Oct 20, 2022 (Nanowerk News) As electronic devices become smaller and smaller, the materials that power them need to become thinner and thinner. Because of this, one of the key challenges scientists face in developing next-generation energy-efficient electronics is discovering materials that can maintain special electronic properties at an ultrathin...
The sunflower society
Oct 20, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees requires the energy system to be restructured as quickly as possible. But the speed of this transformation is physically limited. An Empa study (Biophysical Economics and Sustainability, "How Much Energy Storage can We Afford? On the Need for a...
How can digital data stored as DNA be manipulated?
Oct 20, 2022 (Nanowerk News) DNA can be used to reliably store a vast amount of digital data. However, retrieval or manipulation of specific data encoded in these molecules has hitherto been difficult. Now, researchers from the CNRS and the University of Tokyo have pioneered the application of a new...
Acidic layer in single-walled carbon nanotubes facilitates confinement of anion impurities
Oct 20, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Efficient purification processes that separate impurities from air and water are necessary to sustain life on earth. To this end, carbon materials have long been used for deodorizing, separating, and removing harmful anion impurities by adsorption. So far, the detailed mechanism by which carbon purifies...
Completing Einstein’s homework on special relativity in electromagnetism
Oct 20, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Albert Einstein, one of the most celebrated modern scientists, proposed the revolutionary theory of special relativity over a century ago. This theory forms the basis of most of what we understand about the Universe, but a part of it has not been experimentally demonstrated until...
Synthetic cells to interact with living matter
Oct 20, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Scientists at DWI – Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials have come one step closer to the objective of producing functional synthetic cells. The research group is probing the necessary ingredients for the design and development of materials with the ability to communicate and function with...
Confining classical and quantum waves with crystals
Oct 20, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Manipulating elusive waves like light, sound or electrons, in periodic structures or crystals, has something mysterious. We already know that confining waves is possible by deliberately introducing tailored deviations from perfect periodicity into the crystal. But how exactly are the waves locked up? Are they...
Four science advances coming in the exascale era
Oct 19, 2022 (Nanowerk News) One of the United States' first exascale supercomputers is being installed at Argonne National Laboratory. Named Aurora, its high computing speed and artificial intelligence capabilities will enable discoveries that are impossible today across a range of scientific domains, from climate and materials science to energy...
Algae could be instrumental in making human exploration of Mars possible
Oct 19, 2022 (Nanowerk News) While the world is marveling over the first images and data now coming from NASA’s Perseverance rover mission seeking signs of ancient microscopic life on Mars, a team of UNLV scientists is already hard at work on the next step: What if we could one...
The most precise accounting yet of dark energy and dark matter
Oct 19, 2022 (Nanowerk News) Astrophysicists have performed a powerful new analysis that places the most precise limits yet on the composition and evolution of the universe. With this analysis, dubbed Pantheon+, cosmologists find themselves at a crossroads. Pantheon+ convincingly finds that the cosmos is composed of about two-thirds dark...