Category Technology/Electronics

Scientists find twisting 3D Raceway for Electrons in Nanoscale Crystal Slices

Mysterious quantum properties in material point to new applications in electronics. Researchers have created an exotic 3D racetrack for electrons in ultrathin slices of a nanomaterial they fabricated at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) The international team of scientists from Berkeley Lab, UC Berkeley, and Germany observed, for the first time, a unique behavior in which electrons rotate around one surface, then through the bulk of the material to its opposite surface and back.

The possibility of developing “topological matter” that can carry electrical current on its surface without loss at room temperature has attracted significant interest in the research communit...

Bradley Nelson’s medical microrobots are inspired by natural microorganisms. Credit: Multi-Scale Robotics Lab

ETH researchers are developing tiny, sophisticated technological and biological machines enabling non-invasive, selective therapies. Their creations include genetically modified cells that can be activated via brain waves, and swarms of microrobots that facilitate highly precise application of drugs. Richard Fleischner, who directed the 1966 cult film Fantastic Voyage, would have been delighted with Bradley Nelson’s research: similar to the story in Fleischner’s film, Prof. Nelson wants to load tiny robots with drugs and manoeuvre them to the precise location in the human body where treatment is needed, for instance to the site of a cancer tumour...

Just as the hypothetical Schroedinger’s Cat is alive and dead at the same time, molecules hit with a burst of laser light exist in two states at once – excited (top) and unexcited. This weird quantum property allowed scientists at SLAC to make a molecular movie of excited iodine atoms in unprecedented detail. Credit: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Scientists have known for a long time that an atom or molecule can also be in2 different states at once. Now researchers at the Stanford PULSE Institute and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have exploited this Schroedinger’s Cat behavior to create Xray movies of atomic motion with much more detail than ever before...

Based on initial cost analysis, the screen-printed films can realize thermoelectric devices at 2-3 cents per watt, an order of magnitude lower than current state-of-the-art commercial devices. Credit: Image courtesy of Boise State University

What if you could easily print a thin layer of material – for use anywhere – that would allow you to create flexible energy harvesters or coolers? That may soon be a reality. Thermoelectric conversion is a solid-state and environmentally friendly energy conversion technology with broad applications that include solid-state cooling, energy harvesting and waste heat recovery...