new composition of matter, fuel cell operates at 500C – a commercialization sweet spot...

Argonne scientists and collaborators used the Gammasphere, this powerful gamma ray spectrometer, to help create the right conditions to cause and spot a long-theorized effect called nuclear excitation by electron capture. Credit: Argonne National Laboratory

For the first time, physicists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and their collaborators, led by a team from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, demonstrated a long-theorized nuclear effect. This advance tests theoretical models that describe how nuclear and atomic realms interact and may also provide new insights into how star elements are created. Physicists first predicted the effect, called nuclear excitation by electron capture (NEEC), over 40 years ago. But scientists had not seen it until now...