Category Physics

A single crystal of CaFe2As2 (scale bar 1 mm). Right: a micropillar of CaFe2As2, used to test its elasticity (scale bar 1 ?m). Credit: Image courtesy of DOE/Ames Laboratory

Scientists have discovered super-elastic shape-memory properties in a material that could be applied for use as an actuator in the harshest of conditions, such as outer space, and might be the first in a whole new class of shape memory materials. These materials “remember” their original shape and return to it after they are deformed. They are commonly metallic alloys that make possible “unbreakable” eyeglass frames and quieter jet engines.

But the material in this research, CaFe2As2, is not a metallic alloy but an intermetallic more well-known for its novel superconducting properties...

CUORE was assembled in this specially designed clean room to help protect it from contaminants. (Credit: CUORE collaboration)

Why does the universe favor matter over antimatter? The first glimpse of data from the full array of a deeply chilled particle detector operating beneath a mountain in Italy sets the most precise limits yet on where scientists might find a theorized process to help explain why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe. This new result is based on two months of data from the full detector of the CUORE (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events) experiment at the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics’ (INFN’s) Gran Sasso National Laboratories (LNGS) in Italy. CUORE means “heart” in Italian.

CUORE is considered one of the most promising effo...

Gas molecules widening the gaps between rows of the team’s graphene nano-ribbons. Nebraska’s Alexander Sinitskii and his colleagues have proposed that this phenomenon partly explains how the nano-ribbons grant sensors an unprecedented boost in sensitivity. Credit: University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Pinning DNA-sized ribbons of carbon to a gas sensor can boost its sensitivity far better than any other known carbon material, says a new study from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. When the researchers integrated a film of graphene nano-ribbons into the circuitry of a gas sensor, it responded about 100X more sensitively to molecules than did sensors featuring even the best-performing carbon-based materials...

A research team led by Associate Professor Christian Nijhuis from the Department of Chemistry at the NUS Faculty of Science (second from right) has recently invented a novel “converter” that can harness the speed and small size of plasmons for high frequency data processing and transmission in nanoelectronics.

Invention bagged 4 patents and could potentially make microprocessor chips work 1000X faster. Advancement in nanoelectronics has been fueled by the ever-increasing need to shrink the size of electronic devices in a bid to produce smaller, faster and smarter gadgets such as computers, memory storage devices, displays and medical diagnostic tools.

While most advanced electronic devices are powered by photonics – which involves the use of photons to transmit information – photonic e...