Category Physics

Various configurations of oxygen adsorption with corresponding energies. (a) Sulphur, molybdenum, and oxygen are represented by yellow, blue, and red spheres, respectively. The sulphur vacancy site is represented by the cross. (b) Nudged elastic band calculation of the energy barrier for migration of an oxygen molecule towards a sulphur vacancy and respective trapping. The energy barrier, measured from the starting point, is 56 meV. The calculation was performed in the spin-averaged state. (c) Calculated ionization levels for relevant defects (all energies are in eV). VBM and CBM refer to the valence band maximum and conduction band minima, respectively. (d) Representation of the charge density of the trapped electrons at sulfur vacancies.

National University of Singapore (NUS) researchers...

Mechanical properties of atomically thin boron nitride and the role of interlayer interactions. Nature Communications, 2017; 8: 15815 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15815

A stretchy miracle material has been discovered that could be used to create highly resistant smart devices and scratch-proof paint for cars. Led by Dr Elton Santos from the University’s School of Mathematics and Physics, an international team have found superlubricity in a few layers of graphene – a concept where friction vanishes or very nearly vanishes. They also found that a few layers of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) are as strong as diamond but are more flexible, cheaper and lighter...

A fluid-cooling panel designed by Shanhui Fan, professor of electrical engineering at Stanford, and former research associates Aaswath Raman and Eli Goldstein being tested on the roof of the Packard Electrical Engineering Building. This is an updated version of the panels used in the research published in Nature Energy. Credit: Aaswath Raman

It looks like a regular roof, but the top of the Packard Electrical Engineering Building at Stanford University has been the setting of many milestones in the development of an innovative cooling technology that could someday be part of our everyday lives...

The research study contributes to our basic understanding of random matrices and the theory of quantum chaos.

Researchers have now succeeded in formulating a mathematical result that provides an exact answer to the question of how chaos actually behaves. The researchers have analyzed chaotic states at the atomic level. The world in there behaves a lot differently to the world that we experience; the protons and neutrons in the nucleus are waves. In this microcosmos, the so-called quantum world, the normal rules of nature do not apply, but in terms of the state called chaos, there are universal features that are present, regardless of the level of existence.

In a new study, a research group including researchers from Lund University, has therefore set out to tackle the theory of quantum cha...