Category Physics

The folds of 3-D graphene make mesopore channels that work with the surface’s micropores to increase the material’s supercapacitive properties.

Tiny dents in the surface of graphene greatly enhances its potential as a supercapacitor. Even better, it can be made from CO2. A material scientist at Michigan Technological University invented a novel approach to take carbon dioxide and turn it into 3D graphene with micropores across its surface. The conversion of carbon dioxide to useful materials usually requires high energy input due to its ultrahigh stability. However, materials science professor Yun Hang Hu and his research team created a heat-releasing reaction between carbon dioxide and sodium to synthesize 3D surface-microporous graphene.

“3D surface-microporous graphene is a brand-new ma...

University of Central Florida Professor Zenghu Chang broke the record for the fastest light pulse. Credit: University of Central Florida

The 53-attosecond light pulse breaks the record set by the same team in 2012. The group led by Professor Zenghu Chang beat its own record set in 2012: a 67-attosecond extreme UV light pulse. In 53 attoseconds, light travels < 1/1000 of the diameter of a human hair. Attosecond light pulses allow scientists to capture images of fast-moving electrons in atoms and molecules with unprecedented sharpness.

As reported Aug. 4 in Nature Communications, the pulses Chang has now demonstrated are not just shorter in duration, but also in wavelength...

Magnetic microbot capturing, dragging and releasing a live cell. Credit: Koohee Han and Dr. Wyatt Shields, provided by Prof. Orlin D. Velev, NC State University.

Researchers at North Carolina State University and Duke University have developed a way to assemble and pre-program tiny structures made from microscopic cubes – “microbot origami” – to change their shape when actuated by a magnetic field and then, using the magnetic energy from their environment, perform a variety of tasks – including capturing and transporting single cells.

The findings pave the way for microbots and micro-origami assemblies that can serve as cell characterization tools, fluid micromixers, and components of artificial muscles and soft biomimetic devices...

Map of dark matter made from gravitational lensing measurements of 26 million galaxies in the Dark Energy Survey. The map covers about 1/30th of the entire sky and spans several billion light-years in extent. Red regions have more dark matter than average, blue regions less dark matter. Credit: Chihway Chang of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago and the DES collaboration.

Imagine planting a single seed and, with great precision, being able to predict the exact height of the tree that grows from it. Now imagine traveling to the future and snapping photographic proof that you were right...