Category Technology/Electronics

A new bilayer material, with each layer measuring less than one nanometer in thickness, someday could lead to more efficient and versatile light emission, such as bendy LED screens. Credit: Matthew Bellus

A new bilayer material, with each layer measuring < 1nm in thickness could lead to more efficient and versatile light emission. Researchers working at the Ultrafast Laser Lab at the University of Kansas successfully created the material by combining atomically thin layers of molybdenum disulfide and rhenium disulfide. “Both absorb light very well as semiconductors, and they’re both very flexible can be stretched or compressed,” said Hui Zhao, associate professor of physics and astronomy at KU...

A schematic diagram illustrating the preparation of Ru@C₂N is shown in the figure above. (Ruthenium: shown in gold, Carbon: shown in grey , Nitrogen: shown in sky-blue)

UNIST scientists have developed an exiting new catalyst that can split water into hydrogen almost as well as platinum can, but less costly and found frequently on Earth. As described in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, this ruthenium (Ru)-based material works almost as efficient as platinum and likely shows the highest catalytic performance not affected by the pH of the water.

The research team, led by Professor Jong-Beom Baek of the Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST has synthesized Ru and C2N, a 2D organic structure, to verify its performance as a water-splitting catalyst...

1. Graphene foam invented at Rice University is reinforced with carbon nanotubes. It can hold thousands of times its own weight and still bounce back to its full height. Credit: Tour Group/Rice University
2. Graphene foam invented at Rice University is reinforced with carbon nanotubes. It can hold thousands of times its own weight and still bounce back to its full height. Credit: Tour Group
3. A microscope image of rebar graphene shows carbon shells, multiwalled carbon nanotubes and two-dimensional graphene. Credit: Tour Group

A chunk of conductive graphene foam reinforced by carbon nanotubes can support more than 3000X its own weight and easily bounce back to its original height, according to Rice University scientists...

Coreless optical fibre: If a photonic crystal fibre is twisted, it does not require a core with a different refractive index to trap light at its centre. Credit: Science 2016/MPI for the Science of Light

Researchers have discovered a new mechanism for guiding light in photonic crystal fibre (PCF). PCF is a hair-thin glass fibre with a regular array of hollow channels running along its length. When helically twisted, this spiralling array of hollow channels acts on light rays in an analogous manner to the bending of light rays when they travel through the gravitationally curved space around a star, as described by the general theory of relativity.

Optical fibres act as pipes for light...