Category Physics

Highly conductive ultrathin film on skin between clips. Credit: Sam Yoon/Korea University

An ultrathin film that is both transparent and highly conductive to electric current has been produced by a cheap and simple method devised by nanomaterials researchers from the Uni of Illinois at Chicago and Korea University. The film – actually a mat of tangled nanofiber, electroplated to form a “self-junctioned copper nano-chicken wire” – is also bendable and stretchable, offering potential applications in roll-up touchscreen displays, wearable electronics, flexible solar cells and electronic skin.

The new film establishes a “world-record combination of high transparency and low electrical resistance,” the latter at least 10X greater than the previous existing record, said Prof Sam Yoon, Korea Univ...

Mixing light with dye molecules, trapped in golden gaps. Credit: Yi Ju/University of Cambridge NanoPhotonics

Researchers have successfully used quantum states to mix a molecule with light at room temperature, which will aid in the exploration of quantum technologies and provide new ways to manipulate the physical and chemical properties of matter, aid in understanding photosynthesis mechanisms, or manipulate chemical bonds between atoms.

When a molecule emits a blink of light, it doesn’t expect it to ever come back. However researchers have now managed to place single molecules in such a tiny optical cavity that emitted photons, return to the molecule before they have properly left. The energy oscillates between light and molecule, resulting in a complete mixing...

A team of physicists that visualized the internal nanostructure of an intact butterfly wing has discovered two physical attributes that make those structures so bright and colorful. Credit: © boule1301 / Fotolia

A team of physicists that visualized the internal nanostructure of an intact butterfly wing has discovered 2 physical attributes that make those structures so bright and colorful. “Over millions of years, butterflies have evolved sophisticated cellular mechanisms to grow brightly colored structures, normally for the purpose of camouflage as well as mating,” says A/prof Oleg Shpyrko, Physics, UC SD. “It’s been known for a century that the wings of these beautiful creatures contain what are called photonic crystals, which can reflect light of only a particular color.”

But exactly ho...

This is a Perovskite solar cell prototype. Credit: Copyright Alain Herzog / EPFL

EPFL researchers are pushing the limits of perovskite solar cell performance by exploring the best way to grow these crystals. Michael Graetzel and his team found that, by briefly reducing the pressure while fabricating perovskite crystals, they were able to achieve the highest performance ever measured for larger-size perovskite solar cells, reaching over 20% efficiency and matching the performance of conventional thin-film solar cells of similar sizes.
This is promising news for perovskite technology that is already low cost and under industrial development.

However, high performance in pervoskites does not necessarily herald the doom of silicon-based solar technology...