Tech
Deformations and defects in structures of photoelectric technologies shown to improve their efficiency
University of Warwick physicists demonstrate that strain gradient can prevent recombination of photo-excited carriers in solar energy conversion
Increasingly important as devices become miniaturised
Solar cells and light sensing technologies could be made more efficient by taking advantage of an unusual property due to deformations and defects in their structures.
Osaka, Japan - A research team led by Osaka University demonstrated how information encoded in the circular polarization of a laser beam can be translated into the spin state of an electron in a quantum dot, each being a quantum bit and a quantum computer candidate. The achievement represents a major step towards a "quantum internet," in which future computers can rapidly and securely send and receive quantum information.
Studies of how global change is impacting marine organisms have long focused on physiological effects--for example an oyster's decreased ability to build or maintain a strong shell in an ocean that is becoming more acidic due to excess levels of carbon dioxide.
More recently, researchers have begun to investigate how different facets of global change can disrupt animal behavior.
Cell freezing (cryopreservation) - which is essential in cell transfusions as well as basic biomedical research - can be dramatically improved using a new polymeric cryoprotectant, discovered at the University of Warwick, which reduces the amount of 'anti-freeze' needed to protect cells.
Does the treatment success of a certain procedure depend on the number of cases in a hospital or on how often the doctors working there have already performed this procedure? In Germany, this is the subject of 8 commissions on minimum volumes awarded by the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) to the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG). The IQWiG report is now available for the first indication investigated, stem cell transplantation.
NASA's newest planet hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), has discovered three new worlds -- one slightly larger than Earth and two of a type not found in our solar system -- orbiting a nearby star. The planets straddle an observed gap in the sizes of known planets and promise to be among the most curious targets for future studies.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- When two protons collide, they release pyrotechnic jets of particles, the details of which can tell scientists something about the nature of physics and the fundamental forces that govern the universe.
Male academics, who comprise less than 10 percent of North American archaeologists, write the vast majority of the field's high impact, peer-reviewed literature.
That's according to a new study in American Antiquity by Washington State University archaeologists Tiffany Fulkerson and Shannon Tushingham.
The two scientists set out to determine how a rapidly evolving demographic and professional landscape is influencing the production and dissemination of knowledge in American archaeology.
Numerical simulations have pinpointed the source of acoustic signals emitted by stressed faults in laboratory earthquake machines. The work further unpacks the physics driving geologic faults, knowledge that could one day enable accurately predicting earthquakes.
Infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite revealed a stronger Tropical Storm Erick in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Satellite imagery revealed two areas of very cold cloud tops indicating powerful thunderstorms as the storm is on the cusp of hurricane status.
Erick developed as Tropical Depression Six-E on Saturday, July 27, 2019. It formed about 1,215 miles (1,955 km) southwest of the southern tip of Baja California. Mexico. At 5:15 p.m. EDT that day, it strengthened into a tropical storm and was re-named Erick.
David Lindell, a graduate student in electrical engineering at Stanford University, donned a high visibility tracksuit and got to work, stretching, pacing and hopping across an empty room. Through a camera aimed away from Lindell - at what appeared to be a blank wall - his colleagues could watch his every move.
That's because, hidden to the naked eye, he was being scanned by a high powered laser and the single particles of light he reflected onto the walls around him were captured and reconstructed by the camera's advanced sensors and processing algorithm.
HOUSTON - (July 29, 2019) - When is a circle less stable than a jagged loop? Apparently when you're talking about carbon nanotubes.
Rice University theoretical researchers have discovered that nanotubes with segregated sections of "zigzag" and "armchair" facets growing from a solid catalyst are far more energetically stable than a circular arrangement would be.
Scientists have used precisely tuned pulses of laser light to film the ultrafast rotation of a molecule. The resulting "molecular movie" tracks one and a half revolutions of carbonyl sulphide (OCS) - a rod-shaped molecule consisting of one oxygen, one carbon and one sulphur atom - taking place within 125 trillionths of a second, at a high temporal and spatial resolution.
The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, president: Byung-gwon Lee) announced that Dr. Hyunjung Yi of the Post-Silicon Semiconductor Institute and her research team developed a transfer-printing** technology that uses hydrogel* and nano ink to easily create high-performance sensors on flexible substrates of diverse shapes and structures.
*Hydrogel: a three-dimensional hydrophilic polymer network that absorbs large amounts of water
Stanford physicists have developed a "quantum microphone" so sensitive that it can measure individual particles of sound, called phonons.
The device, which is detailed July 24 in the journal Nature, could eventually lead to smaller, more efficient quantum computers that operate by manipulating sound rather than light.