Category Technology/Electronics

Experiments Explore the Mysteries of ‘Magic’ Angle Superconductors

Depiction of graphene
A team led by Princeton physicist Ali Yazdani has shown that strong electron interactions play a key role in the superconductivity that has been discovered in graphene, a material made up of single-layer sheets of carbon atoms. Here, two graphene sheets stacked on each other with a twist make a long-wavelength moiré pattern.
Image designed by Kai Fu for the Yazdani Lab, Princeton University

Physicists conducted experiments to explore superconductivity in a groundbreaking new material known as magic-angle twisted graphene. The team imaged electrons on the material’s surface and found that electrons interact with each other in ways that could help explain how superconductivity arises in this material.

In spring 2018, the surprising discovery of superconductivity in a new material s...

Read More

Ultra-Thin Layers of Rust Generate Electricity from Flowing Water

Ultra-thin layers of rust generate electricity from flowing water

New research conducted by scientists at Caltech and Northwestern University shows that thin films of rust – iron oxide – can generate electricity when saltwater flows over them. These films represent an entirely new way of generating electricity and could be used to develop new forms of sustainable power production.

Interactions between metal compounds and saltwater often generate electricity, but this is usually the result of a chemical reaction in which one or more compounds are converted to new compounds. Reactions like these are what is at work inside batteries.

In contrast, the phenomenon discovered by Tom Miller, Caltech professor of chemistry, and Franz Geiger, Dow Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern, does not...

Read More

Travelling towards a Quantum Internet at Light Speed

 Schematic image of the spin detection of a circularly polarized photon exciting an electron spin. The yellow nano-fabricated metal electrodes form the pockets required to trap the electrons, move them, and sense them.

A research team lead by Osaka University demonstrated how information encoded in the circular polarization of a laser beam can be translated into the spin state of an electron in a quantum dot, each being a quantum bit and a quantum computer candidate. The achievement represents a major step towards a “quantum internet,” in which future computers can rapidly and securely send and receive quantum information.

Quantum computers have the potential to vastly outperform current systems because they work in a fundamentally different way...

Read More

Engineers use Heat-Free Tech for Flexible Electronics; print metal on flowers, gelatin

A rose with metallic, electronic traces printed on a petal.
Martin Thuo and his research group have developed heat-free technology that can print conductive, metallic lines and traces on just about anything, including a rose petal. 
Photo courtesy of Martin Thuo.

Researchers are using liquid-metal particles to print electronic lines and traces on rose petals, leaves, paper, gelatin – on all kinds of materials. The technology creates flexible electronics that could have many applications such as monitoring crops, tracking a building’s structural integrity or collecting biological data.

Martin Thuo of Iowa State University and the Ames Laboratory clicked through the photo gallery for one of his research projects. How about this one? There was a rose with metal traces printed on a delicate petal.
Or this? A curled sheet of paper with a flexib...

Read More