Category Technology/Electronics

A holmium (Ho) and a iron (Fe) atom placed on a MgO substrate are the components for the world’s smallest memory device. Ho is used as a storage medium and Fe as a sensor were. The magnetism of the holmium atom can be changed or read by flowing current through the STM tip.

Storing 1 bit in 1 atom is possible: The extraordinary end of Moore’s law. One bit of digital information can now be successfully stored in an individual atom, according to a study just published in Nature. Current commercially-available magnetic memory devices require approximately 1 million atoms to do the same...

Well-Defined Nanographene–Rhenium Complex as an Efficient Electrocatalyst and Photocatalyst for Selective CO2 Reduction

An international team has achieved a new milestone in the quest to recycle CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere into carbon-neutral fuels and others materials. The chemists have engineered a molecule that uses light or electricity to convert the greenhouse gas CO2 into CO more efficiently than any other method of “carbon reduction.” “If you can create an efficient enough molecule for this reaction, it will produce energy that is free and storable in the form of fuels,” said Li, associate professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Chemistry.

Burning fuel – such as carbon monoxide – produces carbon dioxide and releases energy...

(a) Beatnote spectra at different currents at 293 K. (b) Beatnote linewidth and frequency as functions of currents. Beatnote spectra at currents of (c) 800 mA and (d) 938 mA at 293 K.

Device could be used to Detect Dangerous Chemical Agents. researchers in Northwestern’s Center for Quantum Devices theoretically designed and experimentally synthesized a new, strain-engineered emitter material. Made with the new material, the compact QCL frequency comb is one order of magnitude more efficient and emits more than 4X output power than all previous demonstrations.

Razeghi’s QCL frequency comb operates in the infrared spectral region, which is useful for detecting many different kinds of chemicals, including industrial emissions, explosives, and chemical warfare agents...

New materials are created through deposition onto disks, which are then tested to determine their properties. Credit: Caltech

A new materials discovery approach puts solar fuels on the fast track to commercial viability. Combining computational with experimental approaches, researchers identify 12 new materials with use in solar fuels generators. Researchers at Caltech and Berkeley Lab have – in just 2 years – nearly doubled the number of materials known to have potential for use in solar fuels.

Researchers are exploring a range of target fuels, from hydrogen gas to liquid hydrocarbons, and producing any of these fuels involves splitting water...