A group of researchers in Tunisia and Algeria show how fuzzy logic has helped them create an ideal photovoltaic system that obeys the supply-and-demand principle and its delicate balance. They describe this new sizing system of a solar array and a battery in a standalone photovoltaic system in The Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy.
Compact, sensitive and fast nanodetectors are considered to be somewhat of a "Holy Grail" sought by many researchers around the world. And now a team of scientists in Italy and France has been inspired by nanomaterials and has created a novel solid-state technology platform that opens the door to the use of terahertz (THz) photonics in a wide range of applications.
A team of researchers from the University of Michigan and Western Michigan University is exploring new materials that could yield higher computational speeds and lower power consumption, even in harsh environments.
Chinese researchers have developed a simple, rapid device for detecting volatile organic compounds on the breath, demonstrating potential for early cancer detection
A new multiferroric film keeps its electric and magnetic properties even when highly curved, paving the way for potential uses in wearable devices
The following articles are freely available online from Physics Today (www.physicstoday.org), the most influential and closely followed magazine in the world devoted to physics and the physical science community.
Holographic video displays, featuring 3-D images, are about to "go large" and become a lot more affordable at the same time, thanks to the work of a team of Brigham Young University researchers and their collaborators at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Two New York University researchers have taken inspiration from avian locomotion strategies and created a pump that moves fluid using vibration instead of a rotor. Their results will be published in the journal Applied Physics Letters.
By combining micro-imprinting and electro-spinning techniques, researchers at Shanghai University’s Rapid Manufacturing Engineering Center have developed a vascular graft composed of three layers for the first time. This tri-layered composite has allowed researchers to utilize separate materials that respectively possess mechanical strength and promote new cell growth - a significant problem for existing vascular grafts that have only consisted of a single or double layer.
A new signal amplification process discovered by a team of University of California, San Diego researchers is now poised to fuel new generations of electrical and photonic devices – transforming the fields of communications, imaging and computing. In the journal Applied Physics Letters, from AIP Publishing, the team describes their work behind this discovery.
By zapping ordinary metals with femtosecond laser pulses researchers from the University of Rochester in New York have created extraordinary new surfaces that efficiently absorb light, repel water and clean themselves. The multifunctional materials could find use in durable, low maintenance solar collectors and sensors.
The American Astronomical Society (AAS) and the American Institute of Physics (AIP) announced today that Princeton University's David Spergel is a winner of the 2015 Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics, one of the top prizes in the field which is awarded annually to outstanding mid-career scientists.
The American Astronomical Society (AAS) and the American Institute of Physics (AIP) announced today that Johns Hopkins University's Marc Kamionkowski is a winner of the 2015 Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics, one of the top prizes in the field which is awarded annually to outstanding mid-career scientists.
Today, we’re surrounded by a variety of electronic devices that are moving increasingly closer to us – we can attach and wear them, or even implant electronics inside our bodies. Many types of smart devices are readily available and convenient to use. The goal now is to make wearable electronics that are flexible, sustainable and powered by ambient renewable energy.
A simple method to sense DNA, as well as potential biomarker proteins of cancer or other diseases such as Alzheimer’s, may soon be within reach – thanks to the work of a team of Yokohama National University researchers in Japan. As the team reports in Applied Physics Letters, they created a photonic crystal nanolaser biosensor capable of detecting the adsorption of biomolecules based on the laser’s wavelength shift.
A team of researchers at the University of São Paulo in Brazil has developed a new levitation device that can hover a tiny object with more control than any instrument that has come before.
The following articles are freely available online from Physics Today (www.physicstoday.org), the most influential and closely followed magazine in the world devoted to physics and the physical science community.
A group of scientists led by researchers at the Université de Versailles' Institut Lavoisier in France has worked out how to stably gift-wrap a chemical gas known as nitric oxide within metal-organic frameworks. Such an encapsulated chemical may allow doctors to administer nitric oxide in a more highly controlled way to patients, suggesting new approaches for treating dangerous infections and heart conditions with the biologically-active substance.
A team of researchers has taken a major step forward in effectively enhancing the fluorescent light emission of diamond nitrogen vacancy centers – a key step to using the atom-sized defects in future quantum computers. The technique, described in the journal Applied Physics Letters hinges on the very precise positioning of NV centers within a structure called a photonic cavity that can boost the light signal from the defect.
Researchers at Montana State University and Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany have created a simple mathematical model based on optical measurements that explains the stunning colors of Yellowstone National Park’s hot springs and can visually recreate how they appeared years ago, before decades of tourists contaminated the pools with make-a-wish coins and other detritus. The model, and stunning pictures of the springs, appear today in the journal Applied Optics.
Most power stations rely on boilers to convert water into steam, but the phase transition involved is highly complex. During the phase transition, no one is exactly sure what's occurring inside the boiler -- especially how bubbles form. So a team of researchers in Japan set out to find an answer and in the Journal of Chemical Physics, they describe how they were able to simulate bubble nucleation from the molecular level.
Although currently available diagnostic screening systems for breast are effective at detecting early signs of tumors, they are far from perfect, subjecting patients to ionizing radiation and sometimes inflicting discomfort on women who are undergoing screening because of the compression of the breast that is required to produce diagnostically useful images. New research suggests a better, cheaper, and safer way to look for the telltale signs of breast cancer may be with microwaves.
What do you get when you wrap a thin sheet of the "wonder material" graphene around a novel multifunctional sulfur electrode that combines an energy storage unit and electron/ion transfer networks? An extremely promising electrode structure design for rechargeable lithium-sulfur batteries.
Researchers from the London Centre for Nanotechnology have made new compact, high-value resistors for nanoscale quantum circuits. The resistors could speed the development of quantum devices for computing and fundamental physics research.
The following articles are freely available online from Physics Today (www.physicstoday.org), the most influential and closely followed magazine in the world devoted to physics and the physical science community.
The ability to detect when to harvest “climacteric” fruits -- such as apples, bananas, pears and tomatoes -- at the precise moment to ensure “peak edibleness” in terms of both taste and texture may soon be within reach for farmers, thanks to the work of a team of researchers from Saint Joseph University in Lebanon and the Université de Bretagne Occidentale de Brest in France.
A new report from the American Institute of Physics (AIP) Statistical Research Center has found that the number of Hispanic students receiving bachelor’s degrees in the physical sciences and engineering has increased over the last decade or so, passing 10,000 degrees per year for the first time in 2012. The overall number of U.S. students receiving degrees in those fields also increased over the same time, but it increased faster among Hispanics.
Researchers from Harvard and MIT have found that fluctuations in outside temperature create convection currents within termite mounds to ventilate the living space -- work at the 67th annual meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics, held November 23-25 in San Francisco.
On a quest to design an alternative to the two complex approaches currently used to produce electrons within microwave electron guns, a team of researchers from Euclid TechLabs and Argonne National Laboratory's Center for Nanoscale Materials have demonstrated a plug-and-play solution capable of operating in this high-electric-field environment with a high-quality electron beam.
No comprehensive study has yet been carried out to characterize the photoexcited lattice dynamics of an opaque thin film on a semi-infinite transparent substrate. As a result, ultrafast X-ray diffraction data for such samples can be challenging to interpret. Now a new study in the journal Structural Dynamics, from AIP Publishing, builds a model to help interpret such data.
Silicon, which is one of the most common elements in the Earth’s crust, is also sprinkled abundantly throughout interstellar space. The only way to identify silicon-containing molecules in the far corners of the cosmos – and to understand the chemistry that created them – is to observe through telescopes the electromagnetic radiation the molecules emit.
Free content from this month's issue of Physics Today now available online.
It turns out that in certain situations, combining messes can actually reduce the disorder of the whole; an international team of researchers from Slovenia and Iran has identified a set of conditions in which adding disorder to a system makes it more orderly. This behavior is known as antifragility, a concept introduced recently to describe similar phenomena in statistics, economics and social science.
If you’ve gone for a spin in a luxury car and felt your back being warmed or cooled by a seat-based climate control system, then you’ve likely experienced the benefits of a class of materials called thermoelectrics. Thermoelectric materials convert heat into electricity, and vice versa, and have many advantages over traditional heating and cooling systems. Recently, researchers have observed that the performance of some thermoelectric materials can be improved by combining different solid phases.
The American Physical Society (APS) and the American Institute of Physics (AIP) announced today, on behalf of the Heineman Foundation for Research, Educational, Charitable, and Scientific Purposes, that theoretical physicist Pierre Ramond, director of the Institute for Fundamental Theory at the University of Florida, has won the 2015 Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics -- one of the highest honors for scientific investigators in that field.
The most obvious effects of too much sun exposure are cosmetic, like wrinkled and rough skin. Some damage, however, goes deeper—ultraviolet light can damage DNA and cause proteins in the body to break down into smaller, sometimes harmful pieces that may also damage DNA, increasing the risk of skin cancer and cataracts. Understanding the specific pathways by which this degradation occurs is an important step in developing protective mechanisms against it.
X-ray phase tomography is an imaging technique that uses penetrating X-rays to create volumetric views through "slices" of soft biological tissues, and it offers strongly enhanced contrast compared to conventional CT scans, yet scientists do not know which X-ray phase tomography methods are best suited to yield optimized results for a variety of conditions. To answer this question, a large group of researchers in Europe set out to compare three different X-ray phase tomography methods.
Hikers are generally advised that the weight of the packs they carry should correspond to their own size, with smaller individuals carrying lighter loads. Although petite backpackers might appreciate the excuse to hand off heavier gear to the larger members of the group, it turns out that they may not need the help.
Scientists from Tohoku University in Japan have developed a new type of energy-efficient flat light source based on carbon nanotubes with very low power consumption of around 0.1 Watt for every hour’s operation--about a hundred times lower than that of an LED.
For scientists probing the electronic structure of materials using RIXS, a persistent question has been how to account for "split peak" spectra seen in some hydrogen-bonded materials, but now researchers have performed an investigation of several types of liquid alcohols with RIXS and brought new perspective to this long-lasting debate. In Structural Dynamics, they show that the split peaks are tied to dynamic motions produced in response to the scattering X-rays themselves.
The 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded jointly to Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell, and William E. Moerner "for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy." To help journalists and the public understand the context of this work, AIP is compiling a Chemistry Nobel Prize Resources page featuring relevant scientific papers and articles, quotes from experts, photos, and other resources. Relevant papers published by AIP Publishing are freely available through December 31, 2014.
The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics was jointly awarded to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura “for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes, which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources.” To help journalists and the public understand the context of this work, AIP is compiling a Physics Nobel Prize Resources page featuring relevant scientific papers and articles, quotes from experts and other resources.
The American Institute of Physics (AIP) has named three journalists and one children's book author as winners of the 2014 AIP Science Communications Awards for their works on magnetic dynamos, the search for exoplanets, a fun book on chemical elemental for children, and an illustrated video about Stephen Hawking.
The following articles are freely available online from Physics Today, the most influential and closely followed magazine in the world devoted to physics and the physical science community.
Sea monkeys have captured the popular attention of both children and aquarium hobbyists because of their easily observable life cycle. Physicists are interested in a shorter-term pattern: Like other zooplankton, brine shrimp vertically migrate in large groups throughout the day in response to changing light conditions. New research suggests that the collective movement of small marine organisms could affect global ocean circulation patterns on a level comparable to the wind and the tides.
Applying a well-known optical phenomenon called thin-film interference, a group of researchers at Harvard University has demonstrated the ability to "paint" ultra-thin coatings onto a rough surface -- work that holds promise for making future, flexible electronic devices, creating advanced solar cells and detailing the sides of next-gen rocket ships and spacecraft with extremely lightweight decorative logos (Applied Physics Letters).
Expanding our knowledge of the way molecules interact with ice surfaces is a key goal not only for climate change but also a much wider range of other environmental, scientific and defense-related issues. Now, a team of researchers has discovered a new mechanism they call “stable energetic embedding” of atoms and molecules within ice. The work is described in The Journal of Chemical Physics.
"Bendy" light-emitting diode (LED) displays and solar cells crafted with inorganic compound semiconductor micro-rods are moving one step closer to reality, thanks to graphene and the work of a team of researchers in Korea.
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