Category Physics

The fiber sensor. Credit: ETRI

The researchers, from Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute and Konkuk University in the Republic of Korea, coated cotton and polyester yarn with a nanoglue called bovine serum albumin (BSA). The yarns were then wrapped in graphene oxide sheets.

The graphene sheets stuck very well to the nanoglue – so much so that further testing showed the fabrics retained their electrical conducting properties after 1,000 consecutive cycles of bending and straightening and 10 washing tests with various chemical detergents. Finally, the graphene oxide yarns were exposed to a chemical reduction process, which involves the gaining of electrons.

The reduced-graphene-oxide-coated materials were found to be particularly sensitive to detecting NO2, a pollutant gas ...

Conceptual representations of magnetic phases in MnSi and the experimental set-up.

RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science may be about to wind back time. Skyrmions have been widely touted as providing the basis for new high-density memory devices because of their small size and relative stability. However, it has proven difficult to create, delete, and move them, and skyrmion-based devices are not yet competitive with other high-tech devices based on spin.

The group set out to work using a specially designed stress probe that could apply mechanical stress to the surface of manganese-silicide, a “chiral magnetic” that is known to host skyrmions, cooled to very low temperature...

An accretion disc around a black hole. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Leicester

Astronomers have discovered a previously unknown link between the way young stars grow and the way black holes and other exotic space objects feed from their surroundings. The study shows how the ‘flickering’ in the visible brightness of young stellar objects (YSOs) – very young stars in the final stages of formation – is similar to the flickering seen from black holes or white dwarfs as they violently pull matter from their surroundings ie accretion.

The relatively cool accretion discs around young stars, whose inner edges can be several times the size of the Sun, show the same behaviour as the hot, violent accretion discs around planet-sized white dwarfs, city-sized black holes and supermassive black...

Part of the Stratos II rocket. Credit: Image courtesy of Radboud University

Stratos II+, a rocket built entirely by students of Delft University of Technology, will be launched again on Wed Oct 14. The first attempt in 2014 unfortunately failed due to technical problems. The rocket will hold an antenna to intercept radio signals below 30 MegaHertz and a digital receiver. The payload from Nijmegen is part of a preparatory programme for a radio telescope on the moon. Such a telescope would, for the first time, enable researchers to measure radiation generated shortly after the Big Bang.

Building a radio telescope on the moon involves special requirements regarding the weight, dimensions, power consumption, as well as the processing and transfer of data...