A materials breakthrough could lead to radically smaller phones that are more powerful and energy-efficient.
Category: materials – Page 102
Robust superconductivity in magic-angle multilayer graphene family
đYear 2022
Superconductivity is reported in magic-angle twisted four-layer and five-layer graphene systems. While they find that all magic-angle graphene systems fit into a unified hierarchy of systems that share a set of flat bands in their electronic band structures, they also report that there is a key distinction between magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene and the other family members, related to the difference in the way the electrons move between the layers in a magnetic field.
Scientists Discover First-of-Its-Kind Molecule That Absorbs Greenhouse Gasses
A âcage of cagesâ is how scientists have described a new type of porous material, unique in its molecular structure, that could be used to trap carbon dioxide and another, more potent greenhouse gas.
Synthesized in the lab by researchers in the UK and China, the material is made in two steps, with reactions assembling triangular prism building blocks into larger, more symmetrical tetrahedral cages â producing the first molecular structure of its kind, the team claims.
The resulting material, with its abundance of polar molecules, attracts and holds greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide (CO2) with strong affinity. It also showed excellent stability in water, which would be critical for its use in capturing carbon in industrial settings, from wet or humid gas streams.
MIT 6.S191: Recurrent Neural Networks, Transformers, and Attention
Borophene is already thinner and more conductive than graphene, and scientists have altered it to make it even more special.
Tony Seba: Billions of Robots & The Era of Superabundance
Questions to inspire discussion.
What is the potential impact of humanoid robots on human labor?
âHumanoid robots are on the verge of disrupting human labor across various industries, leading to a new era of material superabundance and prosperity within the next 10 to 20 years.
Astronomers spot âsleeping giantâ black hole Gaia BH3 in Milky Way
The newfound black hole, an intense, light-trapping abyss which has been named Gaia BH3, lurks just 1,926 light-years from Earth in the Aquila constellation. (That makes it the second closest black hole to Earth after Gaia BH1, which resides at 1,500 light-years away and is three times lighter than Gaia BH3.) The so-called âsleeping giantâ â so named because unlike its ilk, the dormant black hole doesnât appear to be shredding its companion star to pieces â birthed out of the imminent collapse of a once-massive star. It is the first direct link between a black hole and a progenitor star that was deprived of metals heavier than hydrogen and helium, according to the new study published in April in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
The discovery confirms a leading theory of stellar evolution that posits high-mass black holes are remnants of stars that are low on metals. Such metal-poor stars have damped mass-eroding winds compared to their metal-rich counterparts, and thus have more material available to form heavier black holes. Astronomers normally time announcements of science discoveries at the same time as data release, in this case no sooner than early 2026, but âyou cannot hide this kind of discovery from the community for two years,â says Panuzzo. âIt is a unique case of publication based on the preliminary data because the data is exceptional and also something thatâs very interesting for the community.â
Researchers can now accurately measure the emergence and damping of a plasmonic field
âWe employed this configuration for the first time to characterize the signal field emerging from a resonantly excited plasmonic sample,â says Francesca Calegari, lead scientist at DESY, physics Professor at UniversitĂ€t Hamburg and a spokesperson of the Cluster of Excellence âCUI: Advanced Imaging of Matter.â
The difference of the reconstructed pulse with plasmon interaction to the reference pulse allowed the scientists to trace the emergence of the plasmon and its fast decay which they confirmed by electrodynamic model calculations.
âOur approach can be used to characterize arbitrary plasmonic samples in ambient conditions and in the far-field,â adds CUI scientist Prof. Holger Lange. Additionally, the precise characterization of the laser field emerging from nanoplasmonic materials could constitute a new tool to optimize the design of phase-shaping devices for ultrashort laser pulses.
