Category Physics

Scientists Create Novel Approach to Control Energy Waves in 4D

picture of a metamaterial
A rendering of the new synthetic metamaterial with 4D capabilities designed by scientists at the University of Missouri. It includes the ability to control energy waves on the surface of a solid material.

Everyday life involves the three dimensions or 3D — along an X, Y and Z axis, or up and down, left and right, and forward and back. But, in recent years scientists like Guoliang Huang, the Huber and Helen Croft Chair in Engineering at the University of Missouri, have explored a “fourth dimension” (4D), or synthetic dimension, as an extension of our current physical reality.

Now, Huang and a team of scientists in the Structured Materials and Dynamics Lab at the MU College of Engineering have successfully created a new synthetic metamaterial with 4D capabilities, including the abilit...

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Engineers create an Energy-Storing Supercapacitor from Ancient Materials

A streak of blue lightning, representing energy, spreads horizontally across a textured cement surface.
MIT engineers have created a “supercapacitor” made of ancient, abundant materials, that can store large amounts of energy. Made of just cement, water, and carbon black (which resembles powdered charcoal), the device could form the basis for inexpensive systems that store intermittently renewable energy, such as solar or wind energy.
Credits:Courtesy of the researchers

Made of just cement, water, and carbon black (which resembles powdered charcoal), the device could form the basis for inexpensive systems that store intermittently renewable energy, such as solar or wind energy.

Two of humanity’s most ubiquitous historical materials, cement and carbon black (which resembles very fine charcoal), may form the basis for a novel, low-cost energy storage system, according to a new study...

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Researchers use Quantum Computer to Identify Molecular Candidate for Development of more Efficient Solar Cells

ORNL team members applied three independent strategies to decrease their project’s computational workload, which reduced their time to solution from months to a few weeks. First, in a technique called qubit tapering, they decreased the number of qubits required to express the problem, reducing the size of the problem itself. Second, they took fewer measurements to solve the problem by measuring groups of terms once rather than measuring each individual term from every group (a process called qubit-wise commutativity). Third, instead of implementing each circuit individually, they found a way to run four circuits in parallel, allowing them to use all 20 qubits in the H1-1. Illustration credit: Adam Malin/ORNL.

Using the full capabilities of the Quantinuum H1-1 quantum computer, resear...

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Lights could be the Future of the Internet and Data Transmission

led bulbs on grid spelling 01

Fast data transmissions could be delivered in homes and offices through light-emitting diodes (LED) bulbs, complementing existing communication technologies and networks.

The future’s new internet technologies are being rapidly refined by academics and LED-based communication links are expected to be extensively used in numerous emerging services and scenarios, including Light-fidelity (Li-Fi), underwater communications, moderate- to high-speed photonic interconnects and various ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) devices.

A new study led by the University of Surrey and University of Cambridge has investigated how to release high-speed photonic sources using metal-halide perovskites...

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