Category Technology/Electronics

Illustration of Kerr effect used to detect magnetization through the rotation of polarized light when it interacts with electron spins in a material. Shown are layers of chromium germanium telluride (CGT). The orange balls represent tellurium atoms, yellow is germanium, and blue is chromium. Credit: Zhenglu Li/Berkeley Lab

Study reveals unprecedented control of ferromagnetic behavior in 2D material. The scientists found that a 2D van der Waals crystal, part of a class of material whose atomically thin layers can be peeled off one by one with adhesive tape, possessed an intrinsic ferromagnetism.The discovery could have major implications for a wide range of applications that rely upon ferromagnetic materials, such as nanoscale memory, spintronic devices, and magnetic sensors...

UCI physicist Jing Xia (right, with graduate student Alex Stern) calls the fiber-optic Sagnac interferometer he built the most sensitive magnetic microscope in the world. He compares it to a telescope that an ornithologist in Irvine could use to inspect the eye of a bird in New York. Credit: Steve Zylius / UCI

New 2D quantum materials have been created with breakthrough electrical and magnetic attributes that could make them building blocks of future quantum computers and other advanced electronics. The research is conducted at extremely cold temperatures and that the signal carriers in all 3 studies are not electrons – as with silicon-based technologies – but Dirac or Majorana fermions, particles without mass that move at nearly the speed of light...

Professor Fernando Uribe-Romo and his team of students created a way to trigger a chemical reaction in a synthetic material called metal-organic frameworks (MOF) that breaks down carbon dioxide into harmless organic materials. Think of it as an artificial photosynthesis process similar to the way plants convert carbon dioxide and sunlight into food. But instead of producing food, Uribe-Romo’s method produces solar fuel. Credit: Bernard Wilchusky

Process produces energy at the same time. A chemistry professor in Florida has just found a way to trigger the process of photosynthesis in a synthetic material, turning greenhouse gases into clean air and producing energy all at the same time...

Schematic representation of the monolithically integrated SiPV–LIB device and the electrochemical performance of the bipolar LIB.

A UNIST affiliated team has developed a single-unit, photo-rechargeable portable power source based on high-efficiency silicon solar cells and lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). This newly-developed power source is designed to work under sunlight and indoor lighting, allowing users to power their portable electronics anywhere with access to light. In addition, the new device could power electric devices even in the absence of light.

In this work, the team of Professor Sang-Young Lee and Professor Kwanyoung Seo of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST presented a new class of monolithically integrated, portable PV-battery systems (denoted as ‘SiPV-LIBs’) based on...