Category Technology/Electronics

A computer model of the atomic structure of one of the new carbides. The jumbled mess of carbon and five metal elements gives stability to the overall structure.
Credit: Pranab Sarker, Duke University

Computational simulations predict new class of carbides that could disrupt industries from machinery to aerospace. Materials scientists at Duke University and UC San Diego have discovered a new class of carbides expected to be among the hardest materials with the highest melting points in existence. Made from inexpensive metals, the new materials may soon find use in a wide range of industries from machinery and hardware to aerospace.

A carbide is traditionally a compound consisting of carbon and one other element...

The authors of the paper, from left to right: Ph.D. student Mark R. Hogg; Professor Michelle Simmons; Post Doc Matthew G. House; Ph.D. student Prasanna Pakkiam; Post Doc Andrey Timofeev.
Credit: UNSW Sydney

Professor Michelle Simmons’ team at UNSW Sydney has demonstrated a compact sensor for accessing information stored in the electrons of individual atoms – a breakthrough that brings us one step closer to scalable quantum computing in silicon. The research, conducted within the Simmons group at the Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC2T) with PhD student Prasanna Pakkiam as lead author, was published today in the journal Physical Review X (PRX).

Quantum bits (or qubits) made from electrons hosted on single atoms in semiconductors is a promising pla...

A new MIT plane is propelled via ionic wind. Batteries in the fuselage (tan compartment in front of plane) supply voltage to electrodes (blue/white horizontal lines) strung along the length of the plane, generating a wind of ions that propels the plane forward.
Credit: Christine Y. He

The silent, lightweight aircraft doesn’t depend on fossil fuels or batteries. Engineers have built and flown the first-ever plane with no moving parts. Instead of propellers or turbines, the light aircraft is powered by an ‘ionic wind’ – a silent but mighty flow of ions that is produced aboard the plane, and that generates enough thrust to propel the plane over a sustained, steady flight.

Since the first airplane took flight over 100 years ago, virtually every aircraft in the sky has flown with the help of mov...

Brown University researchers have created a hybrid material out of seaweed-derived alginate and the nanomaterial graphene oxide. The 3-D printing technique used to make the material enables the creation of intricate structures, including the one above, which mimics that atomic lattice a graphene.
Credit: Wong Lab / Brow University

Brown University researchers have shown a way to use graphene oxide (GO) to add some backbone to hydrogel materials made from alginate, a natural material derived from seaweed that’s currently used in a variety of biomedical applications. In a paper published in the journal Carbon, the researchers describe a 3D printing method for making intricate and durable alginate-GO structures that are far stiffer and more fracture resistant that alginate alone.

“One limiting...