Science

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Quantum mechanics matters: First real time movies of the light-to-current conversion in an organic solar cell

Photovoltaic cells directly convert sun light into electricity and hence are key technological devices to meet one of the challenges that mankind has to face in this century: a sustainable and clean production of renewable energy. Organic solar cells, using polymeric materials to capture sun light, have particularly favorable properties. They are low-cost, light-weight and flexible, and their color can be adapted by varying the material composition. Such solar cells typically consist of nanostructured blends of conjugated polymers (long chains of carbon atoms), acting as light absorbers, and fullerenes (nanoscale carbon soccer balls), acting as electron acceptors. The primary and most elementary step in the light-to-current conversion process, the light-induced transfer of an electron from the polymer to the fullerene, occurs at such a staggering speed that it has previously proven difficult to follow it directly.

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Elliptical Galaxies: Chandra Helps Explain "Red and Dead Galaxies"

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A new study looks at why some giant elliptical galaxies have such low levels of star formation despite reservoirs of fuel to make them. Astronomers used Chandra to determine the role that supermassive black holes play in this dearth of stellar birth. Outbursts from the supermassive black hole may be preventing the gas from cooling enough to allow stars to form. These four galaxies are part of a sample of eight in the study.

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NASA Widens Its 2014 Hurricane Research Mission

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Amanda, the first named storm of the 2014 hurricane season in the Americas, is seen off the west coast of Mexico in an image acquired on May 25 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite. At the time of the image, Amanda was a category 4 hurricane. Amanda's winds peaked at 155 miles (250 kilometers) per hour, making it the strongest May hurricane on record in the eastern Pacific

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PHASEFOCUS announces the publication of a new paper on 3D imaging: “Ptychographic microscope for three-dimensional imaging.”

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The above images show the 3D volume rendering of a Spirogyra. Each image represents the total phase shift over 20 μm thick slices within the Spirogyra.

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Large interest in new high-performance insulating material SLENTITE

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The first PU high-performance insulating material as ready-to- use panel. Efficient insulation for customised climate management.

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New Crew Launches to Space Station to Continue Scientific Research

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The Soyuz TMA-13M rocket is launched, as seen in this 30-second exposure, with Expedition 40 Soyuz Commander Maxim Suraev, of the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, Flight Engineer Alexander Gerst, of the European Space Agency, ESA, and Flight Engineer Reid Wiseman of NASA, Thursday, May 29, 2014 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Suraev, Gerst, and Wiseman will spend the next five and a half months aboard the International Space Station.

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NASA Airborne Research Focuses on Andean Volcanoes

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This false-color image of Peru's Ubinas volcano was acquired on April 14, 2014, by NASA's Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar, or UAVSAR.

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UNICEF and Socialab announce winners of "First 72 Hours" – a global innovation challenge for emergencies

And the winners are… Aguapallet of New Zealand and Instanet of Sweden

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Instanet simulation

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Rate, Accuracy of Hepatitis B Virus Detection Increased Using Nano-Based Immunosensor

Researchers from the University of Tehran succeeded in designing and producing an immunosensor based on nanotechnology to increase the rate and accuracy of the detection of hepatitis B virus existing in patients' blood serum.

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Advanced light: Sending entangled beams through fast-light materials

Michael Lewis's bestselling book "Flash Boys" describes how some brokers, engaging in high frequency trading, exploit fast telecommunications to gain fraction-of-a-second advantage in the buying and selling of stocks. But you don't need to have billions of dollars riding on this-second securities transactions to appreciate the importance of fast signal processing. From internet to video streaming, we want things fast.

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This image depicts the experimental setup for studying fast light. Pump beams (purple) create correlated probe (turquoise) and conjugate (gold) beams. Each of these beams is aimed at a beam splitter (yellow disks). A local oscillator (LO) also sends a laser beam into each of the beam splitters. The resulting interference pattern -- registered in a spectrum analyzer, SA -- for the probe and conjugate arms are compared.

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