Science

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Random nanowire configurations increase conductivity over heavily ordered configurations

Researchers at Lehigh University have identified for the first time that a performance gain in the electrical conductivity of random metal nanowire networks can be achieved by slightly restricting nanowire orientation. The most surprising result of the study is that heavily ordered configurations do not outperform configurations with some degree of randomness; randomness in the case of metal nanowire orientations acts to increase conductivity.

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Sample networks of Ag nanowires for 140?μm × 140?μm domain with (a) concentration just above critical percolation concentration (C?~?Cp), and (b) concentration much above critical percolation concentration (C»Cp). The voltage is applied across the horizontal direction across the domain length.

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NASA Challenges Designers to Construct Habitat for Deep Space Exploration

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Quantum physics on tap - Nano-sized faucet offers experimental support for longstanding quantum theory

We all know intuitively that normal liquids flow more quickly as the channel containing them tightens. Think of a river flowing through narrow rapids.

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This schematic drawing shows a nanoscale faucet: a long cylindrical channel connected to a container of superfluid helium. When vacuum pressure is applied to one end of the faucet's opening-a nanopore-helium atoms (represented here as pink balls) flow through, and are collected and measured as they spread out. An incredibly sensitive detector is needed to register the hundredths of nanograms of helium that flow through each second.

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Graphene enables tunable microwave antenna

Graphene antennae in the microwave part of the spectrum can be tuned by an applied voltage. This is the latest result, published in the renown physics journal Applied Physics Letters, by a pan-European collaboration between Romania, Greece, Italy, and Ireland, using Graphenea graphene.

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Science and Technology of Advanced Materials (STAM): Reported successes and failures aid hot pursuit of superconductivity

A collaboration of researchers in Japan report on four years of extensive research into superconductivity, including the materials that were found not to have superconducting properties, as well as those that were, and their potential for wires and devices.

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Gold rush at the initial stage of iron-based superconductors.
High Tc iron-based superconductor was reported in January 2008 via the discovery of iron- and nickel-based superconductors in 2006-2007. Half a year since then was just a dog year, i.e., the maximal Tc was pushed up to ~55K, the major parents compounds were found, and new carrier doping method ( Co substitution of Fe sites) and epitaxial thin film growth were reported. Note the received date in the figure denotes day that the submitted manuscript was received at the journal office or the manuscript was posted on ArXiv web server.

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Iran Unveils New Home-Made Medicines, Nanotechnology Products

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Iran on Tuesday unveiled three new home-made drugs used to treat people with acute kidney problems, a nanotechnology mask and a water treatment system.

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New Nanostructures Improve Performance of Lithium Ion Batteries

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Iranian researchers from Amirkabir University of Technology synthesized new nanostructures that have application in the production of lithium ion batteries.

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Artificial photosynthesis: New, stable photocathode with great potential

Many of us are familiar with electrolytic splitting of water from their school days: if you hold two electrodes into an aqueous electrolyte and apply a sufficient voltage, gas bubbles of hydrogen and oxygen are formed. If this voltage is generated by sunlight in a solar cell, then you could store solar energy by generating hydrogen gas.This is because hydrogen is a versatile medium of storing and using "chemical energy". Research teams all over the world are therefore working hard to develop compact, robust, and cost-effective systems that can accomplish this challenge. But it is not that simple, because an efficient hydrogen generation preferably proceeds in an acidic electrolyte corroding very fast solar cells. Electrodes that so far have been used are made of very expensive elements such as platinum or platinum-iridium alloys.

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A scanning electron microscopy shows a cross section of the composite photocathode (left). By TEM analysis, nanoparticles of Pt could be identified in the TiO2 thin film (right).

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Magic wavelengths: Tuning up Rydberg atoms for quantum information applications

Rydberg atoms, atoms whose outermost electrons are highly excited but not ionized, might be just the thing for processing quantum information. These outsized atoms can be sustained for a long time in a quantum superposition condition -- a good thing for creating qubits -- and they can interact strongly with other such atoms, making them useful for devising the kind of logic gates needed to process information. Scientists at JQI (*) and at other labs are pursuing this promising research area.

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Rubidium atoms are held in place using a pair of laser beams at a wavelength of 1064 nm. Two other beams, promote the atoms from their ground state (5s) first to the 5p state and then to the still higher 18 s state.

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Pixelligent Technologies Announces $1M Phase-II OLED Lighting Award From the US Department of Energy

Pixelligent Technologies announced today that it has been selected for a Phase II Solid State Lighting award from the US Department of Energy to support the development of advanced light-extraction materials for OLED Lighting. Pixelligent has partnered with OLEDWorks for this grant, which follows work on a Phase I award from September 2014.

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LED Bulb