Blog
- Reaching superconductivity layer by layer 07/03/2023 Imagine a sheet of material just one layer of atoms thick—less than a millionth of a millimeter. While this may sound fantastical, such a material exists: it is called graphene and it is made from carbon atoms in a honeycomb arrangement. First synthesized in 2004 and then soon hailed as a substance with wondrous characteristics, scientists are still working on understanding it.
- Boosting superconductivity in graphene bilayers 02/03/2023 Nearly a decade ago, researchers heralded the discovery of a new wonder class of ultrathin materials with special optical and electrical properties that made it a potential rival for graphene, a form of carbon discovered in 2004 whose own special properties interest both scientists and engineers.
- Novel quantum detection method for in-situ sensitive magnetic measurement under high pressure 28/02/2023 Substances exhibit many novel properties under high pressure, for example, pressure can induce insulator-metal or even superconductor transitions. However, in-situ magnetic measurement is always a difficult problem in high pressure research and restricts the study of a superconductor's Meissner effect and magnetic phase transition behavior of magnetic materials at high pressures.
- Beyond lithium: A promising cathode material for magnesium rechargeable batteries 16/02/2023 Lithium-ion batteries have remained unrivaled in terms of overall performance for several applications, as evidenced by their widespread use in everything from portable electronics to cellular base stations. However, they suffer from few important disadvantages that are difficult to ignore.
- Flexible batteries kept stable with stretchy metallic films 14/02/2023 Liquid metals that block out air and water could improve the lifetime of stretchable electronics
- At the edge of graphene-based electronics 09/02/2023 Researchers developed a new graphene-based nanoelectronics platform compatible with conventional microelectronics manufacturing, paving the way for a successor to silicon.
- Researchers show a new way to induce useful defects using invisible material properties 07/02/2023 Much of modern electronic and computing technology is based on one idea: Add chemical impurities, or defects, to semiconductors to change their ability to conduct electricity. These altered materials are then combined in different ways to produce the devices that form the basis for digital computing, transistors, and diodes. Indeed, some quantum information technologies are based on a similar principle: adding defects and specific atoms within materials can produce qubits, the fundamental information storage units of quantum computing.
- A new milestone for light-driven electronics 02/02/2023 An international team of scientists collaborating within the Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat has achieved a breakthrough in quantum research—the first detection of excitons (electrically neutral quasiparticles) in a topological insulator.
- Scientists achieve phonon and photon lasing in optomechanical cavities 31/01/2023 Since the introduction of the first ruby laser—a solid-state laser that uses the synthetic ruby crystal as its laser medium—in 1960, the use of lasers has expanded significantly in scientific, medical and industrial fields.
- New spectroscopy technique improves trace element detection in liquid 26/01/2023 Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a rapid chemical analysis technology that has been well developed for trace element analyses in gases, liquids, and solids. It uses a high-power laser pulse to elicit short-lived, high-temperature plasma in a sample. As the plasma cools, it emits spectral peaks that correspond to elements in the periodic table. Recent exploration has extended LIBS via filament-induced breakdown spectroscopy (FIBS), which has better sensitivity and greater stability. Yet FIBS is intrinsically limited by the guided laser intensities in the filamentation itself.
- Visualizing a complex electron wavefunction using high-resolution attosecond technology 25/01/2023 The early 20th century saw the advent of quantum mechanics to describe the properties of small particles, such as electrons or atoms. Schrödinger's equation in quantum mechanics can successfully predict the electronic structure of atoms or molecules. However, the "duality" of matter, referring to the dual "particle" and "wave" nature of electrons, remained a controversial issue. Physicists use a complex wavefunction to represent the wave nature of an electron.