Science

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Nestor: unravelling the universe’s mysteries from the bottom of the sea

Nestor: unravelling the universe’s mysteries from the bottom of the sea

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In Pylos an underwater telescope is being developed to help track neutrinos.

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Revolutionary solar cells double as lasers

Commercial silicon-based solar cells - such as those seen on the roofs of houses across the country - operate at about 20% efficiency for converting the Sun's rays into electrical energy. It's taken over 20 years to achieve that rate of efficiency.

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This is an image of the laboratory in which the research was conducted.

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Harper Government Announces Support for U of S Nanoscience Research: Uses for New Nanostructured Coatings Range from Biomedical to Oil Sand Sectors

University of Saskatchewan (U of S) researchers will develop and test nanostructured coatings to increase the durability of hard-to-reach industrial and medical components with the help from a federal investment of announced today by Brad Trost, Member of Parliament for Saskatoon-Humboldt, on behalf of the Honourable Michelle Rempel, Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification.

The $183,946 investment from Western Economic Diversification Canada (WD) will help Canada Research Chair in Nanoengineering Coating Technologies and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Qiaoqin Yang, and her team purchase specially-made equipment that will apply the coatings to the surfaces of the components for testing and demonstration. Four industry-specific coating prototypes will be tested, for projects such as solar energy systems, artificial joints, and mining and oil sands equipment. The coatings will be comprised of new, extremely durable advanced materials.

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High-quality nanometric bilayers prepared by aqueous solutions

CIQUS researchers (Singular Center for Research in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Materials, USC, Spain), demonstrate that the chemical methods can compete with the physical ones to obtain homogeneous ultra‐thin films and bilayers, from 4 nm, over large areas.

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Quality comparison of the 15 nanometres layers obtained by PAD (chemical deposition) or PLD (pulsed laser deposition).

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cientists Track 3D Nanoscale Changes in Rechargeable Battery Material During Operation: First 3D nanoscale observations of microstructural degradation during charge-discharge cycles could point to new ways to engineer battery electrode materials for bette

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have made the first 3D observations of how the structure of a lithium-ion battery anode evolves at the nanoscale in a real battery cell as it discharges and recharges.

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These images show how the surface morphology and internal microstructure of an individual tin particle changes from the fresh state through the initial lithiation and delithiation cycle (charge/discharge). Most notable are the expansion in overall particle volume during lithiation, and reduction in volume and pulverization during delithiation. The cross-sectional images reveal that delithiation is incomplete, with the core of the particle retaining lithium surround by a layer of pure tin.

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The Search for Seeds of Black Holes

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The galaxy NGC 4395 is shown here in infrared light, captured by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

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First Ring System Around Asteroid

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World's first flexible multi-functional timer to be distributed at Printed Electronics Europe

A consortium of partners will launch the world's first flexible timer based on printed electronics at the IDTechEx Printed Electronics Europe event in Berlin, April 1-2. The device consists of an electronic logic circuit implemented with thin film metal oxide transistors, powered by a printed battery, and integrated onto a paper substrate. It has four timing sequences and is designed for multi-functional use across four different applications.

Led by IDTechEx, partners included consumer goods company Procter & Gamble, printed logic company PragmatIC, printed battery supplier Blue Spark Technologies, conductive ink and photonic curing equipment supplier NovaCentrix and Cal Poly, who designed and printed on the paper substrate.

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NASA's Spitzer Telescope Brings 360-Degree View of Galaxy to Our Fingertips

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When you look up at the Milky Way on a clear, dark night, you'll see a band of bright stars arching overhead. This is the plane of our flat spiral galaxy, within which our solar system lies.

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Spintronic Thermoelectric Power Generators: A step towards energy efficient electronic devices

Imagine a computer so efficient that it can recycle its own waste heat to produce electricity. While such an idea may seem far-fetched today, significant progress has already been made to realize these devices. Researchers at the Nanostructured Materials Research Laboratory at the University of Utah have fabricated spintronics-based thin film devices which do just that i.e., convert even minute waste heat into useful electricity.

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Schematic of the spintronic thermoelectric device fabricated by the University of Utah’s researchers. This device can convert even minute heat emitted by hand-held electronic devices such as laptops, etc. into useful electricity.