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Solving an organic semiconductor mystery: Berkeley Lab researchers uncover hidden structures in domain interfaces that hamper performance

Organic semiconductors are prized for light emitting diodes (LEDs), field effect transistors (FETs) and photovoltaic cells. As they can be printed from solution, they provide a highly scalable, cost-effective alternative to silicon-based devices. Uneven performances, however, have been a persistent problem. Scientists have known that the performance issues originate in the domain interfaces within organic semiconductor thin films, but have not known the cause. This mystery now appears to have been solved.

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Sketch of organic semiconductor thin film shows that the interfacial region between larger domains (blue and green) consists of randomly oriented small, nano-crystalline domains (purple).

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'Lost' 2003 Mars Lander Found by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

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This annotated image shows where features seen in an observation by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have been interpreted as hardware from the Dec. 25, 2003, arrival at Mars of the United Kingdom's Beagle 2 Lander.

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Rice-sized laser, powered one electron at a time, bodes well for quantum computing

Princeton University researchers have built a rice grain-sized laser powered by single electrons tunneling through artificial atoms known as quantum dots. The tiny microwave laser, or "maser," is a demonstration of the fundamental interactions between light and moving electrons.

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Princeton University researchers have built a rice grain-sized microwave laser.

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Titania Nanocoating Helps Surface Modification of Artificial Bones

Iranian researchers from University of Tehran in association with their counterparts from University of Malaya, Malaysia, studied the modification of properties of human body implants by using titania nanocoating.

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Carbon Nanotubes Increase Efficiency of Solar Cells

Iranian researchers studied the effect of using carbon nanotubes on the efficiency of two different types of solar cells.

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Graphene plasmons go ballistic: Graphene combined with the insulting power of boron nitride enables light control in tiny circuits with dramatically reduced energy loss

Squeezing light into tiny circuits and controlling its flow electrically is a holy grail that has become a realistic scenario thanks to the discovery of graphene. This tantalizing achievement is realized by exploiting so-called plasmons, in which electrons and light move together as one coherent wave. Plasmons guided by graphene -a two-dimensional sheet of carbon atoms - are remarkable as they can be confined to length scales of nanometers, up to two hundred times below the wavelength of light. An important hurdle until now has been the rapid loss of energy that these plasmons experience, limiting the range over which they could travel.

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This image shows simulation and observations of propagating plasmons in boron nitride heterostructure.

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Iran Designs Magnetic Nano-Absorbents Cleaning Chemical Pollutants

Iranian researchers at Shaheed Beheshti University designed Nano-absorbent separating chemical pollutants by high percentage.

Sarah Karimi Behzad, a mineral chemistry student at the university and lead author of the study, said that the Nano-absorbent is separated from the environment in less than a second and can be reused.

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Where Did All the Stars Go?

Dark cloud obscures hundreds of background stars

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From the Lab to Your Digital Device, Quantum Dots Have Made Quantum Leaps

Berkeley Lab’s nanotechnology enlivens Nanosys’ displays, enhancing the color and saving energy.

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The TV on the right using Nanosys’ quantum dot technology shows a 50% wider range of colors than the standard white LED set on the left.

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Toward quantum chips: Packing single-photon detectors on an optical chip is a crucial step toward quantum-computational circuits

A team of researchers has built an array of light detectors sensitive enough to register the arrival of individual light particles, or photons, and mounted them on a silicon optical chip. Such arrays are crucial components of devices that use photons to perform quantum computations.

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One of the researchers' new photon detectors, deposited athwart a light channel — or "waveguide" (horizontal black band) — on a silicon optical chip.