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Category: materials – Page 11

Scientists achieve first experimental observation of the transverse Thomson effect

In a new Nature Physics paper, researchers report the first experimental observation of the transverse Thomson effect, a key thermoelectric phenomenon that has eluded scientists since it was predicted over a century ago.

For over a century, thermoelectric effects have formed the foundation of how physicists understand the link between heat and electricity. Our knowledge of how heat and electricity interact within materials is rooted in the Seebeck, Peltier, and Thomson effects, all identified during the 1800s.

The Thomson effect causes volumetric heating or cooling when an electric current and a flow in the same direction through a conductor.

Greatly enhanced nonreciprocal transport in KTaO₃-based interface superconductors linked to parity mixing

Superconductivity is an advantageous property observed in some materials, which entails the ability to conduct electricity without resistance below specific critical temperatures. One particularly fascinating phenomenon observed in some unconventional superconductors is so-called spin-triplet pairing.

In , electrons form what are known as “Cooper pairs,” pairs of electrons with opposite momentum and spin, a phenomenon referred to as spin-singlet pairing. In some , on the other hand, researchers observed a different state known as spin-triplet pairing, which entails the formation of pairs of electrons with parallel spins.

Researchers at Fudan University, RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) and other institutes recently observed a significantly enhanced nonreciprocal in a class of superconductors known as KTaO3-based interface superconductors, which they proposed could be explained by the co-existence of spin-singlet and spin-triplet states.

You only get one brain: The best helmet material for protecting your noggin

Though participation in sports can have positive impacts both physiologically and socially, extreme sports, like football and roller derby, come with elevated risks. In a 2019 study, over 40% of 498 athletes suffered at least one injury over the course of the year.

These injury rates are even higher in elite cricket—around 70%, with about 13% of all injuries being to the head, neck, and face—pointing to a need for improvements in protective helmets.

In AIP Advances, researchers from Chongqing Jiaotong University and Chongqing No. 7 Middle School compared the performance of three helmet materials under the most common types of impact and loading conditions.

Scientists Create the Impossible: New Compound Challenges Fundamental Principle of Chemistry

Once thought unlikely, this new finding in coordination chemistry could lead to promising advances in catalysis and materials science.

For more than 100 years, the widely accepted 18-electron rule has been a foundational guideline in organometallic chemistry. Now, researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have synthesized a new organometallic compound that challenges this principle. They developed a stable 20-electron version of ferrocene, an iron-based metal-organic complex, which could open new directions in chemical research.

“For many transition metal complexes, they are most stable when surrounded by 18 formal valence electrons. This is a chemical rule of thumb on which many key discoveries in catalysis and materials science are based,” said Dr. Satoshi Takebayashi, lead author of the paper published in Nature Communications.

A promising pathway for the electrical switching of altermagnetism

The ability to switch magnetism, or, in other words, to change the orientation of a material’s magnetic moments, using only electricity, could open new opportunities for the efficient storage of data in hard drives and other magnetic memory devices. While the electrical switching of magnetism has been a long-sought-after research goal, it has so far proved to be difficult to realize.

Researchers at Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in China and Peking University, led by Prof. Haizhou Lu and Prof. X. C. Xie, recently demonstrated the electrical switching of a particular form of magnetism known as altermagnetism, which was first discovered in 2022.

Their paper, published in Physical Review Letters, could have important implications for the development of new technologies based on altermagnetic materials that can be controlled with electrical currents, without the need for external magnetic fields.

SpaceX officially announced Starship Flight 10 Launch Date after…No More This Month!

🧑🚀 Q: What are the details of the upcoming Crew-11 mission? A: Crew-11 is set to launch on July 31st, 2025, with NASA astronaut Zena Cartman as commander, for a 6-month stay on the ISS.

Technical Improvements.

🔧 Q: What new system has SpaceX installed at Pad A for Starship? A: SpaceX installed a new Ship Quick Disconnect (QD) system at Pad A, which is smaller, temporary, and designed for static fire tests only.

🪂 Q: What upgrades have been made to the Dragon spacecraft Endeavor? A: Endeavor now features the Drogue 3.1 parachute system with reinforced crown material and a new packing system for more controlled deployment.

Program Challenges.

🚁 Q: What issues is Boeing’s Starliner program facing? A: Starliner is experiencing helium leaks and thermal management problems affecting its thrusters, delaying the next mission.

Continue reading “SpaceX officially announced Starship Flight 10 Launch Date after…No More This Month!” | >

These microlasers light up your food — and then you can eat them

Scientists have reimagined the meaning of a “light meal,” creating microlasers that use natural products to emit illuminated beams through food. And they’re completely edible. These mini lights, the first demonstration of laser emission from an entirely edible system, could be harnessed for everything from environmental sensors to food safety trackers and bio-barcodes.

Scientists from Slovenia’s Jožef Stefan Institute have successfully created “edible microlasers,” which are exactly what they sound like – tiny optical devices, smaller than a grain of sand, that emit a beam of coherent light like normal lasers. And they’re made out of biocompatible and digestible materials like gelatin, sugar and dyes, including additives already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), meaning they’re perfectly safe to ingest.

Why, you may ask? Because they’re tiny and safe to eat, with fluorescent compounds such as chlorophyll (from olive oil) and riboflavin (vitamin B2), they could be widely applicable for use in food safety to track supply chain data, detect temperature changes and spoilage, prevent counterfeit goods or even act as QR or bar codes.

A new mechanism to realize spin-selective transport in tungsten diselenide

Spintronics are promising devices that work utilizing not only the charge of electrons, like conventional electronics, but also their spin (i.e., their intrinsic angular momentum). The development of fast and energy-efficient spintronic devices greatly depends on the identification of materials with a tunable spin-selective conductivity, which essentially means that engineers can control how electrons with different spin orientations move through these materials, ideally using external magnetic or electric fields.

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