Category Physics

This is an atomic force microscopy image of a graphene sheet draped over a Bacillus bacterium (left). The bacterium is about 1 micron or 1/25,000 of an inch wide. After applying vacuum and heat treatment, regular wrinkles form in the graphene (right, at twice the magnification). Credit: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO/Vikas Berry

New nanomaterial conducts differently at right angles. Now University of Illinois at Chicago researchers have used rod-shaped bacteria – precisely aligned in an electric field, then vacuum-shrunk under a graphene sheet – to introduce nanoscale ripples in the material, causing it to conduct electrons differently in perpendicular directions...

Optically imaging of on-surface and suspended carbon nanotube devices.

Technion researchers have developed a method for growing carbon nanotubes that could lead to the day when molecular electronics replace silicon chip as the building block of electronics.Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have long fascinated scientists because of their unprecedented electrical, optical, thermal and mechanical properties, and chemical sensitivity. But significant challenges remain before CNTs can be implemented on a wide scale, including the need to produce them in specific locations on a smooth substrate, in conditions that will lead to the formation of a circuit around them.

Prof. Yuval Yaish et al have developed a technology that addresses these challenges...

In a PZT layer without zinc oxide (ZnO) there are basically two memorystates. Adding a nano layer of ZnO, every state in between is possible as well.

Our brain does not work like a typical computer memory storing just 1s and 0s: thanks to a much larger variation in memory states, it can calculate faster consuming less energy. Scientists of the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology of the University of Twente (The Netherlands) now developed a ferro-electric material with a memory function resembling synapses and neurons in the brain, resulting in a multistate memory.

The material that could be the basic building block for ‘brain-inspired computing’ is lead-zirconium-titanate (PZT): a sandwich of materials with several attractive properties...

A tetraquark is a particle with four quarks, which are the fundamental constituents of matter. Credit: Image courtesy of Syracuse University

Researchers confirm existence of rare ‘exotic’ particle, find evidence of 3 others. Physicists have made science history by confirming the existence of a rare 4-quark particle and discovering evidence of 3 other “exotic” siblings. Their findings are based on data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland. The tetraquark candidate is X(4140). The other 3 have higher masses, called X(4274), X(4500) and X(4700).

A tetraquark is a particle made of 4 quarks: 2 quarks and 2 antiquarks...